Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippe D.
B&M bookshops do some important and useful work: they select the books they want to display,
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No.
B&N bookstores do not generally have the freedom to select which books to display. The most prominent display positions are sold by corporate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/bo...urt-sales.html
The rest are selected by B&N corporate buyers. A B&N store featuring 50,000 titles might stock a few hundred selected by local staff. And be featured on one shelf in a back room under "Of local interest". Typically these will be regional tourist guides, local history, or restaurant guides.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2...-thug-to-love/
Barnes and noble is not and never has been a cozy bookshop that steers readers to good, fun reads. Rather, they and Borders were the reason why thousands of cozy family owned bookshops went out of business in the 80's and 90's,long before Amazon even existed.
In fact, right around the time Amazon first popped up, ca. 1995, the American Booksellers association repeatedly sued Borders, B&N, and the big publishers for violating antitrust laws by offering preferential pricing terms to Borders and B&N that were unavailable to bookshops. They "won" at least once.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories...l#.WcGYk14pDMI
In fact, as Amazon was first starting up, publishers hoped to use them to free themselves of the "tyranny of the B&N corporate buyer".
