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In the world of journalism it's called a "reverse ferret" - a story breathlessly announcing that Black is White, just 24 hours after publishing, it's a volte-face. Whatever it is, James Daunt, owner of Daunt Books and managing director of the Waterstones chain, executed a classic twirl last weekend. He talked to The Observer's Robert McCrum about the current fortunes of publishing. What, McCrum asked, should a modern British bookseller do about the digital behemoths of Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft? The answer, Daunt said, is to "insinuate ourselves into the (digital) process", by persuading Waterstones customers to choose an e-reader sponsored by the company, and buy e-books to read on it. "We'll be different from Amazon," he said darkly, "and we'll be better." What a difference a day makes. The following morning, to general consternation, Daunt announced that Waterstones would henceforth be selling Kindles, and its various "digital services" (i.e. e-books) in all its shops. "Our customers want to read digitally," Daunt said, and the new partnership with Amazon "will provide a dramatically better digital-reading experience" - whatever that might be. Daunt was brought into Britain's largest bookselling company last year as a swashbuckler, a man to halt the bookshop's slide in choice and revenues. He was welcomed as a combination of Indiana Jones and Red Adair, the Texan fixer of rogue oil wells. The reaction to his bombshell has been crushing disappointment. "It's a sad day for British publishing," says Jamie Byng, boss of Canongate, the independent publishers, "because it hands over to Amazon the whole of the digital market that Waterstones might have had." — The Independent
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