B&N What Went Wrong & When ?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by charmian

I wonder why non-book items at B&N are selling better than they have in the past (I assume that they must be selling well, otherwise they wouldn't stock them). Perhaps B&N's clientele has changed.

Anyway I find it doubtful that Google would buy Nook rather than trying to make their own store more appealing, say by launching their own subscription service. They don't seem to be into e-ink hardware.

If they were into eink they'd pick up the phone and call Boyue.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Were it my music, I would want to limit the amount of times within a short period my songs could be replayed.

Someone who wants to listen to it that much is a prime candidate to be persuaded to purchase it (even if it's a thirty cent or buck and a quarter song) and I want to limit replay for free within a short period. However, I also want to make sure that every single time it is played cold the listener has every opportunity to learn which song it was. They can't buy it if they don't know what it was and who I am.

So, (if it's me) I want a streaming service to automatically produce a time indexed copy of the playlist a streaming client listened to and archive those lists for a modest period in a way that is easily accessed by the listener.

That way if they later remember that they heard some cool song when they were at the gym on Tuesday they can look up what it was.

These are computer generated services. The information is there of necessity.
It is marketing incompetence not to use it properly.

I would never consider a service not doing this as an asset to marketing my material.

That's why I have shazam on my phone, if I hear a song I like, I can find out what it is and buy it. I've bought several songs that way. I would be pretty surprised if the Apple streaming service doesn't have a Buy me button linked to the iTunes store. We will see if it does on Tuesday.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

There you go dumping your harsh cold reality on my pastel colored fantasy land!

Still though, if B&N can't compete with Amazon on ease of use, selling 'cross platform' e-books might be something to look into.

Trumpeting that the books are DRM free probably wouldn't increase their sales. I wonder what the drop in e-book sales has been since B&N changed their DRM last September-ish?

I'm an engineer, it's my job to dump harsh cold reality on pastel colored fantasy lands.

One of the stats that I'm interested in is how many ebooks are sold to what I would call hard core readers verse how many are sold to the 50% of the population that only reads 10 or less books a year. If a majority of books (or a majority of non best seller books) are sold to hard core buyers, then it's quite possible that a cross platform ebook store would be successful if it somehow appeals to hard core readers. After thinking about it a bit, I would say that no-DRM (or the ability to easily put books on multiple platforms) is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient to bring readers in. I still think you would need either a Jim Dandy reading app or a great shopping experience to pull people in.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by barryem

What's happening is really kind of interesting. I keep reading articles that come just short of predicting the end of B&N and other articles talking about independent bookstores coming back and thriving. A few years ago I read predictions that ebooks would replace or all but replace paper books.

Now, if what seems to be the present pattern continues, it looks like it might be the end of the super giant bookstores, the ones who put the neighborhood bookstores out of business. Of course it's too soon to predict this and I hope it doesn't happen. As much as I've always loved the little bookstores it was the big bookstores that were the most fun to browse in.

I don't get to browse in any of them anymore, unfortunately, and I miss them.

When I first retired, maybe 18 or 19 years ago, I spent a lot of days in B&N and Borders, sitting in their easy chairs, reading their books, drinking their coffee, day after day. It was great fun. I wonder if people in the future will get a chance to do that.

Barry

Sure. People will go, sit comfortably, download ebooks to their ereaders and sip coffee. But, they'll be doing it at Starbucks.

Once we can download caffeine wirelessly, all bets are off!

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's why I have shazam on my phone, if I hear a song I like, I can find out what it is and buy it. I've bought several songs that way. I would be pretty surprised if the Apple streaming service doesn't have a Buy me button linked to the iTunes store. We will see if it does on Tuesday.

If they only have a button that works while a song is playing, then it is only good for people who only listen to music by itself and not in conjunction with other activities. And when I hear a song for the first time I often don't remember enough for something like Shazam. But I will remember when I heard it and maybe some songs I know that were in the same time window.

Apple is capable of putting out a good product and throwing out something just good enough to scrape by won't help sell unfamiliar works.

