Op-Ed: The Fall(out) of Barnes & Noble · 11:42pm Mar 10th, 2018
This is a post I've wanted to write for a while now, but basically been bouncing back and forth on exactly how since while I have some insight on the subject ... I really don't have a lot compared to some others. Put plain and simply I don't deal with Barnes & Noble. At least, not as an author. Very rarely, as a customer, but that frequency has dropped from a couple of book-buying visits a year to a visit every couple of years, and even then it's rare that I walk out with something.
Which doesn't paint a rosy picture of their business in the first place, if my and my friends experiences are anything to go by (or B&N's own reports). But as an author, I don't deal with B&N at all. Most notably because I'm indie, and B&N has never really had much to offer authors in that regard.
Oh sure, you could sell on their Nook service for a small royalty. But the Nook has always been such a niche market that it never really seemed worth it. Now that B&N has cut the Nook, that seems like a smart proposition (especially considering I heard nothing but mixed messages from it when it was around).
Right, I feel like I'm either getting ahead of myself or slightly off-topic. Only slightly, as B&N's treatment of the Nook does seem to illustrate how we get to today. But let's wrap that back in. Effectively, what I'm saying is that while I'm curious and intrigued about what the fallout of, well, we'll talk about that in a moment, but let's just call it "it" for now, is going to be ... I'm on a side of the publishing industry that doesn't rub up against B&N too much, so a lot of what I think could happen is mostly speculation—light speculation—about the shockwaves rolling through a side I don't really know. I know there's going to be a lot of fallout, just as one knows when a nation topples that the status quo has just been upset ... but in the spirit of that analogy I'm on the other side of the continent, or maybe even across an ocean. All I know is that when someplace like Rome falls, everyone feels it.
That clear as mud? Okay? Well, then let's talk about "it." The big deal. I've talked about it before on here, but only in passing. To put it simply, however ...
Barnes & Noble is going under.
Interesting read, as usual. but since I am technically not an author or editor in the vaunted 'real world', I can't really apply any suggestions based on any type of experience. I do wonder what this means for my future when I finally release my original stories, though.
Well, that's interesting, and it's honestly very hard to say where this is going as you pointed out. I think Amazon getting more power is basically a given as you pointed out, but this is also the perfect time for another company to step onto the scene so we could see a major upset from a non-traditional player like Microsoft (who apparently worked with B&N on the Nook and may thus have some interest/assets to act with) or Apple (obviously based on their online sales tools) as well. One other thing that may also happen depending on how things shake out is an anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon since they'll be the only major distributor going forwards, although I suspect the independent bookstores and minor chains will be enough to keep that from happening since I don't see print publishing dying completely.
Also, since you mentioned it, I have had a Nook for the past year and a half or so and have generally been very happy with it. Outside an annoying quirk with an overly trigger happy temperature sensor (it is designed to protect it from the cold, but goes off about 10 degrees too high) it generally works great and is solidly built unlike the criminally underbuilt Kindle (which broke for no apparent reason because there is absolutely nothing supporting the screen). I particularly like the LED light system which works great even at low power and, thanks to the efficiency of the LEDs, doesn't seriously hurt my battery life which makes walking and reading at night a great option.
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If B&N doesn't have a monopoly against it, then Amazon won't get one. Especially since they're very "hands-off" on the book market with regards to how it runs. They just provide the service. Reminds me of around a year ago when a publisher was pitching a fit at Amazon for selling resale stock from another provider first as opposed to the publisher's own higher price options.
Amazon's response (and the public's) was that it was literally an algorithm that let the cheapest option sell to customers first, and if they didn't like it they could perhaps lower the price of their books or not sell off a bunch of stock to resellers and print new if it meant competing against their own stuff.
Apple, meanwhile, is banned from the book market for being central to a price-fixing scheme that involved several big publishers about six, seven years ago. They're not even allowed to sell books for another few years in most countries (they were found guilty everywhere). So they aren't getting into it again.
My amateur-hour understanding of things based on what I'm hearing from semi-indie authors, indie authors, and book industry mavens: B&N folding will be a massive kick in the balls to the big publishers on this side of the pond. Amazon's take on the big publishers seems to be "fine, have all the rope you want, don't come crying to me when you've hanged yourself". Without the physical stores to push-market through, they're fucked. Amazon is built on pull-marketing, avid readers are reading something else, the big publishers are pricing themselves out of the ebook market, not doing great with the Kindle Unlimited crowd, etc.
Expect the big publishers to contract, consolidate, and merge when they lose their storefronts.
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Well, the obvious reason there hasn't been a monopoly charge so far is the balance between Amazon and B&N since they are both obviously big players. The potential problem comes when B&N collapses just like we saw a while back when Microsoft had to bail Apple out to avoid a lawsuit over an operating system monopoly, but as I said before I think the smaller bookstores will generally be considered enough to avoid that. There might still be small-scale suits relating to presence in a single city which could force Amazon to support some local bookstore or pay another company like Walmart to expand their book business in that location, but that would be a very different situation from a major action which could force the company to split its electronic and physical sales units to create competition.
As for Apple, I had forgotten about that so they obviously won't be stepping back into that market any time soon (I'd guess they won't seriously consider it again until about 20 years after the verdict to let memory fade more), although there are plenty of other companies like Valve or Google with the technology and resources to give it a shot if they want to.
I think the biggest indicator will be who buys what during the inevitable B&N bankruptcy because there is a lot of stuff there that could be used to kick off a new business unit without the administrative mess that sank B&N, especially their Nook and ebook arm.
Also, speaking of the Nook, we may see a company that is traditionally more focused on electronics like Texas Instruments or Samsung use that as a gateway into the book market, especially since they could also pick up B&N's online platform to handle the digital side of things.
My writer's group did an anthology of short stories through indie publishing, and we sold hardcopies at B&N ... which after doing a book signing there, ended up being about 40% of our sales. They ordered 50 copies and we left only 2 on the shelves after that day ... those two have since sold.
No complaints there, I guess.
Too bad about B&N.
I've bought tons of books and magazines from them over the years.
There are some magazines that you just can't get from small newsstands.
Writer's digest and ImagineFX are two examples.
I used to have a B&N in my borough, not any more.
Bet most of my programming books came from that store.
They were the last big name book store in the borough and the number of small
book stores can be counted on one hand.
B&N closing is no surprise.
Book stores have been disappearing from NYC for years.
Like the episode in Star Trek with the salt eating aliens, book stores used to be like the buffalo.
Now, not so much.
The Penn station area near 34th street had a Borders, gone.
Lower broadway used to have a B. Daltons, one time fans for a shock jock lined up outside, gone.
Broadway and Wall Street used to have a book store, that's gone.
Astor street in the East Village had a several story B&N, gone.
There were rumors that it was being replaced by a fancy health club but that never happened.
I bet that some of the factors that have killed brick and mortar bookstores also killed brick and mortar electronics stores.
Seems like all the companies that didn't look ahead and plan on future-proofing are staring their inevitable collapse. Toys R Us being the most recent.