Lifestyle the draw in new chapter for bookshops

Sydney Morning Herald - October 4, 2011
Coffee, food, wine … it takes a lot more than books to keep a bookseller in the black these days, writes Linda Morris

A few of the new options for booksellers on the table … Leonie Robertson, left, Charmaine Keegan, baby Ernest, and Dennis Robertson at Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore in Bondi. Photo: Kate Geraghty

Bookstores, printers and distributors had most to fear from the coming e-book revolution and shops may need to diversify and become ''cultural department stores'' to survive.
So says a market analysis commissioned by the federal government's Book Industry Strategy Group to investigate the competitiveness of the book industry as it confronts ''paradigmatic change'' in the new digital world.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers report, obtained by the Herald under freedom of information laws, concluded print and e-book editions will coexist in the short term as a shortage of titles and e-book readers constrain the market.

But over the longer term ''the cannibalisation effect [was] likely to become more prominent'' and ''shrink the number of physical stores'' from about 2000 across Australia.

The e-book market was likely to grow from $35 million to anywhere between $150 million to $700 million within three years, creating a ''sizeable'' market if a relatively immature one compared to the US.
While there was no ''silver bullet'' for booksellers, the report singles out Indigo, Canada's largest bookseller, which promotes books as a ''lifestyle'', not a product. It sells giftware, children's toys, video games, music, gourmet food and even flowers and is an example of an independent bookseller leveraging people's affection for books.
Jane Turner, owner of Bondi's Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore, said it had featured a cafe since it opened 11 years ago.
''We just put in a little wine licence about six months ago, because you're constantly trying to do things to look after the customers that you have,'' she said.
''Every other person in retail you talk to talks about how terrible it is out there, and I think if we didn't have the different facets to the business - if you didn't have the coffee and the food and the wine and the books … when one has a bad day the other one just buffers it out.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/lifestyle-the-draw-in-new-chapter-for-bookshops-20111003-1l5bj.html#ixzz1ZlDvC443