Don't become a bookseller or you'll hate books

If you love books, you've probably thought that it would wonderful to work in a bookstore or, perhaps, open up your own shop. Famous English author George Orwell once worked in a bookshop and wrote an essay about the experience. He ended up hating books and as this recent article points out, things have not changed since Orwell's times.

The big American bookseller Borders took a lot of flack recently for its decision to shrink the number of science fiction selections it stocks citing lack of profibility as the reason. This blog roundup is a good summary of the reaction from readers and writers.

There is a lot of predictable outrage, but several commentators understood the reasons the chain made the move, even if they didn't agree with them. Andrew Wheeler, the former edtior of the Science Fiction Book Club, wrote this piece for SF Crowsnest which was probably the best at articulating the in and outs of the book business enough to justify the decision.

Let's face it, the internet is changing everything, including the book industry. People can order whichever book they want online whether it's in or out of print or even download digital copies. Physical bookstores have limited shelf space and have to make enough money to support their operating expenses. If they make more money selling Oprah book club selections than SF novels, then it's clear that SF is going to get cut.

The question is whether this lack of diversity in the chain stores hurts or hinders the genre. I think in the past it would have been a disaster, but with the new online distribution channels, it makes it a lot easier to publish and sell books. Of course, that ease of distribution also makes it more competitive as there are numerous  outlets selling more titles than ever before so the biggest challenge to authors is to get their books and names promoted sufficiently to get people to want to buy them.

There was a time that new authors submitted their manuscripts to publishing houses and hoped he or she would beat the odds and have an editor pick it out of the slushpile to read it.

At least one publisher has now crowdsourced their slushpile reading by creating an online community where readers and writers can congregate to criticize their stories.