There was a time when avid readers were frequent customers of small, neighborhood bookstores – these were the places where books lived and could be bought. Then the big chain bookstores: B Dalton, Crown, Borders, and Barnes & Noble shoved the small shops out of existence. The book buyer’s expectations changed as the venue changed.
Barnes & Noble and Amazon have been duking it out for control of the print book market for some time. Then, about three years ago, eReaders came on the scene and the venue changed again.
Broadsiding Bookstores
Paper books are far from dead, but they are losing market share rapidly. Barnes & Noble, captained by C.E.O. William J. Lynch Jr. and having shoved out most of the chain stores as the chain stores had the independent book shops, is the last bastion and hope of the legacy publishing industry and is locked in a broad-side battle with Jeff Bezos, skipper of the gunship Amazon.com.
Despite its over 700 brick and mortar book stores, Mr. Lynch describes Barnes & Noble as a technology company and they are pouring money into Nook as they fight against Amazon’s Kindle and dominance of eBook sales. In early January, Barnes & Noble projected that it would lose even more money this year than Wall Street had expected. Its share price promptly tumbled 17 percent. The big publishing houses are starting to worry about the last viable shelf space available for their print books. What if that shelf space begins to disappear? No one expects Barnes & Noble to fold up overnight, but as they focus more on eBooks and their fight with Amazon, they may decide that their physical presences are not economically viable in view of the shrinking market share of print books.
Alternatives to Bookstores
Yes, we can buy books at Wal-Mart and the supermarket, but selections are severely limited. Yes, publishers could open their own eStores to sell print books, (or knuckle under and sell on Amazon) but aficionados of paper books tend to enjoy the browsing experience. The look and feel of a book is an important part of the book buying experience.
Wouldn’t it be a delicious irony if Big 6 publishers began to woo those willing to open independent book stores again as they seek shelf space? It could be that the Mom & Pop bookstores with shoe-string budgets and low overhead because they employ the family will again become the primary outlet for the printed word.
Resource: New York Times
It just goes to show that you’re never too big to fail. After watching Borders collapse (a shame since I always liked their stores much better than B&N) I would have thought B&N would get much more with the game. After all, they appeared, for a while, to be the only big legacy book seller that “got it” (the nook color was an excellent shot across Amazon’s bow). But now I’m not so sure. Their recent press releases and announcements seem more to point towards a rudderless ship.
I understand their technology company standpoint, and in truth think their hardware is superior to Amazon’s. But they really need to become an experience company. I think that’s the only way they’ll continue to thrive. Unfortunately boneheaded moves such as threatening to not carry Amazon published books make me think that now would be a good time for B&N to reconsider their leadership.
It does seem that throwing all the bookstores overboard and then scuttling the ship would be a bonehead move, doesn’t it? Thanks for adding your insight, Rick
One of my pleasures is to rove around B&N with all the selections, but I do enjoy finding the smaller stores more. They have less space, so their purchasing is tighter. I love finding the specialty stores that are still out there: I really miss the SciFi bookstore that was in NYC for so many years. Found work I never saw elsewhere.
Agreed; I like the eclectic little shops best. Unfortunately the only small bookstores I can find anywhere near here these days are used books. Better than nothing: still have a lot of things I’ve not encountered before, but not a source for current works. Thanks for stopping in Stu.
As you know Allan, I’m tackling this in my home island in my little way. It would help to have B&N willing to carry quality indie books!! Well said!
Yes, and I wish you much success with that. As far as I know, B&N is not adamantly opposed to carrying Indie books, but they do require them to be returnable and a minimum of 55% discount. That eliminates Createspace books, but Lightning Source will comply. Just this morning I read a post by Terri Giuliano about how she got In Leah’s Wake into B&N by printing a second edition of the book through LS – and the headaches this caused.
Yeah, I talked to two stores here and they said they’d carry it if it was returnable and hav 55%. BUT–at LS, it’s either all or nothing. I can’t specifiy to them YES to that at B&N in Hawaii, where I’m confident the books will sell. It’s either yes 100% or no 100% and that puts me at risk for all returned books, anywhere in the US that decides to carry them.
Which I feel I can’t assume, it’s too potentially expensive… So until that’s resolved I don’t know what to do.
That’s a good point: no distributor I know of lets you pick and choose the stores it will do business with. As I explored in a previous post, the cost of returned books can end up costing you more than you made from the initial sale. Definitely a risk if you’re not sure of your market – and going mainland to promote and tour would (I assume) be out of the question.
I also assume, since you have talked to them, that the local stores can not buy directly from you even is you set yourself up as a publisher/distributor. They have to order stock through a central B&N distribution channel?
Here in Bergen County, NJ, 3 new independent bookstores have opened in the past 18 months. They are doing fine and they regularly hold book signings. One, they are proximate to NYC so they can draw the celebrity authors and two, it seems as thought they have the right small store formula. The store are bright, cheery, not jammed with books. They have a small classics section, a local authors’ section, the impulse section and the mid list section. They basically have everything you need. They work.
That’s great news, Greg, thanks for sharing! We have several used book stores that survived the Megastore Crush, and are now beginning to carry new titles. I believe they’ll evolve back into the familiar small book store. As you say, they offer a great environment that invites people to stay, browse and read, not just aisles and aisles of books.