By Bert Zethof


Photo source: Kindle website

With the success of electronic wireless reading devices like Amazon’s Kindle we may soon see the end of the bookstore as we know it.

At least one analyst estimates sales of 2 million Kindles in 2009. It is Amazon’s top selling electronic item this holiday season surpassing even Apple’s iPod Touch (8GB).

Knowing that I can download a book at any time from any place for ten dollars or even less is a compelling case for switching from paper books to digital. There are now 390,000 titles available for the Kindle and the device can store up to 1,500 books. I can save a lot of money on books and storage space. I haven’t made the switch yet but I sense that the time is right to do so.

One art curator interviewed in a recent TV show about the role of industrial designers made the point that designers are the new arbiters of our world, as opposed to philosophers for example. Kindle is a prime example of how design can radically change an entrenched aspect of our lives; namely, books and reading.

I predict that books whose content is primarily text will be the first ones to experience falling demand in bookstores as sales of Kindle and similar devices continue to grow. Books with graphical elements like photos, pictures, art, graphics, etc, will not be affected as much because of the visual and tactile quality of paper versions. However, bookstore owners will see falling demand for these books too as more people switch to online buying of both paper and electronic books.

If I owned a bookstore, I’d be re-assessing my value proposition and business model because the status quo will no longer be viable.

UPDATE - Dec.30, 2009: McNally Robinson, a major independent Canadian book seller, announced a bankruptcy restructuring yesterday citing pressures from the recession, stagnant book prices, steep discounting, and increasing competition from Internet sales and electronic text formats.