Shazam is okay but it doesn't cover much of the indie range.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Shazam is okay but it doesn't cover much of the indie range.

Ah.. Shazam.. I love it and I hate it. It's great for older music and less great for newer indie. And it's terrible if you want to find out when an older song was released. Most of their older stuff is from newer compilations and I know that The Rolling Stones Little Red Rooster wasn't released in 2004.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by barryem

What's happening is really kind of interesting. I keep reading articles that come just short of predicting the end of B&N and other articles talking about independent bookstores coming back and thriving. A few years ago I read predictions that ebooks would replace or all but replace paper books.

Now, if what seems to be the present pattern continues, it looks like it might be the end of the super giant bookstores, the ones who put the neighborhood bookstores out of business. Of course it's too soon to predict this and I hope it doesn't happen. As much as I've always loved the little bookstores it was the big bookstores that were the most fun to browse in.

I don't get to browse in any of them anymore, unfortunately, and I miss them.

When I first retired, maybe 18 or 19 years ago, I spent a lot of days in B&N and Borders, sitting in their easy chairs, reading their books, drinking their coffee, day after day. It was great fun. I wonder if people in the future will get a chance to do that.

Barry

I think the short answer to the Indie Bookstores thriving is that those who desperately want this to be the case are failing to take account of the closures of the big stores. See this story from Nate's Ink Bits and Pixels blog.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...-video-stores/

One interesting quote:

The death of Borders killed 405 bookstores in less than 6 months. That is huge vacuum for indies to fill, and the slow decline of Barnes & Noble is creating more opportunities for indies.

Unfortunately I think Nate is spot on. It is sad. I too love browsing book stores. But I'm sure I would have loved riding in a horse and carriage as well. I can't see the total death of the book store any time soon, though I do think you are right that the "Super Giant Bookstores" have seen their days. I think what was once a major market for paper books is slowly becoming a niche market, but I think the day when there are no retail book stores is a long way off. As always, some well run smaller stores will defy the trend and thrive in what is becoming an increasingly difficult market.

[Alpha o]

Big book stores don't cut it for niche readers. You often can't find the book on the shelf, but a big store will order it. The local stores carry only what will sell to the local readers, with a sop to the rest of us. It's marketing, and you can't blame the stores for wanting a profit. At the same time, if the store overbuys the latest best seller. that's the store's fault, and they needn't whine about those who aren't interested in it not buying it.

You can get a niche type book faster by ordering from Amazon - ebook, used or hard copy. Looking through the pages of listings, you see more books you would like and get in the habit of using Amazon or other online stores. The other plus is if you are using Amazon and need a new gadget for the kitchen or garage, you can order it at the same time.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the stats that I'm interested in is how many ebooks are sold to what I would call hard core readers verse how many are sold to the 50% of the population that only reads 10 or less books a year. If a majority of books (or a majority of non best seller books) are sold to hard core buyers, then it's quite possible that a cross platform ebook store would be successful if it somehow appeals to hard core readers.

I'm pretty sure the majority of books are sold to a small, hard core crowd. That was the vibe I got from working in a B&N a few years back. You could tell which customers were readers and which customers were there to pick up a book that was required reading for a class and maybe flip through some magazines in the cafe. And that was before Kindles mainstreamed e-book reading.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

After thinking about it a bit, I would say that no-DRM (or the ability to easily put books on multiple platforms) is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient to bring readers in. I still think you would need either a Jim Dandy reading app or a great shopping experience to pull people in.

You know, I hear about the shopping experience, but buying e-books from the Barnes and Noble website or Android app is about the same for me as buying e-books from Amazon's website or Android app. I will say that I usually know what book I'm looking for before going to either site, so it may well be (probably is) the case that Amazon is better at 'discoverability' of similar books than B&N is.

My big B&N complaints are lack of reviews (which is a result of lack of traffic, I think) and smaller selection. I have gone looking for books on B&N that are unavailable, though Amazon has a Kindle version. That's the case with the book I'm reading right now (thanks Alf!).

