????上周，2011美國圖書展（BookExpo America）在紐約賈維茨會議中心（Javits Center）開幕，展會現場人聲鼎沸，到處都在忙著握手和簽名售書。所有出版社都帶著銷售代表、編輯和作者齊聚一堂。會場氣氛是積極的，裝滿紙墨校樣的手提袋可能都會讓你忘了近日亞馬遜(Amazon)電子書銷量已超過出版物一事。

????“哦，歷史上曾有過這樣的時刻，平版書銷量超越精裝書，電視機銷量超越收音機，”《紐約書評》雜志（New York Review of Books）的副發行人凱瑟琳?泰斯談到，“將來iPad銷量也會超越Kindle。這樣的轉變將持續出現?！?/p>

????言之有理，但會不會有這樣的時刻，即隨著消費者追趕電子書和數字化浪潮，亞馬遜將使實體書店瀕于滅絕？這個時刻會到來嗎？書店店主們現在有這種擔心嗎？

????“我認為電子閱讀將占據部分市場，但印刷版的文學小說仍會有市場，”位于布魯克林Greenpoint 的WORD書店店主克里斯汀?奧諾拉蒂表示，“人們發現下載找書更容易，特別是像詹姆斯?帕特森（世界頂級暢銷書作家，被譽為美國驚悚推理小說天王——譯注）這樣的通俗小說。這讓人沮喪嗎?是的，就像人們去好市多超市（Costco）買書一樣。但我們不反對電子書?！?/p>

????事實上，WORD的網站也通過Google Books出售電子書，下載后可在iPad、iPhone、黑莓（Blackberry）、Android、Nook或索尼(Sony)閱讀器上閱讀。缺點？“[谷歌電子書] 與Kindle不是很兼容，因為Kindle是亞馬遜的知識產權，”她解釋道，在談到Kindle銷量新聞時，她說“我絕不相信亞馬遜說的話?！?/p>

????這種觀點得到了一些人的認同。普林斯頓大學出版社（Princeton University Press）的一位代表在被問到這條新聞時，也表示“我想看看具體的數據?！?/p>

????但消費者前沿調查（Consumer Edge Research）的法耶?蘭德斯表示，亞馬遜的消息是真的——一直以來她都在跟蹤亞馬遜的銷售數據。在談到一些出版商否認該消息時，她稱，“沒有（出版商）愿意說這對他們的業務不利……這對亞馬遜是個好消息，但如果人們都在亞馬遜上買電子書，下載至Kindle，他們就不會再到實體書店買書了?！?/p>

????奧諾拉蒂表示，WORD書店經營得很不錯，盡管圖書零售商Borders倒閉、大型連鎖書店前景可能慘淡，但小型獨立書店實際上欣欣向榮。在這次展會中，她碰到了位于布魯克林Cobble Hill的BookCourt書店的書商、暢銷小說集《Other People We Married》的作者艾瑪?斯特勞布。斯特勞布聽到亞馬遜的新聞似乎較為平靜，表示圖書出版業的電子化趨勢并不意外，已有越來越多的作者涌入Twitter，根據網上的讀者互動進行自我調整。

電子書業務模式

????但奧諾拉蒂和斯特勞布都沒有Kindle，她們表示即使要買一臺電子書閱讀器 (奧諾拉蒂有一臺iPad)，也不會是Kindle，因為她們想要更多的自由，不想只從亞馬遜購買電子書。這種抱怨可能不會使Kindle增速有太大放緩。消費者前沿調查研究了300個曾購買和閱讀電子書的人，其中138人表示只用Kindle， 28人使用邦諾（Barnes ＆ Noble）的Nook電子書閱讀器。

????蘭德斯表示，Kindle電子書要擊敗出版物仍可能面臨一道障礙，即盈利能力。電子書銷量的增長并不一定意味著印刷書會消亡。至少人們仍在閱讀。但電子書銷售的每個環節利潤都較低，她認為可能會有一個皆大歡喜的結局，“有跡象顯示電子書和印刷書都會有人購買，因為擁有Kindle 的人們都屬閱讀者。”

????亞馬遜最近還宣布將建立自己的大眾圖書出版社，并挖來了前Hachette的拉里?基爾希鮑姆負責運營。這條新聞讓出席圖書展的一些人更加不安。

????消費者前沿調查在2011年5月9日的一份報告中解釋到，“亞馬遜早已是美國第二大印刷書銷售商和最大的電子書銷售商。積極進入圖書出版業可能會強化和鞏固公司的影響力。我們預計傳統圖書出版社將有很多抱怨，它們早就對亞馬遜的影響力心懷不滿。”

