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fjtorres · 06-13-2014, 11:10 AM

I wasn't singling B&N out (in that particular post) but let's look at your experience then (90's?) and factor in today's environment. B&N still has a loyalty program but what I hear is it doesn't apply to Nook books. They send out emails for free ebooks that require travelling to the store to redeem in a complicated process.
They will still "special order" books...from the store...and it apparently still takes the same multiple weeks wait as in the old days, which means they keep their online pbook stash separate from the B&M stores and instead "special order" them from the publisher.

Essentially, B&N treats online and ebooks as separate businesses rather than part of a unified bookselling operation. It's not unlike the way Borders first outsourced online pbook sales and then simply fronted for Kobo for ebooks. Keeping them both at arm's length instead of embracing them is like hoping the move to online and digital is just a temporary fad and not a long term shift.

Indie booksellers, on the other hand, don't currently have much in the way of digital. Not with the walled gardens accounting for over 95% of digital. Back in the PDA era, Powells and other bookstores had a significant online and digital footprint that died because of lack of publisher support on pricing and availability. (And their fear of Microsoft.) After that, indies mostly (and not unreasonably) stayed away from ebooks until the 2010 explosion in adoption. And by then, thanks to the conspiracy, it was all a moot point.

Moving forward, unless the economics of pbooks change drastically, indie bookstores are simply going to have to focus on local customers. (Some of them can actually buy books cheaper from Amazon than from their distributor so trying to sell online is futile unless that changes.)

06-13-2014, 11:10 AM	#67
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	I wasn't singling B&N out (in that particular post) but let's look at your experience then (90's?) and factor in today's environment. B&N still has a loyalty program but what I hear is it doesn't apply to Nook books. They send out emails for free ebooks that require travelling to the store to redeem in a complicated process. They will still "special order" books...from the store...and it apparently still takes the same multiple weeks wait as in the old days, which means they keep their online pbook stash separate from the B&M stores and instead "special order" them from the publisher. Essentially, B&N treats online and ebooks as separate businesses rather than part of a unified bookselling operation. It's not unlike the way Borders first outsourced online pbook sales and then simply fronted for Kobo for ebooks. Keeping them both at arm's length instead of embracing them is like hoping the move to online and digital is just a temporary fad and not a long term shift. Indie booksellers, on the other hand, don't currently have much in the way of digital. Not with the walled gardens accounting for over 95% of digital. Back in the PDA era, Powells and other bookstores had a significant online and digital footprint that died because of lack of publisher support on pricing and availability. (And their fear of Microsoft.) After that, indies mostly (and not unreasonably) stayed away from ebooks until the 2010 explosion in adoption. And by then, thanks to the conspiracy, it was all a moot point. Moving forward, unless the economics of pbooks change drastically, indie bookstores are simply going to have to focus on local customers. (Some of them can actually buy books cheaper from Amazon than from their distributor so trying to sell online is futile unless that changes.)