Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free

[APP]

I like this new approach by Barnes and Noble, and I hope it succeeds. I want the company to survive!

This article is from the New York Times and you may encounter a paywall:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/style/barnes-noble-redesign.html

[LilyBLily]

I agree, and I don't see why it shouldn't survive. Many people like to go to physical bookstores and browse on their own whim and pick up books in their hands and look through them without being bothered by ads popping up for stuff they don't care about (which is what an Amazon page looks like). Plenty of people also are quite willing to pay for hardcover or paperback books. Amazon is a bargain basement and there are people who don't like bargain basements. Also, there are many hardcore Amazon haters. Put them all together and that's a large potential customer base for B&N. 

 

[PJ Post]

I posted this in the Amazon thread, but it affects B&N as well. How is AI going to change the industry? How long do we have? Will Barnes survive? Will it matter?

[Bill Hiatt]

Leaving the AI question aside, I'd certainly visit a Barnes and Noble if one were conveniently located. (There is one within a reasonable distance, but parking is terrible.) I think that's true of a lot of people. Foot traffic undeniably went down, but part of the issue is also a dwindling number of bookstores to go to. That makes brick and mortar stats look worse in some ways than they really are.

Part of the issue may also have been management choices, as the article hints. Micromanagement from the top down prevents stores from developing a specifically local appeal.

That said, I know a lot of people who vocally hate Amazon but still shop there when they have to. Years ago, one of my colleagues constantly denounced Walmart--until something she really wanted was on sale there.

[LilyBLily]

Humans are social. The malaise so many people report in our country post-pandemic is real, and it's because people were forced to stay away from other people and even to view them with alarm. We need to be social as much as we want to be social. Given that, I don't see all physical stores shutting down. Ever.

Our multiple generations have differing habits, so it's possible that when all the teenagers who notably prefer to read physical books instead of ebooks die off, the classic bookstores might, too. Since that's at least sixty years from now, I'm not worried about it. I won't be alive to see it.

[TimothyEllis]

Humans are social. The malaise so many people report in our country post-pandemic is real, and it's because people were forced to stay away from other people and even to view them with alarm. We need to be social as much as we want to be social. Given that, I don't see all physical stores shutting down. Ever.

Our multiple generations have differing habits, so it's possible that when all the teenagers who notably prefer to read physical books instead of ebooks die off, the classic bookstores might, too. Since that's at least sixty years from now, I'm not worried about it. I won't be alive to see it.

2 comments.

After lockdown, everyone here went straight back to the malls. The new normal was forgotten in favour of the old one. No, physical stores are not going away.

Last I saw, there was only 1 bookstore chain left here. All the others closed down years ago.

Most of the hard book sales now are in the department stores or supermarkets.

Even second hand book stores are hard to find now, and a lot of them moved to the weekend markets to save on rent. A lot of them would be surviving off net sales now.

[LilyBLily]

Department stores used to have substantial book sections and in their heyday they handled magazine subscriptions, too. The book sections went away circa 1980 over here.

Department stores over here have been dying for years. Malls have been dying, too, replaced by big box stores. I suspect these changes are cyclical; shopping malls have been around for more than 150 years in various formations, sometimes as "arcades." We visited the venerable Strand arcade in Sydney that was built in the nineteenth century, and I seem to recall that there are older ones in London and Paris.

Most comics shops and secondhand bookstores are located in iffy strip malls or indoor flea markets cum antiques malls and sometimes don't even have air conditioning, let alone sufficient furniture to hold their stock. I've shopped many a used bookstore by pawing through cardboard cartons. I once shopped in a used bookstore someone operated out of a trailer (small mobile home) in his front yard--no air conditioning there, and it was 99 degrees that day, but I did find some obscure paperbacks I'd been looking high and low for. That was a win.

[Bill Hiatt]

As Timothy points out, mall traffic did bounce back, a lot of which was due to the end of the pandemic and people wanting to do something they hadn't been able to do. However, since mall sales had been declining for some time before the pandemic, I think it's safe to say that once the thrill of being able to go to the mall subsides, mall traffic will start declining again. In the US, one third of all malls had closed before the pandemic.

And because so many book stores had already closed, I doubt the post-pandemic benefited them very much. I use to have seven BN and Borders stores within reasonable driver distance, and going a little further added another five. Now there's one, as I mentioned, in a crowded center without much parking.

I haven't done this in a long time, but when I used to drive on some of the major freeways in the my area, I could spot a bookstores (Usually BN) frequently, as a lot of them were close to freeway offramps. From checking online, I can tell most of them are gone.

My local mall hasn't had a bookstore in it in years. And as time has passed, it's become mostly clothing stores (because people still like to try on clothing).

