Quote:
Originally Posted by charmian
Whoever buys Nook (if anyone does) will need to really be willing to compete with Amazon, and to re-market it.
Thinking about it, this seems difficult. Sales will simply be price-matched by Amazon, whether on books or on hardware. There are other ways to do discount schemes, like coupons or loyalty programs, but they'd be complex to set up and possibly require publisher buy-in.
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Or perhaps they should stop competing where Amazon is strong and start competing in areas where Amazon does not and has never had a chance. B&N has all those useless bookstores -- how about they stop filling them with toys and start filling them with books? Of all the stupid "adaptations"...
"Our stores are losing money, how can we hasten the process?" "I know, stop selling books!"
B&N should cater to the people who like books, and they can start as fjtorres said, by remaking themselves, going small.
Indie bookstores are flourishing. Individually, none of them are as big as Amazon
but as a whole they are making a pretty good comeback. A lot of people want to support the hegemony's competition. (That's the problem. B&N is every bit the hegemony that Amazon is.) A lot of readers want the human touch. A lot of readers want a clerk who also knows what a book is, maybe to schmooze, maybe to ask for suggestions.
Time was, you went to a bookstore and the employees helped you find interesting new reads -- then B&N finished becoming a hegemony after swallowing the other bookstores, and now they are the book supermarket, and about as interesting as groceries. And if
all I wanted was to pop in, grab a book I know about already and buy it, I can do that far more conveniently online.
Or go to my local indie bookstore -- on the occasion that I actually want a pbook
it happens sometimes. Can't read ebooks on Shabbos and the library doesn't have everything, also sometimes for gifts, and favorites that I want to read anytime even on Shabbos. Yep, sometimes there really is nothing quite like a good pbook.
Have an actual discussion with the employees, and come out with books by an author I never heard of.
B&N will simply push me to the latest thriller, and so will airport kiosks.