Textbooks are a Gold Mine for some

I heard an interesting comment at a philosophical conversation between professors, researchers, post-graduate students and miscellaneous others like myself.

One of the guys mentioned that the only big bookstores that were coping with the change in delivery of content were the bookstores that sold textbooks. Students were required to buy the books, so the stores had an advantage if not a monopoly and they could charge whatever they wanted!

I know I was looking for a book the other day and found it on Amazon. two minutes later it was in my Kindle and on my desktop in the Kindle app on my computer! No postage, delay or petrol used in getting to the bookstore.

The times they are a changing and publishers know their corner on the market is no longer prime real estate.

Then I see this on Beattie's Book Blog . . .

Bennetts bookshops back in hands of Kiwi owners

Story by Hamish Rutherford in the Dominion Post - 30 April, 2011

One of New Zealand's oldest book chains is back in local ownership after the Bennetts stores were bought out of the Whitcoulls administration.
The chain, which focuses on university textbooks, has been bought by a family trust linked to Geoff Spong, the New Zealander who in 1995 established Vol 1, another university textbook chain, which he later sold.

The deal, signed yesterday for an undisclosed sum, protects 30 jobs. Bennetts' headquarters will be in Palmerston North, where the company was established in 1889.

It will initially have eight stores, seven of which are on university and polytechnic campuses throughout New Zealand, as well as the flagship Bennetts Government Bookshop in Lambton Quay.

Bennetts' new owners have said they want to open stores on campuses throughout New Zealand, initially targeting Auckland.

So it goes. Until textbooks are more readily available electronically. Then the paradigm shifts again.