[darryl]

Quite a few interesting points of view here. Some suggest that there really will be no significant vacuum for various reasons. And this could be right. The New Republic article suggested that B&N accounted for 30% of sales of some publishing houses. The accuracy of this figure has been questioned, and it is hardly a definitive statistic, just a throwaway line. It suggests that B&N's overall share of the market is something less than 30%, though not how much less.

Thanks to fjtorres who is much better informed than I, who indicates the last figure he saw was 17% down even from 20% in 2016. Though I'm not sure that Shatzkin's suggestion that B&N won't be that important to tradpub by the time it collapses gives tradpub much comfort. Predators don't need to wait until the prey is actually dead before they feast. And make no mistake, the feast is in progress.

I'm not suggesting that Amazon is planning to have near as many physical stores as B&N, nor have many if any stores outside of major cities. They already have much of this business online. Simply that Amazon's physical stores are one element in its overall strategy. Amazon enjoyed the Borders feast but also learned some lessons from it. It has positioned itself to consume a much greater share this time.

Bon appetit Amazon.