I read an article from the Associated Press about how the Harry Potter series is now finally going to become available in e-book format. However these ebooks will only be available through J.K. Rowling's website: Pottermore. They will not be sold by Amazon or any other ebookseller. She has completely cut the booksellers out of the loop. And this situation got me thinking, does this spell the beginning of the end of booksellers? Could all ebooks be put out on individual websites by authors or publishers? It seems that by cutting the booksellers out then the authors/publishers could have a larger margin of profit on each book sold. In this sense, these ebooks could be a huge profit for J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter is one of the most popular book series ever having sold over 450 million copies and having been translated into 67 different languages. However I wonder if this elimination of the bookseller would only work for types of books like Harry Potter, that already have huge followings. For new authors and lesser known works I still feel like booksellers will play and essential role because consumers won't buy those books because they are looking for a specific book. They will more likely find those lesser known books and authors through searches by topic, genre, browsing, or through marketing efforts of the bookseller.
I have a color nook from Barnes and Noble, and as a nook owner I am signed up for a weekly email advertising ebooks that Barnes and Noble offers. These emails include popular titles (ones that probably don't need marketing), and lesser known works that are advertised as "great deals" because they are usually much cheaper than the popular titles. But because of this advertising I would surmise that these books achieve much better sales then they otherwise would. And in this sense these authors and publishers "need" booksellers. But J.K. Rowling decided that she did not "need" them to sell her books so she is creating her own alternative book selling website.
In my personal opinion I hope that not many other authors decide to go down this route because that would eliminate the browse-ability factor of booksellers. I know that "browse-ability" is a concept that librarians love to talk about, the serendipitous effect of finding great reads by randomly browsing shelves or in an online marketplace by scrolling through different topics or genres. I think it would be a large pain to have to search multiple different websites to find different books that I would like to buy and read. Therefore I hope more authors do not follow in J.K. Rowling's footsteps. Even though booksellers do make books more expensive because they must add in their cut to make a profit, the convenience they provide in searching for a book to buy improves my overall experience and therefore I find them to be a worthwhile part of the process.
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