# The Slow Death of Barnes & Noble



## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Looks like the closing of Borders hasn't helped B&N at all. Their physical bookstores are closing and it's digital bookseller challenge to Amazon isn't doing well either.

http://mhpbooks.com/the-slow-death-of-barnes-and-noble/


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Adding ["B&N" AND "closing"] to my Google Alerts last year has produced a fascinating picture. This has always been a tale of leases. One of the key reasons Borders imploded was that many of their long term leases weren't going to come due for 5 years plus. B&N was in a better position. Many of theirs were terminating earlier. I'd assumed this meant that they would use this added leverage to renegotiate many of them at lower rates, but that was before this holiday season's shockingly bad results. Now we're seeing more and more straight-up closures.

It is important to note that the Nook division of B&N is behind a legal firewall. If B&N implodes, Nook Media LLC will float off into the sunset with that 300 million dollar cash infusion Microsoft gave them. The employees left behind won't be as lucky. And we're talking well over thirty thousand people here.

Sad news all around.

B.


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## John Daulton (Feb 28, 2012)

It seems to me, albeit from a totally anecdotal frame of reference, that B&N goes out of its way to make sure it's Nook bookstore is awful. I imagine them logging into Amazon and then covering their eyes and going "la la la la la la" as they scroll through all the lists and various ways to help readers find things, ignoring it all and logging out before leaning back and saying to one another, "Yeah, we're solid. How bout a round of golf?"


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## J.R. Thomson (Mar 30, 2011)

I never buy books at B&N stores... what I do is buy a Starbucks coffee, walk around and look at books.  If I see a book I'm interested in, I take a photo of it with my phone and download a sample when I get home.


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## scoutxx (Oct 23, 2009)

CabanaBooks.com said:


> If I see a book I'm interested in, I take a photo of it with my phone and download a sample when I get home.


You know you can just open the book and read a "sample" right there in the store, right?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

John Daulton said:


> It seems to me, albeit from a totally anecdotal frame of reference, that B&N goes out of its way to make sure it's Nook bookstore is awful. I imagine them logging into Amazon and then covering their eyes and going "la la la la la la" as they scroll through all the lists and various ways to help readers find things, ignoring it all and logging out before leaning back and saying to one another, "Yeah, we're solid. How bout a round of golf?"


I have to agree. From allowing spam in their reviews to the lack of lists to a god-awful search engine, they have to be working to make it bad.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

It's sad that B&N are subsiding, but it's not the end of the world. Books were sold before the Borders and B&N rose to prominence, and books will be sold long after they have sunk into retail history.

Hopefully, some entrepreneurial souls will see this as a sign that small, independent bookshops have a place on the retail landscape again. Hopefully, it will see the end of some of the more dubious business practices that were the scourge of the newly published and mid-list authors. 

And let's not forget that there are 16,000+ public libraries scattered across the USA where people can go and fondle books in comfort. Just because the shops are closed, doesn't mean people will never see a book again.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Can find and analyze lots of reasons for B&N's problems. But in the end, _*if*_ (when?) B&N closes its doors and turns out the lights, it will be sad--and a loss for readers and writers everywhere.


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## heavycat (Feb 14, 2011)

What fascinates me is the fact that even with the Internet, it is nearly impossible to find a printer in the US who will print up an order of hardback books. I finally succeeded, but not after a fair number of rather pointed exchanges with "printers" who didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about.

I can only imagine what it must be like for a bookstore. If we really have lost the knowledge and expertise in our society and economy to print and bind a hardcover book and make that service generally available, it stands to reason that the stores which rely on that basic function would be having problems.



> that B&N goes out of its way to make sure it's Nook bookstore is awful.


Most US companies divested themselves entirely of employees with computer skills 15 years ago. They were gettin' too uppity and makin' too much money.



> And let's not forget that there are 16,000+ public libraries scattered across the USA


For now. If you listen carefully you will hear the growing drumbeat against libraries, what with all the scary homeless people who lurk in them. School libraries have already been defunded, bulldozed and banned hereabouts while all the librarians were gleefully and vigorously fired.

