Good luck, guys.

Even as a member of the publishing community, with (slightly) more awareness of the business than the average person, I don't frequent publishers' sites to get the books I want. It involves more time and effort to find what you're looking for: a Google search to find out who publishes the title you need, then a visit to that publisher's site; or a visit to Amazon to find the book and publisher, then the journey to the publisher site. It doesn't make sense for anyone to go through all that to find books, especially as the convenience of shopping online is a big factor for consumers. It's easier to remember a title and fish it out of a wider pool (Amazon or Powells, i.e. the carriers of all the major and many smaller presses) than to limit yourself to only one publisher.

Part of the appeal of Amazon is the recommendations at the bottom of the screen; even if individual publisher sites had this same technology, the options would be comparably limited - and consumers like to feel they have options (milk, for example: 2%, 1%, nonfat, Vitamin D, whole, acidophilus, lactose-reduced, ultra-heated, ultrafiltration, soy, rice, etc, etc, etc). More is always more.

I can understand the effort publishers are putting into their sites to make them more consumer-focused and -friendly; why shouldn't they? It's worth a shot, right? The ideal upshot would be more direct-to-consumer sales, cutting out the middleman (the distributor), thus earning and saving money for the publisher. The downside is the continued negligible direct sales. I suspect as well that the Amazon Machine has lit a fire under their asses to make more of an online effort. Publishers can see that online book sales are extremely profitable (the most profitable, actually) and are developing ways to try and get in on that action. You can see it on websites such as Simon & Schuster's, with the user-friendly design and videos and interviews. They see the value in creating an online community, as Nancy says in her blog, but haven't figured out how to get customers there in the first place.

It will be interesting to see what publishers will do in the future. Wouldn't it be great if they all joined together and created a site to rival Amazon's? Imagine the discounts! And the logistics of arranging that. Yikes...