The fact that the book industry is changing has never been driven home quite as clearly as it was in the last few days. The first epiphany was when I read a post by my publisher, Lorina Stephens of Five Rivers Publishing. She wrote about how Indigo (the 500-pound gorilla in Canada for book sales) is now pushing the small and indie presses around (post found here). Essentially, the book chain has made the decision to supplement their waning book sales by selling giftware.
Fair enough. If it helps them survive, all the power to them. But, and here is where the bullying comes in, they are also basically pushing the small presses out. Lorina says it better than me by far, so I encourage you to have a read. What it means, in essence, is my physical books will only sell on Amazon, through catalogs and small book stores.
The second time was only yesterday when I heard Terry Pratchett has another book coming out on October 11th. Mr. Pratchett is easily one of my favorite authors so my excitement at another Discworld book was intense. Then I found out that it wouldn’t be available in Canada until November 22. Huh?
So, I went to Amazon.com and checked for a Kindle version. Sure enough, I can get my hands on the book in eformat on October 11th. An e-version isn’t even available through Indigo (Kobo).
So, two strikes against Indigo in one week. Adding insult to injury, I can get the story I want in eFormat cheaper and quicker elsewhere.
I’ve known for some time that ebooks would be taking over; it’s pretty hard to miss all the signs. These last two nails have pretty much sealed the coffin for me.
It has also left a very bad taste in my mouth for the big book chains. I have no doubt that the small book stores will be back in some form eventually once the chains are gone.
I can’t wait.
