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[Loxley]

I've always loved Barnes & Noble, it's one of the few brick n' mortar retailers I have no problem at all supporting.

Granted I'm talking strictly about their books here, they can go fuck themselves if they expect me to pay $29.99 - $39.99 for a blu-ray. How the hell they managed to make their way through a recession and still sell movies at those prices is a complete mystery to me. The Nook is obviously what's saved them from becoming the next Borders, at least for the immediate future; it's definitely a solid device.

 

[Arpeggio23]

I can solve all of the publishers' and Barnes & Noble's problems right now:

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Do those things and millions of people will start buying print books from Barnes & Noble again. Yay. I just saved an entire industry and thousands of jobs.

 

[outunderthestars]

I can solve all of the publishers' and Barnes & Noble's problems right now:

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Do those things and millions of people will start buying print books from Barnes & Noble again. Yay. I just saved an entire industry and thousands of jobs.

No, you would bankrupt them in six months.

 

[teiresias]

My sympathy for the corporation that put countless independent bookstores out of business is precisely zero. Which is exactly how much business they've gotten from me the in the past few years.

 

[Baconsammy]

But where will I buy overpriced cookies and week-old cheesecake slices from Cheesecake Factory?

 

[HappyBivouac]

The second sentence in the article is not a complete sentence.

 

[outunderthestars]

My sympathy for the corporation that put countless independent bookstores out of business is precisely zero. Which is exactly how much business they've gotten from me the in the past few years.

Which corporation are you complaining about? They both have had an impact on local booksellers.

 

[Sleepy]

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. .

Borders were the fucking worst with this and discolored pages, beaten-up spines, creased pages/covers. After I bought a book with underlining and margin notes from them, granted I didn't take the time to look, I never went back. I'm happy Borders are gone.

 

[faceless007]

Their customer base made puts Amazon at the top. Even BN admitted that they weren't selling enough Nook Touch devices.

Amazon has the advantage of being able to splash huge ads for the Kindle on the front page of the biggest storefront on the Web and having enormous brand recognition. How many people bought a Kindle without even considering the alternatives?

 

[Invisible_Insane]

I can solve all of the publishers' and Barnes & Noble's problems right now:

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Do those things and millions of people will start buying print books from Barnes & Noble again. Yay. I just saved an entire industry and thousands of jobs.

The only thing that could make this post better is for you to reveal that you went to Wharton or something.

I can't say I'm thrilled about the publishing industry lurching in the direction of digital oligopoly; then again, it's not clear that that differs significantly from the status quo.

 

[Emitan]

Don't get it. How is someone buying an e-book different than someone buying a physical book to a publisher? Don't they actually get more money this way?

 

[Invisible_Insane]

Don't get it. How is someone buying an e-book different than someone buying a physical book to a publisher? Don't they actually get more money this way?

The point is that amazon is trying to kill the publishers / be the publisher.

 

[Phoenix]

They already do that by selling through the Kindle store which runs on everything including the 60 million iPads. Why limit yourself to only that number when you can target more? By the say, the Adobe software cant make interative iBooks. The publishers will still have to use Apple's tool and all the restrictions that comes with it.



It's a good layout engine for textbooks perhaps but iBooks author doesn't even support basic flipping pages in portrait mode. It's not a good layout engine for regular books. Amazon has some good features for textbooks too that people seem to be ignoring like Popular highlights and that xray lookup. it's not clear cut that Apple is going to the best option out there

I definitely wouldn't call them the best, but they will be a strong runner.

 

[EviLore]

I can solve all of the publishers' and Barnes & Noble's problems right now:

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Do those things and millions of people will start buying print books from Barnes & Noble again. Yay. I just saved an entire industry and thousands of jobs.

Free vodka martinis and BJs for all customers while you're at it.

Brick and mortar retail stores have massive overhead compared to online stores. You can't achieve price parity in any sort of sustainable way, and people are caring less and less about the whole "experience" of shopping for consumer goods in person compared to saving money buying them online, as they become accustomed to it. Clothes shopping may remain, but books? The pricing difference is bad enough, but books are being supplanted by ebooks, and there just isn't any reason whatsoever to go to a brick and mortar shop for an ebook.

Barnes and Noble might survive in a different form as an online ebook/ereader seller, but the brick and mortar stores are on their way out.

 

[outunderthestars]

Amazon has the advantage of being able to splash huge ads for the Kindle on the front page of the biggest storefront on the Web and having enormous brand recognition. How many people bought a Kindle without even considering the alternatives?

