Americans
like everything mobile – from smart phones to vending machines. Many things are available 24/7 online and now
the physical world is catching up. Books
are becoming available in more locations than in the recent past, which is
great news for an industry that showed its first annual revenue increase in
eight years.
Sales
at bookstores rose 2.5% in 2015 over the prior year – the first increase since
2007, according to the Census Bureau.
Part
of that success comes from more stores being open. The American Booksellers Association said
there were 1,712 member stores in 2,227 locations operating by the end of last
year. This represents a big jump form
2009’s headcount of 1,401 stores in 1,651 locations.
Some
stores are even going mobile, applying a food-truck approach to business.
Nashville’s
newest bookstore is an old van, selling books where people congregate. It’s a different kind of delivery service and
it is a great way to advertise for a brick and mortar location. Now you can buy books the way kids get ice
cream – from a truck.
It
actually makes sense. What would work
even better is the espresso-type book printing machines that a handful of
stores have. They are used to print a
print-on-demand book in eight to twelve minutes.
Of
course trucks and vans are not easy to browse, nor can they hold many titles or
many copies of a title. Maybe a themed
truck would do better. Imagine a sports
book truck parked outside an arena or sports field. How about a chick-lit mobile situated outside
a school or popular daytime restaurant for stay-at-home moms? Maybe a stash of business books can be parked
by a busy intersection of the business district or cookbooks can be sold by restaurant
row.
The
best locations to sell books should be places where readers already gather -- such as by a
library, school, or newsstand. These
mobile book dealers are especially needed for areas underserved by
bookstores. There are 6 million square
miles in the United States. I want
bookstores on water, in the mountains and forests, and by the beaches.
Book
mobiles can be hard to maintain. For
one, they have lots of inventory, so security at night could be an issue. For another, staffing could be an issue. Who wants to work out of a truck all day? Can you imagine if a mobile truck got a ticket
for going too fast? It would say “speed
reading.” Okay, I won’t quit my day job.
People
read books while in motion all of the time – planes, trains, automobiles – so
why not sell them that way? Maybe they
should have bookmobiles featuring books about modes of transportation. Books are on the move!
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
Recent Posts
The Trump University of Book Promotions
The Author PR Priority List
Rights of Cheating Spouses vs. First Amendment On Display
Can authors audit their writing like they do their taxes?
What is America’s actual reading capacity?
http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/what-is-americas-reading-capacity.html
2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.