Barnes & Noble was just sold...

[Tommy]

I loved all my local bookstores. We actually had two in the mall when I was growing up and a few other near by. I hated it when B&N came and shut them all down. I remember being in a mall after not going there for years (decades?) and asked if there was a bookstore in there and they said, yeah the B&N across the street. I deserved that. But I did miss B. Dalton and Walden and some other locals that went bye bye.

Now, every Sunday, I usually stop at B&N since it's the only bookstore in town now and if that goes, my Sundays will be much bleaker.

[Sock Monkey]

In my mind B&N really only needs to do a couple of things to be successful on the retail front again. The main thing is that they need to remember that they are a bookstore. My biggest problem is that every time I'm in one there's less and less books and more junk. Ditching the seating and coffee shops will solve their "library" problem. They also maybe need to scale back the number of stores they have. One of the things that I think makes Books-A-Million successful is that they have fairly few store and their stores tend to be on the smaller side of things. I also think they need to stop trying to compete with Amazon on the web store side of things. That's a fight they can't win and all the money they invest there is essentially just wasted.

Agreed on multiple areas. First, nobody can "Out Amazon" Amazon. To try to fight that battle is a losing proposition. Since "Customer Service" is non-existent with big online retailers, the ONLY way to compete is to undercut their prices which most companies can't afford to do. I also agree with getting rid of all the miscellaneous crap stuff and focus more on books. My local B&N carries a lot of games and POP! figures and whatnot. I don't mind the CD/DVD section (they're pretty much the only place in town I can pick up Criterion blurays so I appreciate that), but give me more books please.

Also, I would really appreciate it if they'd give us a Horror section. It might not be a big money-maker, but I've always hated that the genre just gets lumped in under FICTION.

[Tommy]

Now I'll expose my nerdity even more. B&N has the cheapest POP Funko Figures I can find in stores and also the hard plastic POP protectors are the cheapest in store at B&N for some reason. It's strange because I have noticed that some of the other toys (my store is nearly half toys at this point) are way over priced but not the POP Funko stuff. I'll definitely miss those cheap POP prices if B&N goes away.

[Martin]

If selling toys, figures and other trinkets helps Barnes & Noble continue to sell books I am all for them! The store near just recently got rid of the Horror section, moving the horror books into Fiction. They appear to have expanded Sci-Fi with the space. As much as I liked having a dedicated Horror section I will accept this change as well, hoping it increases sales and allows them to stay open.

While there are far fewer of them I am fortunate that the Portland area still has a some small independent book stores.

[Ben Staad]

If that was directed at me I never received a Spotify deal or offer. I could access the portion of my library that MS still held a license to on their service. However none of my library could be downloaded. It was a streaming only service. I did not utilize that offer.

Did you take the Spotify deal?? I did and have been pretty happy, I was able to carry over my purchased music. The Zune was a wild wacky ride. Thankfully both of mine still work.

[Ben Staad]

Agreed. It wouldn't take much for them to convert one aisle to horror. It is frustrating to go there with a list of Authors because they don't have this genre broken out of fiction.

Also, I would really appreciate it if they'd give us a Horror section. It might not be a big money-maker, but I've always hated that the genre just gets lumped in under FICTION.

[JJ123]

Very interesting thread. If I missed someone already saying this, please forgive...

In my opinion, the key to growth for B&N is to create original content. The company should direct its CFO to secure funding (or the hedge fund itself could acquire outside investors) for a movie/television slate for two purposes: to create a separate revenue stream for its own sake, as well as to create exclusive merchandise for the stores. Here's how it would work, briefly: B&N Studios produces, in conjunction with outside financers (think Dune Entertainment, etc.), The Bookstore. It's a horror film with a young cast. Pick any concept/plot you want (evil bookstore sacrifices the young high-school students who work there to compete with Amazon). Jason Blum is hired to produce. Universal distributes. The novelization is only found at B&N. The Blu-ray is only found there (digital sales are only on Nook, but streaming rights are sold to domestic/international sites, hopefully ones like Netflix and Hotstar. The Halloween costumes and Funkos and whatever are only found there. Eventually, B&N starts a streaming service and when you go to the register, clerks ask if you would like to sign up for three months for a discounted price...

A model like that could have worked for that toy store with the giraffe. In fact, think of something even like Party City...why that company hasn't made horror films to fuel its costume business is beyond me. How much would it take to spend a couple million on a low-budget horror feature centering on a character in a unique mask? Retail, unfortunately, is without imagination, anyone who has worked in that type of laborer position knows it dumbs down even the smartest.

I would love to see CD someday produce its own original content. Maybe use a Kickstarter-type model. You've got the mailing list...

One last thing: yes, the library aspect is annoying at the stores. Ditch that, it's obviously not helping...(one thing too the company could do is allow local authors to bring a digital file of their novels and print up several copies to place on the shelves; just the friends/family business on that would help).

[St. Troy]

Some thoughts:

Who else remembers Lauriat’s? I loved that place.

