The Next Best Book Club discussion

I want to rant a bit...Am I the last one to figure this out? Have I been living under a rock???
I was so looking forward to spending a few quite hours in my favorite bookstore, touching, smelling, turning pages, and just browsing through the shelves hunting for some of the books on my to-be-read list. But, to kill some time this morning, I went online to the ole .com just to check and see if they had one of the titles I really had to have in stock at my local store... And to my dismay I discovered, what many of you may already know... The prices were almost double "in store" compared to the online price!!!!! I am so shocked & hurt by this! Why would the company not encourage customers to go into their stores and shop?? Why would they rob me of the wonderful experience of the local bookstore? I did end up buying all of the books on my list on-line and will have them in 3 days with free shipping! I would have only been able to afford 3 books if I had driven the 5 miles to my local bookstore... I'm excited about all of my new books, but so disappointed at the same time!!!

This saddens me. I understand your feelings of disappointment. The physical and intellectual pleasure of the bookstore, the touch of books, the delicious, lazy drifting between shelves and other book-lovers is an important part of my life as well. However, the cost is sometimes a problem, and at other times, the convenience of on-line shopping simply helps in our harried lives. I ask for gift cards at Christmas and birthdays which helps waylay the cost of in-store shopping and I always set aside a little cash for times when I desperately need to find peace in my bookstore. If I am really broke, the library is also a favourite spot!

Sookie...I share your sadness. I have a Nook...but I love the feel of a book and shopping for them. I keep a wishlist online and usually buy when the prices cant be beat...but I also love our used book store and I usually hit a number of goodwill stores throughout the year. Some great finds and great prices.

I love 'real' book shops and a friend owns one. Fiction is always more expensive there so when I visit I buy expensive, hard-to-find car books that my husband loves. And sometimes the signed books by local authors which are the basis of her book shop's reputation.
When at home I almost always buy online. This is because I live in a non-English speaking country and the English choices in local shops, though no longer ridiculously expensive, are very limited.

I also have a Nook and have found that the prices of ebooks are so cheap I just can't justify purchasing an actual novel as opposed to downloading one. At least not EVERY book.

There are still a few authors that I purchase hardbacks as soon as they are released because I just need to have an actual book in my hands, but even then, it's so much cheaper to pre-order online with the added bonus that it is usually delivered to my doorstep before I could actually walk into the store and purchase it.

I go to Barnes & Noble simply to be surrounded by books. I've made the compromise with myself that I only buy myself cook books in the actual store. Same thing with "gift" books and the leather bound classics I've been collecting.

They do make it harder and harder to justify the expense of bricks & mortar, and logically, I understand. In my heart that loves books though, I never will.

I have to have real books. Maybe it's the tactile feel, smell, look, etc. Plus I know that once a book is printed, it can't be edited by some hacker (yep, I am paranoid that way) government controller, or overzealous book burner. The batteries don't go out, and books are certainly a more permanent medium. I work in a chain bookstore and there is a down turn in sales of e-readers. Not to mention, e readers put people out of work on every level from printer to loggers, paper producers, ink producers, delivery people to book seller. The e book is a bane on the reading world. My wife has an e reader that she hardly has touched after the first six months. The e reader is a plastic product for a lonely plastic world.

I can relate. I greatly prefer the experience of shopping in a physical store to shopping online. I often go to my local Barnes & Nobel to buy books, even though it's cheaper on the net. I just prefer the human interaction when buying the books, as well as just being there. I prefer a real book to one on a tablet or phone. For this reason, most of my books are bought in-store.

My comics are a different case. I don't have a local comic shop that I know of, so I buy my comics off of amazon usually. Barnes & Nobel has a few of the titles I like, but not all of them.

I agree with these comments, except to say that I take my [loaded up] Kindle when I'm travelling - it's practical. I'm very upset at each bookstore closing and wonder if we will actually have bookstores to browse and buy [books].

I guess that I should have commented in my post of the 15th. that it is my plan in 4 years to open a used bookstore here in the Alexandria/Pineville area of Louisiana. My TSP (type of 401K) will come to maturation and I have been dreaming of a used bookstore since 1982. I was beginning to think it would be useless until I read Wendy Welch's "The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap" This book was an inspiration and by golly I'm not giving up now! With my experience I am gaining working in the new bookstore I am at now (I know there are differences) and my research since 1982 I really believe I can make a go of it. Not to mention my wife has over 30 years of public library experience to help me organize! Forward paper books!

Some on-line sellers LOSE money on the books. And they don't care about that because they MAKE money on the advertising and selling their marketing information to other entities. The $.99 daily deal is definitely what is called a LOSS LEADER. It gets you "in the store" (or on the site) so that you browse and buy more (or provide more data for them to sell to other entities).

Brick-n-mortar stores, on the other hand, are selling books to make money so they can continue to sell books. They aren't making their profit by selling advertising or selling the patrons' data to other concerns.

If you love the smell, feel, touch, sights, sounds of your local bookstore, then you should patronize it. Without patrons, those stores will close.

I'm as susceptible to online discounts and 99-cent deals as the next person, but I also live in fear of my favorite bookstores going out of business because of the accessibility and variety that online retailers provide. Every couple of weeks, I'll patronize a local, independent store and bite the bullet when it comes to their high prices.

I read on my Kindle and I also read paper books. I enjoy both but I do find for some reason that I read faster on the Kindle (I suspect it's because it's easier to pick up and put down and not lose my place). I won't ever give up either of them up. I have been packing up books for an intended move and I will say the only books that won't be a problem are the ones on the Kindle but let me also stress that the only things I have packed so far are my books! I have my priorities in the right place.