With the recent changes in publishing everyone has been talking about who the losers from the rise of ebooks has/will be. I think it is safe to say that publishers are still doing okay, if not more profitable. Authors, well, they have more options than ever to publish and make money. Of course, the speculation around the industry has seen authors being nickel and dimed on advances and shelf stocking.
But the big losers have to have been the bookstores, right? We’ve seen plenty of the big chain stores cease to be, we’ve heard about how much bookstores are battling. I’m not really convinced, since I remember that before the Borders collapse in Australia, there was plenty of evidence of financial mismanagement and not paying for books.
Well, I found this American retail business data for bookstores over the last 5 years. Have a look for yourself and see how well you think bookstores are faring.
NB: The source for this data covers a lot of the retail sector and makes me think that selling bakery goods is a great idea.
Tyson Adams 