It’s easy to despair when confronted with ever-constant barrage of news that books are dead. Every day folks come in for recommendations that they’re going to download on their e-readers, so in this electronic age, it’s sometimes the littlest things that can make a bookseller’s day.
\nTwice today customers thrilled me and made me realize that there’s hope for the book and book-related products.
\nThe first was a customer who ordered an actual book on CD from us. She loved the book so much, she wanted to be able to listen to it again while she was driving to and from Boston. A CD! Someone actually wanted a book on CD. She didn’t want to download it — didn’t know how, truth be told. It had been a while since I’d sold a book on CD, I forgot they were discounted and almost charged her full price, which she happily would have paid. She then ordered two more books on CD for her summer trips. She loves having the CDs and knowing where she stopped and not having to worry about listening to a book on her son’s iPod that can shuffle the tracks.
\nThe second customer came in to order a book she already downloaded. She had a parenting book on her phone and she loved it so much she wanted the actual book. This customer decided that reading a book, especially a reference-type book, on a three-inch screen was frustrating. She found it hard to switch back to chapters that she wanted to refer back to: “It’s impossible to take notes or underline. ” Her husband just didn’t understand why she needed two copies of the books. And she came to the realization that text on phone doesn’t necessarily make something into a book for her. When she left I breathed a sigh of relief.
\nSo, if customers want to try technology, get disappointed, or feel the need to augment their experience, I am more than happy to be there to fill gaps and remind people that books are really a complete experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s easy to despair when confronted with ever-constant barrage of news that books are dead. Every day folks come in for recommendations that they’re going to download on their e-readers, so in this electronic age, it’s sometimes the littlest things that can make a bookseller’s day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}