According to the "everyone should major in engineering" crowd, librarian is not a marketable skill, you see.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Couldn't care less. In fact, it seems rather appropo that the same cutthroat business practices that brought them to prominence is now killing them off. If you don't change with the times, the times leave you behind and you wither and die. I suspect, and I have no evidence to back this statement up, that things will get better for both readers and writers after the dust of B&N's collapse settles, and new things start to grow, spurred on by the void in the market place they leave behind. I only hope that small indie bookstores are the ones that fill that void, and all of them with POD systems into which self-pubbed authors can feed their files.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> It's sad that B&N are subsiding, but it's not the end of the world. Books were sold before the Borders and B&N rose to prominence, and books will be sold long after they have sunk into retail history.
> 
> Hopefully, some entrepreneurial souls will see this as a sign that small, independent bookshops have a place on the retail landscape again.


If the indie book stores couldn't compete with Borders and B&N, they sure as heck aren't going to be competing successfully with Amazon for a workable piece of a smaller paper book market. If B&N goes, new paper books will be available only in Walwarts and supermarkets and Targets in the vast majority of towns in the U.S. It's the last thing I want to see happen -- an impossible situation for midlist authors -- and will cement Amazon's dominance over the paper market ridiculously.

Sent from my LG-VS700 using Tapatalk 2


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> It's the last thing I want to see happen -- an impossible situation for midlist authors -- and will cement Amazon's dominance over the paper market ridiculously.


Speaking of mid-list authors everyone might want to take a look at this interesting post by Diana Pharoah Francis on her inability to do more to sell her books - she specifically brings up B&N.

http://www.magicalwords.net/diana-pharaoh-francis/6876/


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## CarlG (Sep 16, 2012)

I think their physical stores are lovely. But as I've said before, I think Starbucks needs to purchase the chain of them and turn them into coffee-gift-book emporiums.

The online store, it seems, might be left in the dust by competitors willing and able to provide a better buying environment.

So far as independent bookstores, there will be a shift to larger ones. They will double as community centers for the literary-minded. Anecdotally, we had a B&N close in our town a year ago and just a month ago a beautiful big indie store opened downtown.


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## AshMP (Dec 30, 2009)

I noticed just the other day that the B&N by my home, the one I went to often to look for ideas on book covers, was gone.  I have to admit, my heart sunk just a little.  

I love book stores.  Love them!  I could literally spend hours inside one and do nothing but pick up books and look.  In our area, we have so few left.


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## D.L. Shutter (Jul 9, 2011)

Anyone else notice the slow evolve of Books A Million into "BAM" books, music, toys and whatever other nick-nacks they can stock. I still love book stores (whenever I can get to one as none are close!) but it's a bad sign for the future of dead tree distirbution when the only way they can stay in business is by selling everything else BUT books.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> If the indie book stores couldn't compete with Borders and B&N, they sure as heck aren't going to be competing successfully with Amazon for a workable piece of a smaller paper book market. If B&N goes, new paper books will be available only in Walwarts and supermarkets and Targets in the vast majority of towns in the U.S. It's the last thing I want to see happen -- an impossible situation for midlist authors -- and will cement Amazon's dominance over the paper market ridiculously.


Indie bookstores have been on the rise, actually. Largely from the closing of Borders. There will always be readers who want to support local bookstores. Not enough to keep the big chains open, but most large cities have a local bookshop that does well. If B&N closes down, the indies will pick up what little slack is left. (Most people will be purchasing their books online, of course. But not everyone).


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

On Diana Pharoah Francis, this line stood out: "many books aren’t even getting into BN. They are not getting shelf space at all. If a series isn’t doing well enough, the sequels simply don’t get ordered, a lot more than used to happen"

Well duh. Welcome to the world of 30 years ago I grew up in. Unless, of course, you happened to live in a major city or college town. People talk about this stuff like we always had these large stores on every streetcorner that sold a huge variety of books and that the decline of those superstores is somehow unusual.

When I was a tween to teen (and with no cable tv or internet, an almost ludicrously voracious reader regularly devouring 2-4 books a week), your options were simple: the indie store that had nothing but new releases and best seller, Waldens at the mall that had nothing but new releases and best sellers, or Paperback Booksmith at the other mall that had slightly more than the new releases and best sellers. And that was it. You got older books by ordering them or visiting a specialty indie who was, in my case, a two hour drive (that's on the highway) away.

