B&N and Specialty Houses

[rhenning at fsc.follett.com]

 Thomas warns:
 
"Free standing, independent bookstores, such as my own, are out 
of business. They hardly exist as a genre any more...Free 
standing, independent publishers, without the independent 
bookstores to buy from them, are also under even stronger 
pressure...Barnes and Noble didn't enter web bookselling until 
Amazon.com proved it could work...Don't ever expect a chain 
bookstore to be responsive to your needs in the same way that 
the free standing independent was."

**********

I may be missing something, but isn't this a tailor-made web 
opportunity for the independents?  From the bit I've seen, 
Amazon's just an electronic mega mass merchant, no more capable 
of expertly addressing a specific community's needs than a B&N.

"Web's good for the goose and good for the gander."

Russ
rhenning at fsc.follett.com

"whose opinions are etc., etc."