Consumers Need Freedom of Choice

By Bob Hughes - Feb 01 , 2012

You can’t read an e-book on all e-readers. And you can’t buy a paper-and-cardboard book at all booksellers.

So much for the enduring nature of the printed word in book form.

Barnes & Noble has decided not to stock physical books published by Amazon. It will offer them online, but not in its brick-and-mortar stores . Comments from readers on the Galleycat.com, which had reported on this, were generally opposed to Barnes & Noble’s actions.

The thing is, how many physical books does this mean? Well, not many for now. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will distribute print books from Amazon Publishing, and that represents only a fraction of what Amazon offers in digital form anyway.

Still, what Barnes & Noble is doing in the name of protecting its interests – or in simply making a statement that it opposes Amazon’s increasing power – is limiting the choice of consumers. What Barnes & Noble is doing in the name of protest is saying that choice is important, but only when the retailer is doing the choosing for the consumer.

As more and more books are being read on electronic devices, the rejection of physical copies of books may not amount to much. But Barnes & Noble’s actions underlines the fraught conditions in the retail marketplace.

What does this mean for authors? At this point not much – unless you’re an author who will have a physical copy of your book distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and will need to tell your fans that they can’t find it at their local Barnes & Noble. Not likely, right?

But how authors distribute what they write is important. They want to be heard, to be read, to reach their audience, to make a difference. They have been building a platform to get their ideas across and their book is an extension of themselves. Even if one consumer is unable to find the book he or she wants because a retailer has decided against stocking that book, that consumer – and that retailer – suffer.

That shouldn’t happen.