Article

What the iPad means for booksellers

Apple's new iPad device could shake up the book market. Here are five ways to sell more traditional books during the upcoming e-book wave.

February 1, 2010

Last week, Apple Computer introduced the iPad, its long-awaited, larger cousin to the iPhone/iPod Touch family. With a bevy of new features, a library of 140,000+ software applications (apps), many more songs and movies, access to college courses, and now books, Apple has introduced a new, mature-at-introduction form factor that fills a gap in its product lineup and promises to further blur the lines between work and leisure.

Apple's activities are also bringing more attention to the written word, popularizing text, creating more longer-attention-span readers, and giving you just the reason you need to up your own game.

On the Apple Web site, the presenter beams when he declares that three stores ship inside every iPad: music and apps are the first two. The third store is new — iBooks. Are you listening, book retailers? The news isn't that books are being sold in digital form — rather that Apple is doing it. You know, the company with a track record of turning media into gold.

First, here's the new Apple iBooks experience. Next, what booksellers can do about it.

	At about 9.5" x 7.5" x 0.5" and 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilos), the form factor is perfect to hold, carry and read from. The iPad offers color, plenty of storage, Wi-Fi and/or 3G connectivity, music, video and apps. Lots of apps. Up to 10 hours between charges.
	To buy a book, simply touch its icon from the catalog (billing details not available at press time).
	The screen image flips over 180 degrees right to left to show your own bookcase with the new title in place.
	Click the title with your finger one time to open the book. The cover animates open to show the first page.
	Start reading. Slide your finger from right to left to watch the pages turn. The text stays in place as the page rolls over, so you get the visual satisfaction of pages really turning.

Apple's iPad nails the form factor (size/weight ratio), improves on display technology (color including motion video and sound), gives readers (with an iTunes account on their Mac or PC) their very own bookshelf to store titles and an extremely cool page-turning metaphor that makes using a computer feel, well, kind of like reading a book.

An iPad is not a book. When you hold an iPad, you'll feel that it's cold and hard, not soft and room temperature like real books. Books never run out of power. You don't have to wait at the good part for a recharge. Hearing the pages turn on what's becoming your favorite new novel is a sensation that only a book can deliver. Flipping through the pages of a book (in seconds) is more fulfilling than scanning multiple on-screen pages (minutes). It's just not the same. A book lets you fold its page corners to save your place and write your own thoughts in its margins. You can leave a real book where you want to find it next or let it stack up in your favorite "to be read" stack. A real book can survive a trip to your favorite hot, sandy beach. You can also share a real book with a friend (for free) and not worry about when you get it back. Oh, and you can drop a real book without your heart beginning to race.

When a book is used (read), it delivers an experience. That's something no technology can match. Stop playing the commodity game. Don't focus only on titles, authors, coffee and price points.

1. Remember, the experience matters. Whether you believe in judging a book by its cover or not, there's something to be said for thumbing through the pages of a book while you're in the bookstore. There's something colder and harder about reading excerpts chosen for you in the online world vs. being able to look at anything and everything with a real book in your hands. Some readers want to talk about their intended purchase with another customer or an employee before buying. That's not easy to accomplish in the online world.

2. Shop your own stores to reconnect with the reading experience you offer inside. Design "hanging around" to be comfortable. Just being in your store should feel like you're reading a book. Hire salespeople with wonderful personalities who will interact with people about what they're reading, introduce them to things that should be on their radar and keep their interest in reading alive. Shop your online product and see how you can keep the transactions efficient, but add enjoyment to the anticipation of reading.

3. Build anticipation around the reading experience. Differentiate. Not just what, but where, when, how and with whom. Put some passion back into reading when you communicate to your customers, whether you're advertising outdoors or online or simply walking around the store talking to customers.

4. Reading is not only books. It is all the emotions the activity of reading stirs and the knowledge it brings. Advertise that. Market that. And ground the examples you use with paper-based media. Bring attention to the pleasure of reading, the joy of sharing what you read with others, and make evident how readers feel.

5. Go online. Offer some of the services Apple can't. Like online book clubs, reading suggestions tailored to readers' interests and services of interest to book collectors. Suggestive sell paper-based books to people based on their digital favorites. Sometimes, readers will like to riff through the pages of a real book in the real world even after they've read it online. Call it a souvenir mentality.

The more people that read, the more there is to sell. That's the bottom line. It's not Apple vs. booksellers. While the migration to a digital channel will impact paper-based book sales (just like the iPod did to CD sales), now is the time to be creative. There is still time for book retailers to supply more of what customers want — a better reading experience. Whether readers prefer digital or paper, their desire for a better experience is never going to change.

Mike Wittenstein is a Customer Experience Architect and speaker.