Quote:
Originally Posted by Calenorn
See, if B&N had provided a good experience for people looking for free books, then I never would have had a reason for climbing over the garden wall. It’s their own fault.
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While I agree that B&N has been running their Nook business badly for years and to the detriment of e-book readership in general (yeah, still bitter about Fictionwise), I will point out that for years, they have hosted their official
Free Fridays weekly blog feature, which continues to offer at least one decent-quality spotlighted free book, usually from a traditionally-established publisher, often with a comment and favourite reading recommendation by the featured author, and has now expanded to offering a weekly free app and TV episode.
This actually puts them above most of the other retailers*, who usually don't bother to spotlight any freebies at all beyond occasionally lumping them in to one giant megacategory if they even bother with a dedicated Free Books listing/filter at all instead of making you hunt through the slushpile or figure out the arcane advanced search terminology.
Aside from that, IMHO their implosion is pretty much a result of everything else they've been doing wrong, which outweighs this one thing they've been doing right.
* I'd say they're about par with iTunes, who in several countries do a Free Book/Music/App/TV show of the Week feature, minus the sporadic author commentary, and have also removed the easy ability to download DRM-free ePubs in a usable format for anyone who's ever opened the iBooks application on their Mac.