Nooks being sold at Books-A-Million web site

[tomsem]

Books-A-Million is the 3rd largest bookstore in the US. They have a whole 'NOOK' section on their web site:

http://www.booksamillion.com/nook?id=5050453026663

I don't know what to make of this. Does anybody know what the arrangement with Barnes and Noble is? or care to speculate about it?

I'm assuming these are stock Nooks, i.e. they connect to B&N's store, not BAM's - though BAM has their own ebook storefront. Even if they make a profit on the Nook sales, it seems it would be hard to justify it when it comes at the expense of eBook sales they might otherwise make themselves.

[witeowl]

It seems to me that BAM realizes that every ebook they sell is to be read on a non-BAM device (seeing as how BAM doesn't have their own device). Why not be an affiliate for another device... particularly for the only (to my knowledge) ereader (tablets aside) which can load BAM's own reader app with built-in bookstore?

ETA that I realize(d) that other Nooks are also being sold, to which I just point back to my first point.

Edited (again) to add that I just checked and it turns out that BAM doesn't have an Android app, so... um, yea, let's just ignore the stuff in purple, ok?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by witeowl

It seems to me that BAM realizes that every ebook they sell is to be read on a non-BAM device (seeing as how BAM doesn't have their own device). Why not be an affiliate for another device... particularly for the only (to my knowledge) ereader (tablets aside) which can load BAM's own reader app with built-in bookstore?

ETA that I realize(d) that other Nooks are also being sold, to which I just point back to my first point.

Edited (again) to add that I just checked and it turns out that BAM doesn't have an Android app, so... um, yea, let's just ignore the stuff in purple, ok?

Yes, I have the BAM iOS app, which is a white-label version of Bluefire Reader that points to the BAM bookstore (I have used Bluefire quite a lot). Bluefire is supposed to be working on an Android version but has gone dark since their informal announcement a couple of months ago that they were 'almost done'. (off topic: I am waiting to see what happens to Bluefire at the end of the month, when Apple is rumored to be cleaning house on all subscription/reading apps that don't conform to the latest interpretation of their App Store guidelines).

Maybe B&N has a way to track ebook sales made on the Nooks that BAM sells, and gives BAM a commission. That's all I can come up with. The BAM site doesn't disclose these details, you would think they would at least say on the page where they sell the Nooks that you can read BAM ebooks on it by using ADE to side-load, etc. The eBook FAQ does discuss this but only in a general way, listing Nook as one of many devices you can use.