Nice to see that Contact, the Tonbridge Parish Church magazine has been able to attract some decent contributors! Those of you who have been reading Tonbridge blog for a while will possibly recognise the theme for a previous posting. Those clever editors at Contact mag decided to publish the article in full, so here it is, just in case you don't catch the church publication every month:
Book Fair this Sunday….No Thanks I’ve got the internet!...
Mark Richardson, of MR. Books, thoughts after being snubbed one morning whilst handing out flyers and telling commuters at Tonbridge Railway Station about the forthcoming Book Fair.
One dull morning recently I was up with the larks, well the commuters anyway, so that I could stand outside Tonbridge Station in order to hand out flyers for the West Kent Book Fair which was being held that weekend at TonbridgeSchool. Although the general reaction was very positive, ie. most people weren't too rude, and some even went out of their way, in their rush to catch their trains, to ask for a flyer; despite all that it was the flippant comment from one trendy, I might say geeky, looking youngish London-bound worker which really struck home. It's funny how one negative comment out of 3 or 4 hundred is the one which strikes home. To my question "Interested in the Book Fair at TonbridgeSchool this Sunday?" he replied in a somewhat cocky, almost matter of fact manner: "No thanks I've got the internet!" Under my breath I sarcastically muttered something about his comment being really funny, but the fact that I've remembered it, and been moved enough to write this piece about my thoughts, tells a different story. Is he right I wonder? This is a fundemental issue effecting the book trade right now, which this guy has just summed up in six flippant words. I do actually know (not think) know that he is actually wrong in his quick assessment for I too, in truth, could not do without the internet anymore than he probably could. I sell books on the internet, I use it as a global shop window for my business, I have a blog which I update almost daily, sometimes several times a day. I communicate with customers and other book sellers regularly by email. But you can't settle down with a good laptop, and you can't rustle your Daily Telegraph on the train on a wet Tuesday morning if it's in PDF format. You can't collect a rare book if it's virtual. The point is that the two mediums are not really in competition with each other, but rather they sit side by side. So I will continue to use the internet as a source of reference for many things, but it will never replace my reading when I want to relax, or stop me enjoying the traditional pleasure of browsing in the quiet of an old bookshop....
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