Welsh Journals

UK and internationally: Waterstone's have left the WH Smith Group, and have merged with Dillons, to create a group with more than 200 outlets under the HMV umbrella. This is the UK's first super-bookselling group. Book trade experts suspect there may well be more to come. Borders, one of the two major chains in the US, have bought Books Etc, and set up their first superstore in Oxford Street in London. They must be seen now as a major contender in the UK bookselling market. They are also developing international projects, opening superstores in the UK, Singapore and Australia. Barnes & Noble, the other major US chain, now share with Bertelsmann joint ownership of barnesand noble.com, their Internet bookshop. This is part of Bertelsmann's global strategy to enable them to compete with Amazon.com. Barnes & Noble have also bought Ingram, one of the two leading wholesalers in the US. Bertelsmann have bought Random House. Amazon.com are worth more than$6bn on the US stockmarket, more than B&N and Borders together, while continuing to make substantial losses. Amazon have bought Book Pages and renamed it Amazon.com.uk. WH Smith have bought the Internet Bookshop for iSm. There are other developments that could be mentioned. But the point is clear. The hitherto familiar shape of the book world is changing very rapidly. It is possible to regard what is happening as the equivalent of an ice age. The clouds have descended and it is difficult to see what is going on. What kind of new landscape will emerge when they clear? Why has this happened and what does it mean? Is it a madhouse, or is there a logic hidden somewhere? What follows is a tentative analysis from my own perspective from which it appears possible to discover some pointers to the future. An analysis will draw the following conclusions as to the significant trends.