Bounders and Buns and Noodle were an absolute nirvana for physical books, but probably an unsustainable one commercially. They put a lot of indies and other chains out of business because of the larger selection, but it was only a matter of time until even the successful locations realized that 90% of their income came from the 10% of stock which was, well, the same new releases and best sellers that Waldens used to stock. So now they're dropping locations or replacing that unproductive stock with other items.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

D.L. Shutter said:


> Anyone else notice the slow evolve of Books A Million into "BAM" books, music, toys and whatever other nick-nacks they can stock. I still love book stores (whenever I can get to one as none are close!) but it's a bad sign for the future of dead tree distirbution when the only way they can stay in business is by selling everything else BUT books.


You just blew my mind. Books A Million is still around?! I thought they closed down years ago. At least the physical stores in Georgia did.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> If B&N goes, new paper books will be available only in Walwarts and supermarkets and Targets in the vast majority of towns in the U.S. It's the last thing I want to see happen -- an impossible situation for midlist authors -- and will cement Amazon's dominance over the paper market ridiculously.


I agree with Hugh, Passive Voice guy posted an article on the rise of indie bookstores recently. But, still, with the loss of 2,000 physical B&N I'm gonna guess US physical book sales will fall by 40-50%. Now, I've heard the Big Six are making money hand over fist on ebooks, but I think that's mostly the best sellers, not the mid listers. Without a best seller push and with rapidly decreasing physical book shelf space, most mid listers are going to get more and more ebook only deals (or might as well). And at 17.5% royalties versus 70% I would hope more of those mid listers would start asking themselves what value they're getting for the trade off, but who knows.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Wansit said:


> Speaking of mid-list authors everyone might want to take a look at this interesting post by Diana Pharoah Francis on her inability to do more to sell her books - she specifically brings up B&N.
> 
> http://www.magicalwords.net/diana-pharaoh-francis/6876/


Wow. This is the kind of author I'd totally expect to find on the shelves in every B&N. In fact, I'm pretty sure I picked up _Bitter Night _in a B&N. If they're not stocking her ... well, that says an awful lot about the shrinkage of the mass-market paperback market.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Rykymus said:


> In fact, it seems rather appropo that the same cutthroat business practices that brought them to prominence is now killing them off.


B&N have been around for something like a hundred years. "Cutthroat business practices" didn't bring them to prominence; selling books did.



> If you don't change with the times, the times leave you behind and you wither and die.


B&N changed with the times. They just did so in a reactive, wishy-washy sort of way. First they sold books and magazines, and did it well. Then, books and magazines and music. Then, books and magazines and music and movies. Then books and magazines and music and movies and vaguely book-related gifts and accessories, like bookmarks and reading magnifiers and so on. Then, books and magazines and music and movies and gifts and accessories and coffee. Then, books and magazines and music and movies and gifts and accessories and coffee and food. Then, books and music and movies and gifts and accessories and coffee and food and stuff that had nothing to do with books, like board games. Then, books and music and movies and gifts and accessories and coffee and food and stuff that had nothing to do with books and e-readers and e-books. Then, with the Fire tablet, I guess books and music and movies and gifts and accessories and coffee and food and stuff that had nothing to do with books and e-readers and e-books and multimedia...

And other than the books and magazines, they never did any of it _well_, because it was never a priority, and they never made a serious effort to gain market share. The same with the website. They want to compete with Amazon, but they never offer any particularly great deals, because they don't really "get" e-commerce, and they screw up far, far more often, because they seem to think that 1990s-era brand loyalty gimmicks are still relevant and effective.

Soon, if all the prophets are to be believed, they'll wind up with a legacy of a much smaller company who just sell e-readers and e-books. And if they just stick to that, they'll probably be fine, but I have a suspicion they'll continue to make a half-assed effort to be twenty other things, and fail again at all of them.



Katie Elle said:


> ...it was only a matter of time until even the successful locations realized that 90% of their income came from the 10% of stock which was, well, the same new releases and best sellers that Waldens used to stock.


The problem, though, is that because of the heavy discounting and price matching everyone does, that 90% of their income made just maybe 5% of their _profit_. Maybe. If that. Making bestsellers and hot new releases loss-leaders would be a great idea, if the majority of customers _anywhere_ bought anything else.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> Indie bookstores have been on the rise, actually. Largely from the closing of Borders. There will always be readers who want to support local bookstores. Not enough to keep the big chains open, but most large cities have a local bookshop that does well. If B&N closes down, the indies will pick up what little slack is left. (Most people will be purchasing their books online, of course. But not everyone).





