What if the book business collapses?

Hugh McGuire asks "What would happen if, tomorrow, every publisher, and every book store, went out of business? What would you do?"

Link: Hugh McGuire's blog, discussed also at Huffington Post. See also the recent article by David Streitfeld in the NYT: Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It. Related viewing: Paperback Dreams.

I increasingly fear for bookstores. The chains are devoting less and less space to books. Indies I used to visit have closed and the rest are struggling. I confess I still sometimes buy from the chains and Amazon for convenience, but I try to spend more at independent stores or direct from publishers online. Indie publishing will last longer than indie bookstores, I think. They can profit from selling direct or by subscription to the scattered readers who remain (as the excellent Open Letter does). But the physical bookstore, or at least the bookstore that is substantially a bookstore and not a music or video store, won't last much longer. This is not because they cling to an out-of-date "retail experience". The problem is primarily a cultural one -- people aren't reading books. We should be grateful that the Internet will continue to make it easier than ever for those who still read to find books, but we should also be sad that the superior experience of buying books in good bookstores is dying.

See also: Tom Slee's series of stories "Mr. Amazon's Bookshop".