Also, B&N strengthened their DRM with no warning to customers. That put me off of buying from them for half a year or so. I'm only just taking some tentative steps back now.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

Big book stores don't cut it for niche readers. You often can't find the book on the shelf, but a big store will order it.


.

They'll order it...
(...small stores, too, BTW...)
...and it'll take weeks to get in.

Or, you can order it online and get it in days.
Or in seconds if you like ebooks.

The bottleneck isn't the store; it's the publisher.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm pretty sure the majority of books are sold to a small, hard core crowd. That was the vibe I got from working in a B&N a few years back. You could tell which customers were readers and which customers were there to pick up a book that was required reading for a class and maybe flip through some magazines in the cafe. And that was before Kindles mainstreamed e-book reading.



You know, I hear about the shopping experience, but buying e-books from the Barnes and Noble website or Android app is about the same for me as buying e-books from Amazon's website or Android app. I will say that I usually know what book I'm looking for before going to either site, so it may well be (probably is) the case that Amazon is better at 'discoverability' of similar books than B&N is.

My big B&N complaints are lack of reviews (which is a result of lack of traffic, I think) and smaller selection. I have gone looking for books on B&N that are unavailable, though Amazon has a Kindle version. That's the case with the book I'm reading right now (thanks Alf!).

Also, B&N strengthened their DRM with no warning to customers. That put me off of buying from them for half a year or so. I'm only just taking some tentative steps back now.

I've always heard that a smaller core of readers buy most books, but just haven't seen any good numbers or research to back that up.

The two biggest reasons that I don't buy from B&N is lack of selection and difficulty browsing for books. I think that people who already know what books they want to buy have a very different experience in most ebook stores than people who are browsing for a book they might like. None of the ebook stores have a very good browsing experience. With B&N, I can put in an author's name and pull back a bunch of books that not only are not by that author, but aren't even close. Amazon will usually pull back the author, thought they do like to put in a bunch of other authors they are trying to push on you.

Amazon isn't horrible/terrible, but they could be so much more. How hard would it be to have a database of authors that I want to be notified every time a new kindle ebook becomes available? Automatically add any author that I buy one of their books, but let me add and remove authors from the list. It doesn't even have to be real time. They already have most of the information, it really would be all that hard to do.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Amazon isn't horrible/terrible, but they could be so much more. How hard would it be to have a database of authors that I want to be notified every time a new kindle ebook becomes available? Automatically add any author that I buy one of their books, but let me add and remove authors from the list. It doesn't even have to be real time. They already have most of the information, it really would be all that hard to do.

Wow, it's almost like they figured that out too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/author_suggestions

Except they aren't stupid enough to automatically spam their customers' inboxes with alerts for every author they ever purchased from. You have to choose to follow an author.

There is also a Follow button on every single author profile.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Wow, it's almost like they figured that out too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/author_suggestions

Except they aren't stupid enough to automatically spam their customers' inboxes with alerts for every author they ever purchased from. You have to choose to follow an author.

There is also a Follow button on every single author profile.

Yea, I remember when they first put it in and I signed up for a number of authors. A pity it didn't seem to work correctly. I think that I've gotten one or two notices over the years. Yep, just double checked. I'm following Stephen W. Sears and was not notified when The Landscape Turned Red hit the Kindle store. Fortunately, Authoralerts _did_ notify me.

You know there is the modern invention called opt in, it's been around for, oh ten years or so. Just a little check box on the thanks for buying page asking if you would be interested in being notified when this author has a new product in the kindle store. If you don't want it, don't click on it.

[eschwartz]

I don't know why you weren't getting alerts, I consistently get alerts for the authors I follow. As well as alerts from dedicated services.

As for opt-in -- considering that the majority of authors I do NOT want to follow, I don't see the need to see a checkbox. TBH I would like to see fewer buttons on the thank you page than there are now.

[darryl]

I too am getthing the notification emails okay. If you are not, please let Amazon know. Believe it or not, they will do their best to fix it.