My Prediction on the Next Domino to Fall.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

My local Books-a-million store closed several years ago. I've been buying ebooks from the online store for a few years and they've always had tons of emails with coupons. Unfortunately none of the coupons ever seems to be good on ebooks.

That seems to confirm my suspicion that BAM never was interested in getting into ebooks in a big way. For whatever reason, they've decided to have only a token presence in that business. I can't think of another company which went that route. Can anyone else?

Charles (Anderson) must have a lot of business acumen. He went from having an independent bookstore in a downtown store in a relatively small town to building a huge dead-tree distribution system for the benefit of his company and other vendors (I think), and a widespread collection of big B&M stores of his own. (But he's certainly no Jeff Bezos!). Perhaps he could see that the ebook business was going to be saturated, the weaker companies would go out of business, and that that business just didn't have long-term prospects to be profitable for the majority of companies. That's just my guess. That has been proven true, so far, to a great degree. But, I'm "sure" that his big B&M stores are struggling, too.

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I always download books I buy from any store as soon as I buy them - I've never understood why anyone wouldn't do this.

Because some of us spend waaaay too much time on this Internet list, when we should be spending our time doing things like that. That's one of my reasons. And my issue with GBTIism (Get Back to It-ism).

[GtrsRGr8]

Tripllicate. Sorry.

[library addict]

Every now and then BAM will have a lower price on supposedly Agency priced books. So I do check them, but have only bought ebooks there a few times.

Every time I've bought one there it took two or three hours before the book was available to be downloaded. (Even Kobo with all their Kobo-isms manages to get books in your library immediately.) I was not impressed with BAM's customer service.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by library addict

Every now and then BAM will have a lower price on supposedly Agency priced books. So I do check them, but have only bought ebooks there a few times.

Every time I've bought one there it took two or three hours before the book was available to be downloaded. (Even Kobo with all their Kobo-isms manages to get books in your library immediately.) I was not impressed with BAM's customer service.

I don't think I've ever had to wait more than about 30 - 60 for a book to be available for download after purchase. I just keep refreshing the page until it appears as ready. If I had to wait 3 hours I probably wouldn't shop there, unless a book was at an incredible bargain price compared to all other stores.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I get emails from it, and the rate of its discounts, coupon giveaways, and such like seems to have really escalated in the last 6 months to one year, or so. That is the reason that I think that BAM may be the next domino to fall.

My observation is that businesses start heavily discounting for at least one of two reasons. One, is that it is changing its business model. Companies do that from time to time for various reasons. That's not necessarily a reason for concern. Second, they are in serious financial trouble, need to increase their cash flow dramatically, and need to do it soon. That is definitely a red flag.

You could be right, but I will say, a third option is they're positioning themselves to be purchased.

Both Fictionwise and Tantor had amazing sales beginning about a year before their sales (to B&N and Recorded Books, respectively) were announced. Then the incredible sales fell off.

I used to buy print books from BAM - they had better prices than even Amazon for quite awhile. But when I stopped buying print books, that was the end of my relationship with BAM.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Both Fictionwise and Tantor had amazing sales beginning about a year before their sales (to B&N and Recorded Books, respectively) were announced. Then the incredible sales fell off.

Fictionwise didn't die off because of B&N buying them. Fictionwise died off because Apple and the price fix 6 killed off their business model. When agency pricing came into effect, Fictionwise was no longer able to do business the way they were. Fictionwise was a very popular eBook shop. I shopped there and bought a lot of eBooks as did a lot of the regulars of MR back then. Apple and the price fix 6 killed off a lot of eBook stores who could no longer maintain their business models. And some went away because of the problem with contracts. It was a disaster and the US Justice Department did not do enough with the law suits. It was a total botch job.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Fictionwise didn't die off because of B&N buying them. Fictionwise died off because Apple and the price fix 6 killed off their business model. When agency pricing came into effect, Fictionwise was no longer able to do business the way they were. Fictionwise was a very popular eBook shop. I shopped there and bought a lot of eBooks as did a lot of the regulars of MR back then. Apple and the price fix 6 killed off a lot of eBook stores who could no longer maintain their business models. And some went away because of the problem with contracts. It was a disaster and the US Justice Department did not do enough with the law suits. It was a total botch job.

All of which has nothing to do with what FizzyWater said.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

You could be right, but I will say, a third option is they're positioning themselves to be purchased.