Oh, I forgot to mention Westwood (where the UCLA campus is located). Since the campus came first, and then Westwood developed around it, it was a very college-oriented place. One of my professors used to joke that it was the only community of its size to have 14 movie theaters and no grocery store, though since then, a rather large grocery store has moved in. But the bookstores moved out. When I was a student at UCLA, which was admittedly a few years decades ago, there were about ten bookstores, a mix of new and used. Now there only appears to be one (if Yelp is to be believed). I can find a few in the surrounding area, but usually they are specialized in one type of book rather than begin more general.

[LilyBLily]

Indie bookstores move out when the rent gets too high as the neighborhood becomes fashionable. Happens everywhere. The arty types with no money draw the richer types who do have money and want to buy expensive stuff. Landlords raise all the rents and chase the arty ones away. The rich but uncreative types pretend to themselves that they are very cool and possibly even arty.

I don't know what a reasonable distance to a store is anymore. Living in the boondocks as I do, I just get in the car and point it in the direction of civilization. People who live in more urban-like but actually quite suburban settings tend to get fussy about how far they have to travel to get to a store. Five miles! Oh, lordy!

[Bill Hiatt]

I know what you mean. But in a lot of places, LA being one of them, yeah, the suburbs are different from the central city, but traffic congestion tends to increase regardless. The last year before I retired, I was part-time, but I generally stayed late so as not to take work home. But when I did that, my 15-20 minute drive home became over an hour. So I started leaving as early as I could to beat what was otherwise insane traffic--and that was surface streets. Freeways would have been even worse.

After retirement, I found myself driving so little (mostly using Uber when I did travel) that I eventually gave up the car completely. Part of that was a response to not wanting to hassle the traffic, but part of it was a response to the comparative lack of bookstores to visit. That said, this conversation is making me want to go over to the last BN standing in the area and see what changes have been wrought. That's probably a better use of my time than mourning the ones that have closed.

[LilyBLily]

The B. Dalton's where I worked part-time for a while closed years ago, and then the mall it was in finally closed this year after all the anchor stores departed. Now it is being torn down. They'll probably build stick condos on the property. Stick condos are mushrooming all over the country.

Where I live now, there's a Books-a-Million a mere 15 miles from me and a used bookstore a couple of miles beyond. But I truly do not want to bulk up my physical possessions. I'd rather read an ebook. I did chase down a few titles at a Friends of the Library bookstore a mere 90 miles from me several years ago, but it's far less expensive to buy a library card in other states yearly and use their ebook lending feature. The problem is that older trad pub books often do not have an ebook, or the library system has not purchased any backlist ebooks. Here in West Virginia, the libraries do not have a big budget, so the selection tends to be limited to exactly the kinds of books I have no interest in reading, the big bestsellers. 

[alhawke]

B. Daltons. I haven't heard of that one in a while. Just B&N's and used book stores around me.

The problem with brick and mortar stores, and we've talked of this before, is they devote rows and rows to the same author. I think this is not only for brand recognition but also for contractural reasons. One would think that grabbing bestselling books from a wide array of authors might provide more variety and sell better?? That's the thing with B&N. Unless you browse the romance section (which has some variety) you're stuck with only a handful of authors represented.

As an aside, I just saw an article announcing that Best Buy was going to stop shelving DVDs and CDs--this used to be their bread and butter. This is not good for books because I believe the type of customer that browses a physical store for DVDs also will check out books. So Best Buy is all but giving up with physical stores and library-like commodities.

[TimothyEllis]

As an aside, I just saw an article announcing that Best Buy was going to stop shelving DVDs and CDs--this used to be their bread and butter. This is not good for books because I believe the type of customer that browses a physical store for DVDs also will check out books. So Best Buy is all but giving up with physical stores and library-like commodities.

Like books, it's too easy to order them online.

Currently, I can order DVD's on release day, and have them delivered 90 minutes later by Uber.

The irony is these are coming from the stores in the malls, but there are alternatives which are pure online now. Just the freight is slower.

[Bill Hiatt]

My local Best Buys stopped selling DVDs years ago. I guess they must have been ahead of their time.

Like LilyBLily, I prefer ebooks for space reasons. My book collection has filled almost all the space available for it. I now only order physical books if an ebook is not available, and the book is something I want to use for research. (I often like to root my fantasy in real-world mythology and folklore. And occasionally, I also find quirky things, like a book contained the original floorplan of a historic house I wanted to use in one of my novels.)

But that doesn't mean I don't still desire to visit a book store. I spent so many pleasurable hours in book stores when I was younger (and they were so much more readily available). I found an outlet by building a classroom library (which, much to my horror, was all thrown out shortly after I retired instead of being passed on to my successor). I also ascertained how many books the school library had space for in different genres and then started donating books from my outside reading lists (titles my students could select for book reports). The librarian was very pleased, the students liked the convenience, and it gave me a reason to visit what few bookstores I could find.

(The school library also has my first six books. They'd have my whole collection, but the librarian who knew me and loved having on author on campus has since retired. her immediate successor didn't stick around long, so now, the librarian is someone who doesn't know me at all.)