????商業圖書出版商就沒那么擔心了?！拔覀兛吹搅藬底只绷?，這沒問題，” 《哈佛商業評論》出版社（Harvard Business Review Press）的銷售總監瑪麗?多倫表示，“這樣的行業趨勢是合理的。對我們而言，我們的讀者是富裕的、受過教育的、對新技術敏感的商旅人士；我們希望能趕上讀者的步伐?！?/p>

????而Wiley & Sons'商業出版社的約翰?赫爾姆斯對這些新聞的解讀是總結性的?！拔覀兌颊J為這是一個新機會，”他說，“你也只能這么看。”

????New York's Javits Center was a crowded, noisy hothouse of handshaking and book signing this week at BookExpo America. Every publisher and imprint was there with marketing reps, editors, and authors on hand. The mood was positive and, judging from the tote bags full of paper-and-ink galleys, you wouldn't have known that e-book sales had recently overcome print book sales at Amazon.

????"Well, there was a time when paperbacks surpassed hardcovers. And when television overcame radio," reasons Catherine Tice, associate publisher of the New York Review of Books magazine. "There will also be a time when iPad sales surpass Kindle sales. Shifts will continue."

????That makes sense, but what about a time when consumers follow the lead of their e-books and go digital, leading Amazon to cause the extinction of brick-and-mortar bookstores? Will that time come, and are bookstore owners worried?

????"I think some portion of the market will get lost to e-reading, yes, but literary fiction will still do well in print," says Christine Onorati, the owner of WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. "People find books, especially commercial fiction like James Patterson's, so much easier to just download. Is it disheartening? Yes, in the same way that it is when people go buy a book at Costco. But we're not against e-books at all."

????Indeed, WORD sells e-books on its web site through Google (GOOG) Books, which you can read on your iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nook, or Sony (SNY) reader. The drawback? "[Google e-books] just don't play nice with a Kindle, because that's proprietary to Amazon," she explains, before adding of the Kindle sales news: "I don't believe a thing Amazon says anyway."

????That opinion was echoed a few times. A rep from Princeton University Press, when asked his opinion on the news, said, "I'd like to see the numbers."

????But Faye Landes of Consumer Edge Research says Amazon's (AMZN) news was true indeed -- she tracks their sales data. "No one here wants to say this is bad for their business," she says of the publishers seemingly in denial. "It's good news for Amazon, but if people buy all their books on Amazon, for Kindle, they aren't going to spend at bookstores anymore."

????Onorati says that WORD is doing quite well, and that with Borders going out of business and the possible dire future for big chain stores, small independent book shops have actually thrived. At the expo, she was hanging out with Emma Straub, herself a bookseller at BookCourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and also author of the well-received new story collection Other People We Married. Straub doesn't seem thrilled with Amazon's news but does say the move toward everything 'e' in the lit world is unsurprising, as more authors flock to Twitter, for example, and adjust to reader interaction on the Web.

The e-book business model

????But neither woman owns a Kindle, and both say that if they were to get an e-reader (Onorati does have an iPad) it would not be a Kindle, since they want the freedom to buy e-books from places other than Amazon. That common complaint may not be slowing the Kindle down too much. In a Consumer Edge Research study that surveyed a group of 300 people who all buy and read e-books, 138 of them said they do so exclusively on a Kindle. That number for the Nook from Barnes and Noble (BKS) was 28.

????The real potential problem with Kindle e-books pushing print books off the mountain is profitability, Landes says. Higher sales of e-books doesn't have to mean books will die. People are still reading, at least. But everyone involved makes less money from the sale of an e-book, though she acknowledges that there is the potential for a happy ending: "There are indications that people will buy both e-books and print books, because the type of people who have a Kindle are readers."

????Amazon also recently announced that it will launch its own general interest trade publishing imprint, for which it has poached Larry Kirshbaum, formerly of Hachette, to run. This news had some people at Book Expo further aggrieved.

????A May 9, 2011 report from Consumer Edge Research explains: "Amazon is already the second-biggest player in physical books in the U.S. and the biggest player in e-books. An aggressive move into book publishing will likely enhance and consolidate the company's power. We expect to hear a lot of bellyaching from traditional book publishers, who already in many cases resent Amazon's power."

????Business publishers are less concerned. "We're seeing a migration to digital, but that's okay," says Mary Dolan, sales director for Harvard Business Review Press. "It makes sense that the industry is going in this direction. For us, our audience is affluent, educated, mobile, and tech-savvy; we want to be where our readers are."

????And John Helmus, of Wiley & Sons' business imprint, approaches the news from a bottom-line point of view: "We're all looking at this as another opportunity," he said. "That's the only way you can look at it."