And how did they become the biggest storefront on the web? By creating customer loyalty. e-readers existed for years before Amazon rolled out the Kindle. They didn't position themselves as the default e-reader, the marketplace positioned them as that by purchasing the Kindle.

 

[beelzebozo]

if i could get a paper and a digital copy by buying at B&N, i would switch my book buying to them almost wholesale.

 

[LaserBuddha]

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

You say you can solve all of their problems. So you start out by telling them to fix a known problem that they would have loved to fix for years now. Obviously you must be bringing it up because you have a solution! Oh wait, just telling them to solve it is your solution, and you don't know or care how to do that. This sounds like a 3rd grade writing assignment. "I think it's bad when people can't get enough to eat so we should give everyone in the world enough food so that they aren't hungry.".

Yes, someone DOES care about the financial reasons. Money is what is actually being discussed here. Money is the entire source of a company's power to exist or do anything whatsoever.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Look at how much space the books in the store take up. Now imagine 5 times that number of books in that mythical land known to obtuse shoppers as "In the Back". Is this a spacial logic issue, or do you think they have multi-story basements?

Not to mention that if they're having money trouble with the current stocked-vs.-sold ratio, multiplying it would be suicidal.

 

[Invisible_Insane]

Free vodka martinis and BJs for all customers while you're at it.

Brick and mortar retail stores have massive overhead compared to online stores. You can't achieve price parity in any sort of sustainable way, and people are caring less and less about the whole "experience" of shopping for consumer goods in person compared to saving money buying them online, as they become accustomed to it. Clothes shopping may remain, but books? The pricing difference is bad enough, but books are being supplanted by ebooks, and there just isn't any reason whatsoever to go to a brick and mortar shop for an ebook.

Barnes and Noble might survive in a different form as an online ebook/ereader seller, but the brick and mortar stores are on their way out.

What the hell is a vodka martini?

 

[jamesinclair]

The publishers are right, a world without B&M stores is a world with less sales.

What do people do:

1) Spend an hour wandering around a bookstore, picking up stuff theyve never heard of and buying something that caught their eye
or
2) Spend an hour wandering from amazon page to amazon page, picking up stuff theyve never heard of and buying something that caught their eye

The fact is, "web wandering" isnt as engaging. People dont do that. At best, youll look at 2-3 suggestions, but really nothing more.

Meaning people only get exposed to "top 20" and things like that.

Music doesnt need record stores because looking at CD cases doesnt tell you shit about the song. Youre exposed via radio, pandora etc.

Books dont have that. Exposure comes from:

1) Wandering around a book store
2) Word of mouth, limited to stuff like harry potter and hunger games
3) Top 20 lists / occasional reviews

You kill number 1, and youre left with the Katy Perrys of the book world. If I were to self-publish, how would anyone find my book on amazon unless I directly linked them to it?



Right now amazon is a massive free-rider. People go into the store, browse, and order online.

Thats not sustainable. When the store is gone, sales will drop, and that will actually hurt amazon as well.

 

[The Faceless Master]

i don't see how book publishers can solve this. honestly, they can't, they're just obsolete.

 

[faceless007]

And how did they become the biggest storefront on the web? By creating customer loyalty. e-readers existed for years before Amazon rolled out the Kindle.

Yes, that's my point. Lots of people bought the Kindle because of branding and customer loyalty, not because they thought it's the best product. And I'm not saying the Kindle is bad, but rational consumers weight the merits of all possibilities, not just pick the first one they see.

 

[Rentahamster]

Capitalism is based upon the market requiring human labor to make the wheel go around.

Marxism (labor theory of value) is the one that requires labor in order for a product to have more value, not Capitalism.

Capitalism just requires that people ascribe their own value to the end product based on how much they want it (i.e. demand).

 

[outunderthestars]

Yes, that's my point. Lots of people bought the Kindle because of branding and customer loyalty, not because they thought it's the best product. And I'm not saying the Kindle is bad, but rational consumers weight the merits of all possibilities, not just pick the first one they see.

"best" is subjective.


Personally, I care about user experience and customer support more than tech specs. Other people may prefer the feature set of another product. That is how it goes.

 

[LaserBuddha]

The Kindle was better made, cheaper, and had a vastly superior storefront compared to (most?) any e-ink reader that came before it. I wouldn't put too much stock in branding being the main reason for the sudden interest. It was a practical device that people felt confident would give them access to any book they wanted to read on the cheap.

 

[Jhriad]

I love bookstores and I wish Barnes & Noble the best but they'd receive more business from me if I didn't see the exact same books on Amazon for 40% less. Maybe incentivize Nook owners to come into the store by giving them a discount when they purchase books on their Nook in the store. Turn the store into a browsing gallery that can leverage it's strengths. Hell, if they do that I'd buy a Nook.

