Technology is a new chapter for booksellers

Chalk up booksellers as another industry group challenged by new technology, but they were encouraged on Friday to jump aboard the tech train rather than compete with it.

A panel at the opening of the American Booksellers Association's winter get-together suggested that booksellers see technology — such as e-books — as an opportunity rather than a threat.

"We've all got to figure out how to use online to make our businesses work," Bob Miller, president and publisher of HarperStudio, part of HarperCollins Publishers, told a group of about 450 people in Salt Lake City.

Nan Graham, editor-in-chief of Scribner, said booksellers need to "figure out" their "territorial role" in the e-book industry. Panelists suggested a few ways booksellers can do that, including serving as guides and experts for their customers.

"All you need to do is shout-outs every day for things you think are of value. You all have expertise as influencers that you have to make use of online," Miller said.

"There is so much noise out in the marketplace and people are asking for direction — how to find the stuff that's worthwhile — and you guys do that," said Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic Inc. "You take ownership over your business, because you have a knowledge base of your local community. And I think that that's going to create great opportunity for you."

Panelists said all independent booksellers need to blog as a way to capitalize on their expertise. One bookseller said a video blog propelled a local wine seller to online prominence, expert status and huge sales for his business. "When we say you should blog, we really mean that a 20-year-old on your staff should," Miller said, evoking laughter from the audience.

Miller said such use of technology may not produce results quickly, but it also is not expensive. "It costs (virtually) nothing to do, but nobody's doing it," he said.

Miller also said booksellers should not expect customers to pay full price for various versions of the same book. His preferred model is a customer buying a book and, while at the register, paying a little more for an e-book version and a little more for an audio book version. "Capture that sale in your store at the register," he said. "If we set up a battle between the digital and the physical, physical will lose."

A couple of panelists cited statistics to keep the e-book threat in perspective. Roxanne Coady, owner of an independent bookstore in Connecticut, said that if e-book sales doubled annually for the next five years, they would total $1.2 billion but still account for only 5 percent of total book sales.

Entrekin predicts e-books to be 3 percent to 10 percent of total book sales in five years. "I'm not quite so convinced that the e-book thing is going to tilt as wildly as some people in the industry are," he said. "Our customers are from six months old to 105 years old, and a large range of those people are not going to quickly move to digital or electronic."

None of the panelists seemed worried about the long-term future of books and the shops where people buy them.

Entrekin said people worldwide "are getting more literate every day, every hour, every minute," and they will eventually turn to books because they are "where the repository and the discourse of our society are."

And bookstores "are the places that are beautiful, wonderful places to go to in the community," he said. "You know, we can't all live online all the time."

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com