[alhawke]

But that doesn't mean I don't still desire to visit a book store. I spent so many pleasurable hours in book stores when I was younger

Same with me. It was fun browsing stores for CDs and DVDs with friends. Those days seem to be gone

[TimothyEllis]

Same with me. It was fun browsing stores for CDs and DVDs with friends. Those days seem to be gone

Bookstores was never that for me. Too many times you went in and came out with nothing. That was the problem in Australia. So many good books which were never released here by the Trads. Which I only found much later on Kindle.

But that was true of DVD hunting, up until they redesigned the store I normally went to, and suddenly I had a hard time finding anything due to the new layout.

At that point I started buying online a lot more, and then then stopped going to malls completely.

[elleoco]

Bookstores were never my idea of fun either. People rave about the Tattered Cover in Denver, but I almost always had to leave before finding anything I wanted because of rising nausea. Admittedly that was from their coffee bar. At a guess their flavored coffees had the too sweet smell. But give me Amazon any time, search, find, read blurb, read sample, order or keep looking. No drive, no parking, no weird smell.

My idea of socialization is not shopping in person. It's lunch with a friend or the neighborhood coffee group, but I admit to always marching to a different drummer. I order more and more stuff online these days and would probably even do it for groceries if it weren't for the fact I don't want anyone choosing fruit, vegetables, or meat for me.

For more pessimistic info -- I'm looking at cataract surgery in the near future and found a patient forum on that subject that's really been helpful. However, you can't believe how many people think "functional" or "practical" reading vision is good enough, meaning they can read a text on their phone or labels on grocery products, even if that's without crystal clarity. They admit in order to read for any length of time, as in read a book, they'd need reading glasses, but that's not a big deal because they rarely if ever read a book. There's one forum guru who absolutely refuses to acknowledge the validity of those of us who'd rather have good read-a-book vision and use glasses for distance than vice versa.

[TimothyEllis]

There's one forum guru who absolutely refuses to acknowledge the validity of those of us who'd rather have good read-a-book vision and use glasses for distance than vice versa.

I've done that. After decades using triple vision graded glasses, I went back to intermediate single vision.

I've also got long vision only for driving.

If I want reading which the intermediate isn't enough for (like pill bottles), I just take my glasses off. Took me decades to figure that one out. 

My reading device and Word are both on bigger font sizes than normal though, but it all works for me.

And it saves the long hassle of getting them to do 3 graded lenses right, because they normally don't.

My normal glasses are for walking around the house, and reading the monitor. Everything else is secondary.

Bonus to this is my feet are no longer blurry as I walk around.

[Bill Hiatt]

Depending on the condition of your eyes and other factors, you may not need to choose between reading vision and distance vision. Not so long ago, i had cataract surgery, first in one eye and then in the other. The surgeon used a lens that allows for close, intermediate, and distance vision. I haven't needed glasses since.

Of course, your eyes don't stop changing after cataract surgery, so you may eventually need glasses again.  A friend of mine is in that situation now, but she went without glasses for several years.

[Hopscotch]

Bill - Never before heard of the cataract surgery lens solution you describe.  How does it work/feel from your side of the lens?  Do you, as w/trifocals, have to aim your vision thru a specific part of your new lens to get the viewability you want?

[Bill Hiatt]

That type of lens is relatively new, though it was available a few years back when I had mine done.

Different brands are labeled in different ways, but the basic term is multifocal. Although the description makes it sound as if it works like bifocal or trifocal glasses, in fact, I don't consciously have to look through a particular part of the lens to see either close-up or distance. From my point of view, it's just like having good vision--to the extent that I can remember that. I started wearing glasses in sixth grade. When I switched to contacts, it was more like having good visions (aside from having to put in the lenses, occasionally use moisturizing drops, and take them out). But in my forties, I started having to wear reading glasses if I had the lenses in. (Eyes tend not to adjust their focus as easily as they get older.) That isn't a problem with the cataract lenses, though. I just look at what I'm looking at, and even if I shift back and forth between close-up and distance, it normally doesn't take time for my eyes to focus properly for what I'm looking at.

Note that multifocal lenses may not be suitable in cases of severe astigmatism. That's because you need a toric lens to correct the astigmatism, and toric lenses aren't yet available in a multifocal form.

Recovery time for the surgery is much less than it used to be. As I recall, my dad took several days to become fully functional after his first cataract surgery. I was pretty close to normal on day 2. Before I had the second one done, my vision was a little odd, but not because of focus. I could see colors somewhat differently in the eye with the cataract lens. (Cataracts can lead to a slightly more yellow tint, which the new lenses naturally fix.)

Cataract lenses in general can have debris accumulate on them over time, but there is a laser procedure that essentially polishes them. It's even easier than the original lens replacement.

So yeah, from a user point of view, multifocal lenses should allow for good vision and feel no different.