By PJ WILSON
Debbie Johnson doesn't leave any doubt where she stands on ebooks.
"The enemy," the owner and manager of The Wacky Bookshop says as soon as the topic is raised.
"I don't like ebooks," Johnson admits. "You can quote me on that."
Electronic books — ebooks — started to appear on the scene just a few years ago. Now, online bookseller amazon.com reports that ebooks are outselling hardcovers. For every 100 hardcovers sold, amazon.com sells 143 ebooks.
Overall, ebooks accounted for about 9% of all book sales in the United States last year, and the numbers are still rising this year. There are no comparable figures available for Canadian book sales.
The Wacky Bookshop deals with used books, but even so, Johnson believes ebooks are eating into her business.
"We've seen a drop in sales over the last five months," she says. At least part of that is due to a construction project at the King Street plaza where her business is located, but she is convinced that isn't the only reason.
"I think when the economy is bad, people tend to shop more at used book stores," she says. "Customers still come in, but . . ."
Down on Main Street, Derrick Allison, owner of Allison the Bookman, agrees that ebooks are making their presence felt, but admits there is little a bookseller can do to stop the incoming tide.
"Time moves on," he says. "You have to adapt."
The business has been going since 1973. There are still a lot of customers coming in, but a lot of the younger people who come through the doors aren't looking for the paper books anymore. To deal with that, Allison's is now handling ebook readers and ebook sales.
The book business is going to have to go with the flow," Allison says.
Suzanne Brooks, owner of Gulliver's Quality Books and Toys on Main Street, also accepts that ebooks aren't going away any time soon.
"I'm watching the situation," she says with a close eye on professional associations in Canada and the United States to figure out how she will move into that end of the business.
"It's definitely coming," she says, but she refuses to call the new medium the enemy. "The goal is the same, to have people reading. It's just a different format."
She also believes there is something a book store has that a computer screen or ebook reader can't provide — the sensation of holding a book.
"I have customers come in and say 'ah, the smell of a bookstore,'" Brooks says. "It's the smell of the ink, the feel of the paper, all the qualities of a book that make them attractive to people."
Even young readers, she says, have told her they would rather have a book in their hands.
And although some booksellers may be feeling the pinch, Paul Walker, chief librarian at the North Bay Public Library, isn't about to write the obituary for physical books just yet.
"The book is a wonderful invention," Walker says. "You just pick it up and turn the pages. It hasn't really changed in 700 years."
It isn't just that Walker is old school about his reading, he admits. He believes that the $30,000 the library budgets for electronic materials will increase over the next few years to equal the $135,000 set aside for book acquisitions.
"Books aren't going to die, but they will move into another level," he says.
Ontario libraries are served by the Overdrive system, which includes the lending of ebooks and audio books, as well as other materials.
But he points out that not every book ever published is, or will be, available in electronic format.
There is also the question of feuding formats for ebooks.
"Right now it's the Wild West out there," Walker says. "There are so many formats it's hard to stay ahead of them all."
Ebook sales are growing at an incredible rate. In January, sales of ebooks were up more than 115% from the same month last year. Sales in January 2010 were up 261% over sales from the year previous.
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