RobertJCrane said:


> I agree with Hugh, Passive Voice guy posted an article on the rise of indie bookstores recently. But, still, with the loss of 2,000 physical B&N I'm gonna guess US physical book sales will fall by 40-50%. Now, I've heard the Big Six are making money hand over fist on ebooks, but I think that's mostly the best sellers, not the mid listers. Without a best seller push and with rapidly decreasing physical book shelf space, most mid listers are going to get more and more ebook only deals (or might as well). And at 17.5% royalties versus 70% I would hope more of those mid listers would start asking themselves what value they're getting for the trade off, but who knows.


I remembering hearing this about indie bookstores, but I wonder about the long-term viability of the trend. How large a city will it take to support one, especially a non-niche store?

Of the four places I've lived in the last 20 years, only one has functioning new bookstores that aren't B&Ns: Madison, WI. It has a feminist bookstore and a Christian bookstore, though the former has recently merged with a used bookstore. None of the general indies there survived Borders. I don't know of any new ones that have opened up since.

Madison's a metro area of half a million with an unusually highly educated population. When Borders expanded out of Ann Arbor, Madison is where it went first. If the two B&Ns there close, will there be enough of a market to support a non-niche indie bookstore? Just based on numbers, it sounds like it could. The B&Ns are in mall/stripmall locations on opposite ends of the city, so right now they're splitting the market. On the other hand, they're accessible to suburban car shoppers and they're big enough to carry a large selection. Will those shoppers want to drive to a central downtown location, find parking, walk to the storefront, and perhaps end up special-ordering the book they want? Or will they just order from Amazon? What about when Amazon achieves cheaper one-day or same-day shipping?

I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine a general indie bookstore surviving in Madison, now, even in what should be one of the friendlier environments for book-selling in the U.S. And I don't live in a Madison kind of place, anymore. I suspect a large majority of post-B&N readers in the U.S. will be in the situation I'll be in: supermarket, Walmart, Target, or Amazon.


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## MLKatz (Sep 8, 2012)

I hope BN holds it together too. I have such great memories of taking my kids to events like midnight Harry Potter release parties. We'd usually see friends there and enjoy the type of community event it is not possible to duplicated on the web even with social websites. Then we'd all negotiate the reading schedule as one hardcover had to be shared with 4 family members (lots of colored bookmarks). 

Even though I am guilty of favoring e-books over print books these days, a trip t
BN is usually a special outing for all of us. Instead of dinner and a movie - it's dinner and a trip to BN. 

There is also a long-standing indie used book store in my neighborhood that has had to shrink down to about half of its former space. I also have such good memories of taking my kids there and letting them browse the shelves to pick out a book. They have a sofa where restless kids could read while the rest of us longer to pick out the day's find. I worry that a lot of older books may get ignored as they won't be showcased online, though that may provide a good opportunity for somebody.


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## Jessica R (Nov 11, 2012)

I hope we don't lose ours!  True, more often I buy a cheap copy online, but there's nothing like wandering around the book store.  My husband likes to buy me books or gift cards so I actually get things there on occasion.  Also, their classics are so fun.


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

Wansit said:


> You just blew my mind. Books A Million is still around?! I thought they closed down years ago. At least the physical stores in Georgia did.


They're still open in Florida - we have a couple here in our area.


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## Karl Fields (Jan 24, 2011)

Wansit said:


> You just blew my mind. Books A Million is still around?! I thought they closed down years ago. At least the physical stores in Georgia did.


A beautiful, two-story location here in Houston that had been open for about two years closed on Christmas Eve.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

Time ago, there were several books stores of note in Lower Manhattan.  The flagship, as it were, was Borders, on the corner of WTC 5, at the edge of the World Trade Center.  It was spacious, split-level, with celebrities signing books--Walter Cronkite, Mia Farrow.  You could eat, browse through international newspapers and magazines, as well as books.  It caught fire on 9/11 and burned into December, when crews brought it down with a wrecking ball (bong bong bong) as firefighters hosed the smoking ruin.

Some time after that, a very small book store went up on Park Row across from the WTC.  A year or so after that, Borders opened a big store on Broadway compereable to the WTC store.  I purchased a few books there.  It was a good place to hang out on cold winter days.  Then last year, that became an empty space.  That was the end of the big stores in Lower Manhattan.  We are all poorer for that.

I noticed that the B&N in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is still around; also, the small independent store six blocks up Seventh Avenue there.  You can chalk that brick-and-mortar success up to the affluent, loyal book lovers who live in the Slope.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Walmart didn't have _A Memory of Light_ when I went to buy it on Jan 8. I ended up getting it at Costco, which has a larger selection of books.

