Let's be indie

Although there were over 7,000 independent bookstores in the mid 1990s, there are now about only 2,000 bricks-and-mortar independent bookstores in the U.S., but that’s up from about 1,500 a few years ago, according to Digital Book World. Will they partake of the ebook psunami? At first they partnered with Google books to little avail, and then starting last October they switched to Kobo, and have been a little more successful. But the margins on selling either the Kobo ereaders or ebooks for the Kobo devices generate minuscule dollars. But imagine if when you bought the ebook, you also bought the printed book -- the rights and the price were blended. Then the indie booksellers could make more profit and, possibly, survive. Let's be indie in our ideas, too.