Harder than stuffing a genie back in the bottle

Friend or foe, good or bad, dangerous or beneficial? I feel pretty ambivalent about Amazon's market dominance, so I wrote out a list of pros and cons. I was surprised to find the pros outnumbered the cons by a significant number.

Readers certainly benefit, right? I can't think of anything wrong with cheaper, widely available books. The site helps people network through reviews and recommendations to find more books they might be interested in—I always find myself following recommendation threads to books I probably never would have found in a bookstore.

I would think authors benefit from Amazon as well. Books are available for sale for much longer online than on bookstore shelves, extending the life of most titles. It'd be nice to see an end to the incredibly short sales cycle of traditional publishing.

I can't think of a single drawback to the rise in prominence of print-on-demand. I love the idea that anyone who wants to publish a book can do it at a reasonable cost and make all their friends and relatives buy a copy. I don't really see how anyone gets hurt (other than said friends and relatives). On the other hand, it pains me to think of all the publishing mistakes—any number of miscalculations that can befall a new title—gathering dust in warehouses an destined for the recycling heap. I am very hopeful that print-on-demand will curtail the huge amount of waste in the printing business. Some books are meant to find their audience one digital print at a time.

Amazon must benefit publishers at least a little. Their titles gain the largest possible distribution. They make some money from online sales even after Amazon takes its cut. As mentioned before, books live longer in cyberspace, allowing for a longer sales cycle and providing an opportunity for a belated rise in popularity due to some random twist of fate.

My con list was short, but it included a problem that might outweigh all the pros—bookstores are dying. I read an article in yesterday's Oregonian about a successful attempt to shore up the cash-strapped Broadway Books by promising a burrito to anyone who bought $50 worth of books over the holidays. Really?! In this case, the owner's son and his Twitter savvy saved the day, but for how long? I have no idea what bookstores can do to change their odds for survival. Record stores and video rental outlets haven't gone extinct yet despite predictions of certain doom, but it doesn't look like a viable business model for any of these media outlets.

We are lucky here in Portland—we have Powells. We probably take for granted that we can walk to the greatest new and used bookstore in the states, while the rest of the nation has Borders and B&N as their best option for book buying. If given that choice, I'd shop online, too.