Barnes and Noble would have been the next place I tried, but I would have paid 50% more there. THAT is what is killing Barnes and Noble. Their prices are outrageous.


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## Lee44 (Sep 9, 2012)

It just makes me sad when familiar companies go out of business.  I enjoy going to bookstores, B&N in particular.  But I have to admit that Amazon has cut that excursion down quite significantly.  It's just sad when icons fold.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

It's tough for B&N.

People love to browse the books, then go home and order from Amazon. People use the children's section as a day care, letting kids read the books (and get them too funky to sell), without buying anything. People love the wide selection, but buy from limited-selection outlets like Costco (mine stocks about 60 titles at a time) and Walmart to get a lower price. 

Amazon sacrifices physicality to get selection and low prices. Costco sacrifices selection to get physicality and low prices. But people expect B&N to provide all three, which is unrealistic.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Jan Strnad said:


> It's tough for B&N.
> 
> People love to browse the books, then go home and order from Amazon. People use the children's section as a day care, letting kids read the books (and get them too funky to sell), without buying anything. People love the wide selection, but buy from limited-selection outlets like Costco (mine stocks about 60 titles at a time) and Walmart to get a lower price.
> 
> Amazon sacrifices physicality to get selection and low prices. Costco sacrifices selection to get physicality and low prices. But people expect B&N to provide all three, which is unrealistic.


Good Summary
Personally I prefer Amazon's way and the backlist availability is much better. I don't feel like Amazon is forcing me to buy the latest fad book


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Jan Strnad said:


> It's tough for B&N.
> 
> People love to browse the books, then go home and order from Amazon. People use the children's section as a day care, letting kids read the books (and get them too funky to sell), without buying anything. People love the wide selection, but buy from limited-selection outlets like Costco (mine stocks about 60 titles at a time) and Walmart to get a lower price.
> 
> Amazon sacrifices physicality to get selection and low prices. Costco sacrifices selection to get physicality and low prices. But people expect B&N to provide all three, which is unrealistic.


Well said, Jan.


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

When Borders was -- I supported it. I was a Borders Rewards member. Got coupons via e-mail usually with decent percentage discount. I used those coupons. Couldn't resist weekly (or more) trip to Borders to buy a book. My bookshelves are full of beautiful books, most with graphics. I hadn't "straight read" for years until Kindles came out. That's the way I got my reading books. But I did support Borders. There's a B&N just block or two further than Borders was -- rarely go there. That B&N is *HUGE* (two floors). I would think far too big for what their sales are these days.


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## sjc (Oct 29, 2008)

Another thought:  In the world of texting, streaming, cellphones that practically walk and talk, video games galore, xBox, playstation, Fbook, twitter and so much more:  How many of today's youth (in general) are reading?  Now all they read are each other's texts, tweets and what have you. When I was young; we looked forward to Library day and we were thrilled to get 2 books per week:  Lucky if some read two books per year; SAD. I had one bookworm and one mediocre reader. It's such a sad thing. BTW:  My old Borders is turning into a gym.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Another thought: In the world of texting, streaming, cellphones that practically walk and talk, video games galore, xBox, playstation, Fbook, twitter and so much more: How many of today's youth (in general) are reading?


Given that the hottest genre for the last 15 years has been childrens and young adult books, I'd say quite a few of those xbox playing tweens and txt'ing teens managed to find a bit of time to read Harry Potter and Twilight.


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

I'm just gonna repost this here...

From the National Endowment for the Arts:

"For the first time in more than 25 years, American adults are reading more literature, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise documents a definitive increase in rates and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest increases among young adults, ages 18-24. This new growth reverses two decades of downward trends cited previously in NEA reports such as Reading at Risk and To Read or Not To Read." (January, 2009)

http://www.nea.gov/news/news09/readingonrise.html
www.nea.gov/research/readingonrise.pdf

From the Pew Research Center:

"Although they're frequently criticized for not reading anything longer than 140 characters, a new study from Pew Research Center shows younger Americans are more likely to read books and use their local library than older adults.

