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B&N Expects Nook Business to Lose More Money This Year

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
It's quite simple. B&N stops their failed Nook project and sells Kindles instead.

Selling Kindles wouldn't save B&N's brick and mortor business. With the industry changes currently underway, what's likely going to happen is a "next wave" of book stores and libraries which look nothing the current ones. B&N stores are going to shrink for a while, and when the "next wave" emerges - whatever it looks like - the B&N brick and mortor business will go belly up.


The bottom line: the number of times my district manager came into my store to meet with me and discuss sales = 0. The number of times I had to listen to her crap on about useless operational garbage = uncountable.

I took one class on Operations and a couple where metrics was briefly a topic. Point by point, they basically said not to do all that. I feel for you because that's crap.
 
B&N has two really bad problems:

#1 - They remain primarily a brick and mortar business in an industry was has already moved mostly online, and is moving increasingly online each month. The little sop they fed the media about closing 33% of their stores in ten years? Guys, if there is even ONE B&N superstore left in five years, I'll be amazed. In five years, we'll still see some niche/small bookstores floating around, but the day of the big bookstore is over.

The reason is simple: People who shop big bookstores do so because it's how one gets the best selections and prices. Except, it's not how one gets the best selection and prices anymore. Niche stores may stick around longer because they'll be targeting people who couldn't care less about a big selection - they just want the next /Insert Hot Author Here/ book.

#2 B&N's online store sucks. It's hard to work that out any other way. If they want to compete with Kindle effectively, they need to have at least as good an online store as Amazon does. They don't. Their search is not as good. Their browsing is not as good. Their pages are less cluttered looking, but more difficult to navigate. Online book browsing is replacing in store book browsing. The ebook stores which best enable customers to browse will win. Right now Amazon has set the bar very high for that, and none of the other retailers are matching it yet.


BTW, about B&N and Amazon "cooperating"? B&N stopping the Nook and selling Kindles instead? That would *really* be the end of B&N. Their only long term hope is to upgrade their online store into a better product than Amazon's. The retail stores are toast; that's why they hived off the online stuff and the profitable college bookstores - those have the potential, at least, to make money in the long run when the rest of the company goes bankrupt.
 
See story, here: http://mashable.com/2013/02/14/barnes-and-noble-nook-sales/

For those of you self-publishing, does something like this make you more likely to try Amazon's Kindle Select program? Do you think story sales via B&N, Kobo, and others will put a dent in the sales you get through Amazon?

(sorry to get back on the original post questions, but...) I think as indie authors, we can't afford to pass up a market that might help contribute buzz, goodwill, or even the occasional sale, while if we were successful, why would we want to limit ourselves to Kindle Select anyway? Five days of free promotions isn't THAT good, especially since they nerfed it.

Still, you can always go the route of giving Amazon exclusivity for 90 days and then extend the release to everywhere else. This has the nice advantage of getting two releases, but has the disadvantage of not having much goodwill for non-Kindle owners.
 
Right now, about 40% of the sales for my Starship series are coming from B&N, Zero Angel. I agree - I don't think discounting any retailer makes sense. Hard to tell where sales will be highest. I know some folks who see more sales on Apple than anywhere else, and they're a much smaller market than B&N.
 
Right now, about 40% of the sales for my Starship series are coming from B&N, Zero Angel. I agree - I don't think discounting any retailer makes sense. Hard to tell where sales will be highest. I know some folks who see more sales on Apple than anywhere else, and they're a much smaller market than B&N.

Wow! That's an incredible ratio! Is Amazon still higher? Every statistic I've ever heard is that Amazon is far and away the majority, with anywhere from 60% Amazon to 90% Amazon. I'm about 76% Amazon, 24% BN, and I haven't released to other markets yet. I mean, I plan on it, I'm just a bum I guess.
 
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