About a thousand people read yesterday's post about showrooming: turning book shops into book spaces funded through the marketing budgets of various organisations (publishers, big independent writers, giant online retailers).
I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. Yesterday, over at Publishing Perspectives, Jo Henry, the MD of Book Marketing Limited, ventured the opinion that Amazon may end up buying Waterstones, a UK book chain, "so that it would have its own showroom on the high street."
And today in Publishers Weekly, Roxanne Coady, of RJJulia Booksellers, Madison, CT, has a modest proposal for independents to charge Amazon for showrooming.
Finally, a smart friend of mine points out that the book space I imagined yesterday already exists: it's the New York Public Library. So my additional suggestion is for publishers and giant online retailers* (Amazon, B&N, Apple, and Google) to fund libraries directly.
Just a thought.
* Giant Online Retailers: GOR.