 

[outunderthestars]

I love bookstores and I wish Barnes & Noble the best but they'd receive more business from me if I didn't see the exact same books on Amazon for 40% less. Maybe incentivize Nook owners to come into the store by giving them a discount when they purchase books on their Nook in the store. Turn the store into a browsing gallery that can leverage it's strengths. Hell, if they do that I'd buy a Nook.

That is brilliant! I can't believe they have not tried that, as it would drive customers into their stores, and would give people an incentive to buy...

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

I can solve all of the publishers' and Barnes & Noble's problems right now:

1.) Price all print books sold at B&N exactly the same as Amazon's prices. Yes, I have read all of the excuses which claim this is impossible for whatever financial reasons. No one cares. Just make it happen.

2.) Have 1 copy of each book on the shelf at B&N for people to flip through and get food all over at the cafe. Have at least 5 additional, brand-new, never-touched copies of each book in the back. If I want to buy the gross, flipped-through, food-covered, damaged book off the shelf, I can. Or, I can ask the salesperson to get me a nice, new, fresh copy from the back that is completely soil-free. You know, like how a print book arrives from Amazon.

Do those things and millions of people will start buying print books from Barnes & Noble again. Yay. I just saved an entire industry and thousands of jobs.

What if two people want to look at the same book? Then you'd have to stock each shelf with more or less "browsing only" books depending on how popular you expect a particular book to be. Which would make me think that people would only browse the books with the most copies simply because they would correlate popularity with quality.

Another solution is to let the physical stores stay the same and offer the same experience as always, but give consumers an online virtual bookstore that lets you easily browse 3D shelves stocked the exact same as the real stores with all the books in the same order/priority as the shelves in the actual stores. Let people browse "aisles" of books without being distracted by how many stars it got or whatever. Just a very clean, simple, and yet spontaneous experience of browsing through books as people normally do in any real bookstore.

 

[LaserBuddha]

I love bookstores and I wish Barnes & Noble the best but they'd receive more business from me if I didn't see the exact same books on Amazon for 40% less. Maybe incentivize Nook owners to come into the store by giving them a discount when they purchase books on their Nook in the store. Turn the store into a browsing gallery that can leverage it's strengths. Hell, if they do that I'd buy a Nook.

I wonder if there is a cheap/practical way to integrate a barcode scanner into one of these things. Then as they are browsing, they can just scan the book on the shelf they are interested in and have it bring up the Nook version. Of course, Amazon could be deliciously evil and do it themselves.

 

[faceless007]

"best" is subjective.

My point is if a consumer didn't even bother to consider any other possibilities, they never even made a decision on which one is "best." It's like Apple and the iPod. There are better MP3 players out there, but the iPod is so far entrenched as the "default" one in the public's eye that the others are never considered.

If, after comparing the products, you still go for the Kindle, fine, I'm not disagreeing. But most people don't even do that.

 

[outunderthestars]

I wonder if there is a cheap/practical way to integrate a barcode scanner into one of these things. Then as they are browsing, they can just scan the book on the shelf they are interested in and have it bring up the Nook version. Of course, Amazon could be deliciously evil and do it themselves.

A camera can do the same thing.

 

[LaserBuddha]

A camera can do the same thing.

Yeah but I'm talking about a ~$99 e-ink device.

Spoiler

Gameboy Camera! :O

 

[outunderthestars]

Yeah but I'm talking about a ~$99 e-ink device.

Spoiler

Gameboy Camera! :O

a cheap camera is less expensive than a barcode scanner.

 

[CrocMother]

BN may die out, but there will always be a market for local, second hand bookstores. There may not be billions in corporate profits in them, but nevertheless traditional binded books will never "die out".

I mean, musicians are still releasing their albums on vinyl.

 

[DarkKyo]

Here's what Maurice Sendak has to say about e-books: http://youtu.be/bXiUFzDcMcI?t=16s

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Here's what Maurice Sendak has to say about e-books: http://youtu.be/bXiUFzDcMcI?t=16s

lol childrens books

I personally also can't stand e-books I much prefer to hold a book in my hands

 

[Baconsammy]

Does Barnes and Nobles even compete with Amazon? On my Kindle I get a free book every month (from a good, but not great, selection of books), I can borrow or lend my e-books to family members, and I can loan e-books from my local library. Does the Nook do all that? If not, I don't see any reason why they should succeed. I also own an iPad, which means I have access to iBooks (terrible), Amazon, and BN. In terms of price and selection, there appears to be very little difference between BN and Amazon, but those other Kindle-based advantages are reason enough for me to own a Kindle.