It could be. They went private in Dec 2015 so it would be easy to complete a deal.

Problem is, who wants 260 pbook stores of assorted sizes?
They are a breakeven company, netting around $3M on sales of $474M. (Less tban 1% margin.) And, since they own a chain of standalone yogurt shops, it is quite possible the profits come from yogurt, not books.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books-A-Million

They aren't bleeding like B&N but they're hardly healthy so, where's the value? Growth potential? Their asset valuation looks pretty low, too, so they don't even look like dismantling them would yield much value. They don't control much of the market, either, about 3%.

They are a barely there presence.

[frahse]

For what it is worth I too wish BAM to succeed. It is the only bookstore nearby with the next B&N being 40 miles away.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by frahse

For what it is worth I too wish BAM to succeed. It is the only bookstore nearby with the next B&N being 40 miles away.

The Books a Million that closed in my town was just across the road from Barnes and Noble - maybe that was too close. However, there always seemed to be plenty of people shopping at BAM whenever I went there, and I usually had to wait in line to check out.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I'm pretty sure it hasn't been tested in court

Court cases in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
The vendors were bookstores, selling paperbacks that other bookstores had torn the cover from.

but who wants a book with no cover? It has very little resell value.

There are people who are interested in specific books, purely for the content. Condition is literally irrelevant. They aren't collectors. They merely want the information in the book.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

There are people who are interested in specific books, purely for the content. Condition is literally irrelevant. They aren't collectors. They merely want the information in the book.

Yes, this. Anyone who's bought 4 books for a dollar from Goodwill is likely plenty happy to get recent genre books with no covers for the same price. I remember buying cover-free books as a teenager and having no idea that the missing cover meant anything more than "this got torn at some point." (I think this was a few titles in thrift stores, so likely single copies grabbed from dumpsters rather than entire crates grabbed for resale purposes.)

If your main interest in acquiring books is to read them, a missing cover is a minor nuisance - it means the title page is more likely to get wrinkled, so maybe you should replace the cover with a bit of cardstock or something like that.

If you also want to have a nice-looking, shareable collection, then yeah, a missing cover is a problem. If you want to be able to resell it, then the missing cover is a problem. But if you're going to read it and leave it at a bus stop somewhere for someone else, lack of a nice-looking cover doesn't impede that at all.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Yes, this. Anyone who's bought 4 books for a dollar from Goodwill is likely plenty happy to get recent genre books with no covers for the same price. I remember buying cover-free books as a teenager and having no idea that the missing cover meant anything more than "this got torn at some point." (I think this was a few titles in thrift stores, so likely single copies grabbed from dumpsters rather than entire crates grabbed for resale purposes.)

If your main interest in acquiring books is to read them, a missing cover is a minor nuisance - it means the title page is more likely to get wrinkled, so maybe you should replace the cover with a bit of cardstock or something like that.

If you also want to have a nice-looking, shareable collection, then yeah, a missing cover is a problem. If you want to be able to resell it, then the missing cover is a problem. But if you're going to read it and leave it at a bus stop somewhere for someone else, lack of a nice-looking cover doesn't impede that at all.

Shall I show you my paperback version of The Joy of Cooking. Bought new September 1983. The front cover is fine. However, don't look at the index for tomatoes. The back cover has long since disappeared and part of the index.
I also have a 1935 cookbook that is in pristine shape except no cover whatsoever.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I remember buying cover-free books as a teenager and having no idea that the missing cover meant anything more than "this got torn at some point." (I think this was a few titles in thrift stores, so likely single copies grabbed from dumpsters rather than entire crates grabbed for resale purposes.)

One of our local stores (can't remember if it was a "drugstore" or a Woolworth) used to sell them for a quarter. And like you, I had no idea that was illegal. It was the only way I could afford my romance book habit. I used to make my own covers with construction paper.

I don't remember when those stopped being available, but I remember still having some of those books in the late 70s when I was in high school.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

One of our local stores (can't remember if it was a "drugstore" or a Woolworth) used to sell them for a quarter. And like you, I had no idea that was illegal. It was the only way I could afford my romance book habit. I used to make my own covers with construction paper.

I don't remember when those stopped being available, but I remember still having some of those books in the late 70s when I was in high school.

Woolworths did it everywhere.