WATERSTONES ~ THE TURKEY THAT VOTED FOR CHRISTMAS
A
blog blast form MIXED METAPHOR MAN
By
day mild-mannered and middle-aged, befuddled and bespectacled – by
night a bludgeoning blogger.
James
Daunt, the new MD of Waterstones, is given to Quixotic behaviour, one
day tilting at the online sales of Amazon, only to cosy-up the next.
The latest announcement that the big 'W' will sell Amazon Kindle
ereaders from their bricks and mortar stores smacks of turkeys voting
for Christmas. Booksellers face a triple whammy as shoppers desert
the high street for supermarkets and the internet, and buyers
enthusiastically adopt electronic books.
The
Waterstones response to the threat of the digital age shows a lack of
understanding by the leadership, both of the nature of the threat and
the character of the threatener. Previous techno changes to the book
were complimentary, publishers and booksellers sold the author's work
on paper, on cassette or on disc. The ebook intentionally cuts out
the middleman – the format is not complimentary but competitive.
And Amazon has no intention of investing in the long-term vitality
and sustainability of the publishing industry . On the contrary it
wants to replace it. Amazon sees itself as one of the Big Three that
will dominate publishing in the future; Amazon, Apple and Google.
Daunt's
model envisages the public seeking out his stores as environments in
which to download titles onto their kindles. That might be how
selling physical books used to be done but for ebooks it's the exact
opposite – you don't make all that effort to go somewhere (at a
time that suits the store) when you can 'do it' in bed, in the bath,
wherever and whenever you like.
Amazon
gets massive exposure and promotion to the Kindle's key market and
Watestones gets nothing. Worse than nothing, they get a Trojan horse
in every store. Daunt is running around like a headless chicken, not
knowing what direction to go in - and not knowing it's already too
late. Christmas is coming.
MMM on
the WWW
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