 

[faceless007]

Here's what Maurice Sendak has to say about e-books: http://youtu.be/bXiUFzDcMcI?t=16s

Kids' books and picture books seems to me something to worry about in a publisher-less world. Do really want to make it so families have to buy an expensive tablet just to teach their kids how to read?

 

[faceless007]

Does Barnes and Nobles even compete with Amazon? On my Kindle I get a free book every month (from a good, but not great, selection of books),

Technically not free as you need Prime. And it's not entirely clear if Amazon really has the rights do do that under their contracts with publishers.

I can borrow or lend my e-books to family members, and I can loan e-books from my local library.

Nook does those.

 

[Good Job Bob]

Kids' books and picture books seems to me something to worry about in a publisher-less world. Do really want to make it so families have to buy an expensive tablet just to teach their kids how to read?

Tablets should be ubiquitous in the future, you'll have a tablet before you have a kid.

 

[Tobor]

I don't want monopoly, but this does nothing to change the fact that publishers' own stupidity pushed them into this situation.

Plus, aren't we overeacting? It might not be ideal, but all the fear is about situation that will be repeat of iTunes scenario and somehow music didn't die because of iTunes dominance.

This won't be a repeat of the iTunes scenario. Say what you want about Apple, but they don't publish music. The record studios have always been free to sell music rights to multiple stores. iTunes has some exclusive content, like the Beatles, but Apple is not the publisher, EMI is. Once the deal expires, EMI can add the Beatles to other stores if they choose.

In books, Amazon is setting itself up as the major publisher. They want to be iTunes and EMI both. That's the issue. It's possible for other companies to compete with Apple in music, Amazon in books will have no such competition once the major publishers are out of business.

 

[Invisible_Insane]

Kids' books and picture books seems to me something to worry about in a publisher-less world. Do really want to make it so families have to buy an expensive tablet just to teach their kids how to read?

Will tablets always be expensive?

And in any case, that's what public libraries are for.

 

[Raistlin]

Cutting out the middle man sounds good. Let the market decide.

Unless Amazon and the like will actually offer funding, I don't see how losing publishers entirely is a good thing regardless of what 'the market' decides

 

[Baconsammy]

Technically not free as you need Prime. And it's not entirely clear if Amazon really has the rights do do that under their contracts with publishers.


Nook does those.

Yeah, not free per se, but is a huge benefit in addition to free shipping on everything I buy, and unlimited video watching, which allowed me to quit Netflix. I find it hard to feel bad for BN. If you want to win, offer more than your competition.

And as far as I can tell, Amazon hasn't cut out any middleman. Any time you buy an e-book from Amazon you're completing a transaction directly with the publisher, which is why I pay tax on ebooks but on nothing else from Amazon.

 

[faceless007]

Will tablets always be expensive?

They'll always be more expensive than books, I'm pretty sure.

And in any case, that's what public libraries are for.

Who's gonna supply them with books if there are no more book publishers?

 

[outunderthestars]

They'll always be more expensive than books, I'm pretty sure.

Depends on the number of books you plan on purchasing. A kindle Fire runs $200. It doesn't take long to make up that price in savings, especially if you enjoy classic literature.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Who's gonna supply them with books if there are no more book publishers?

on-demand printing? Walmart? Baby stores?

 

[faceless007]

Depends on the number of books you plan on purchasing. A kindle Fire runs $200. It doesn't take long to make up that price in savings, especially if you enjoy classic literature.

Again, I'm talking about kids' books. Tablet+content is more expensive than just content. And for a lot of families a $200 upfront purchase is way harder than $200 of books purchased over years.

My concern is that books should be as accessible and affordable as possible in order to ensure a literate populace. Paper books have no barrier to entry.

on-demand printing? Walmart? Baby stores?

...why would Wal-Mart or baby stores sell books to libraries?

 

[06nbarnhill]

Not sure how people rationalize that an Amazon monopoly would be a good thing....for anyone.

I own a Nook and I wish B&N the best.

 

[06nbarnhill]

Depends on the number of books you plan on purchasing. A kindle Fire runs $200. It doesn't take long to make up that price in savings, especially if you enjoy classic literature.

Ya no. I suppose you could save if you read a ton of classics.

Ebooks are almost always about the same as print. New releases are usually cheaper....but many books then go to 9.99 while the paperback is 8 or 9$. Plus you can't give them away or sell them later..... not to mention that most libraries have piss poor selections of ebooks.

Ebooks are NOT a money saving feature. They are a convenience feature.

 

[Salazar]

Ebooks are almost always about the same as print.

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