Researchers at Pew surveyed young peoples' reading habits and library use over the past year as part of their Internet and American Life Project. The study found eight in 10 Americans under the age of 30 have read a book in the past year, compared to seven in 10 adults in general. The report also found that 60 percent of Americans under 30 had used their library in the past year." (October, 2012)

http://neatoday.org/2012/11/16/more-young-americans-are-reading-new-study-finds/
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/files/legacy-pdf/PIP_YoungerLibraryPatrons.pdf

The kids are all right.

B.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

If B&N dies, I will miss it.  I grew up with Waldenbooks and B. Dalton as my principal book sources, and viewed their limited selection (especially in non-fiction) as the way things were.  Sometimes I'd order history books by mail. The first large bookstore I saw was a Barnes & Noble in Ann Arbor, MI.  I was visiting a friend there, and she took me to it, and my jaw dropped!  I couldn't believe it, and assumed it was a unique local bookstore.  A few months later I saw a store in another city while traveling for work, and began to figure things out!   

I briefly resented B&N, as eventually I moved to Oklahoma City where there was a good-sized independent bookstore that tried desperately to beat B&N at their own game by becoming like them and opening a coffee shop before B&N came to town.  It didn't work, and I have vivid memories of feeling like a vulture as I bought a stack of heavily-discounted books at the local store's going out of business sale when they were driven under.  Fortunately, my irritation at B&N didn't last.  I always liked their stores better than Border's.

B&N still has some dedicated paper book patrons.  I have enabled my mother on Kindle, and her sister is considering getting an ebook reader.  But she is a heavy user of B&N, keeps up a membership in their discount club, and is eyeing the Nook.  But she is in her seventies, and is definitely not the wave of the future.

If B&N "dies", I'll attend the funeral with genuine regret and a feeling of shock how irrelevant they've become to me.  I think I've been in a B&N perhaps twice in the last year or two.  I seldom even shop in their online store--I took advantage of a deep discount Christmas promotion to order a massive Calvin & Hobbes collection, and that was my first order from them in a couple of years.

I have the feeling that there must be some way for B&N to take advantage of being physically present with helpful staff, and make that into a competitive edge, but I have no idea how to do it, and they don't seem to either.  Same problem that confronts Best Buy, in being a showroom for online retailers.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I do find this very sad.  As a fan of books, I still like wandering around in a bookstore.  I would hate to lose that.


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## sjc (Oct 29, 2008)

B. Justin Shier said:


> I'm just gonna repost this here...
> 
> From the National Endowment for the Arts:
> 
> ...


My mediocre reader did the Potter Series... My avid reader reads everything she can get her hands on; from Lord of the Rings, Hobbit...to Star Wars. The mediocre readers only read the hot hot thing that catches them. Wish we had another Harry type series to interest them some more!!


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> Can find and analyze lots of reasons for B&N's problems. But in the end, _*if*_ (when?) B&N closes its doors and turns out the lights, it will be sad--and a loss for readers and writers everywhere.


A loss, but only in the most cosmetic sense of the word. I love walking around B&N, but I've only bought books there when others have bought me gift cards. Authors and readers will find other outlets for books, whether they're the indie stores, libraries or on-line channels. The death of B&N has no relevance  lasting impact on to literature, writing, publishing or reading.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

EC Sheedy said:


> Can find and analyze lots of reasons for B&N's problems. But in the end, _*if*_ (when?) B&N closes its doors and turns out the lights, it will be sad--and a loss for readers and writers everywhere.


In the United States.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

AmsterdamAssassin said:


> In the United States.


Yes, this. Barnes & Noble doesn't operate outside the US, unless you count the recent Nook forray into the UK. The death of Borders bothered me a lot more, because they took down their UK subsidiary, the former _Books etc_ chain, with them and left UK bookselling only in the hands of Waterstone's and W.H. Smith. And I always liked Books etc and the equally defunct Dillon's better than Waterstone's or W.H. Smith

However, the loss of Barnes & Noble wouldn't bother me much. I'm not even sure if I've ever been inside a Barnes & Noble store. I have been in mega bookstores in the US, but the one I remember most clearly was Joseph Beth, an indie bookstore (first mega bookstore I ever saw, long before such stores were common in Europe). I have been inside a Borders or B&N store in Boston more than ten years ago, but I can't for the life of me tell you which of the two it was, since "green logo, name starts with a B" applies to both.

The main negative impact of a potential B&N collapse I see for bookbuyers abroad is that the loss of B&N will mean lower print runs, which may make US books more difficult to come by for print readers outside the US. And outside the US, the majority of people still prefers print.


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