It’s funny to think B&N was thought of as the killer of smaller bookstores, and now we’re worried about their survival (I love B&N, to be clear).

A horror section would be great.

The whole “library”/”coffee shop” thing is probably key to getting people to actually enter physical stores; I suspect they do more good than harm.

CDs will never be dead any more than vinyl will be, although use has shrunk to where cars don't have CD players etc., but there will always be enough people who feel like I do to keep them around. With music, I insist on owning physical media, both because I enjoy the tactile experience (artwork etc.) but also because I refuse to enable the possibility of this happening to me:

...I had a massive amount of purchased music through Zune/Microsoft that was essentially stolen from me. When Zune went away, and my Zune broke, I found out that much of the purchased music and media was not under license anymore and that I had no access to it...

If someone wants to "retract" the music I own, they will have to enter my home with firearms...

...there will probably come a point in the future where you don't really own these things anymore, you're just renting the license to consume it.

I will literally fight to my dying breath to avoid living like this.

[Ben Staad]

Either way I truly hope physical book stores can continue on for many years. The experience of shopping in person, particularly for books, is an experience that online shopping cannot replace.

[JJ123]

Some thoughts:

Who else remembers Lauriat’s? I loved that place.

It’s funny to think B&N was thought of as the killer of smaller bookstores, and now we’re worried about their survival (I love B&N, to be clear).

A horror section would be great.

The whole “library”/”coffee shop” thing is probably key to getting people to actually enter physical stores; I suspect they do more good than harm.

CDs will never be dead any more than vinyl will be, although use has shrunk to where cars don't have CD players etc., but there will always be enough people who feel like I do to keep them around. With music, I insist on owning physical media, both because I enjoy the tactile experience (artwork etc.) but also because I refuse to enable the possibility of this happening to me

I do remember Lauriat's. In fact, I recall when my mall had two bookstores, a Lauriat's and another one, both at opposite ends. Imagine that...two bookstores at the mall! It was similar at the other mall near me as well. Now, there are no bookstores at these shopping places, some other stores have closed, and you really don't want to go to them because of all the potholes that have yet to be fixed. There are more than enough eating places there now, as you can imagine. (I'll add, too, I would love to see an 80s-style arcade come back to the mall.) Was Lauriat's owned by a publisher, maybe Simon/Schuster? Am I remembering that correctly?

I agree that the library/coffee-shop element brings traffic in, and while I have no problem with the shop, I don't like people reading the books. What to do about that model is a difficult challenge, though, I would also agree to that. When I buy a book, I have to hope it is not the last one in stock. Sometimes you see one-left items that are simply not in the best of shapes.

Sometimes I wonder if a model might work that is essentially a library but you have a membership just like you would a gym. And you can access all kinds of stuff - video games, equipment to make movies, instruments (including recording rooms, rehearsal space) - in addition to books and educational materials. And there would be electronic subscriptions to all the stock-market research you would ever want. Maybe B&N could pivot to that. I guess this could be considered a private library as opposed to a public one.

I too enjoy physical, and I don't think I could ever get into Kindle/Nook stuff, but I admit that it is easier to power up some movies on my Apple TV as opposed to getting the actual disc off the shelf, and that checking out YouTube for music is way more efficient and economical than tracking down songs you just heard on the radio. What I would love to see, and maybe these things are no longer made (and maybe they aren't as good quality-wise), is a return to disc players that can store multiple discs, or perhaps (not sure if these ever existed), you can take your discs, install them into memory, and then play them from a DVD/Blu-ray unit.

[JJ123]

Either way I truly hope physical book stores can continue on for many years. The experience of shopping in person, particularly for books, is an experience that online shopping cannot replace.

I agree. I think we will at least have used bookstores and general second-hand/thrift shops around that also carry some newer stuff as well. I think local authors can also keep the brick/mortar alive...

[Dan Hocker]

CDs will never be dead any more than vinyl will be, although use has shrunk to where cars don't have CD players etc., but there will always be enough people who feel like I do to keep them around. With music, I insist on owning physical media, both because I enjoy the tactile experience (artwork etc.) but also because I refuse to enable the possibility of this happening to me:



If someone wants to "retract" the music I own, they will have to enter my home with firearms...



I will literally fight to my dying breath to avoid living like this.

I really disagree with you about CDs. Vinyl was functionally dead for probably about 10 - 15 years. It only had a resurgence due to the idea that analog audio has a higher quality than digital. That and the collectors market that sprung up around Vinyl. CDs have none of that nostalgia though and will eventually go the way of the tape. The older the generation that bought CDs gets, the less and less people there will be who buy them. Eventually it will die off. This idea that there will always be people who prefer physical media is real though. There's an entire generation coming up now that doesn't buy anything in physical media at all. Video games, movies, TV, books, and music are all delivered to them on demand on their phones.

I get what you're saying about owning the music though, and you can still own digital media, as long as your consuming of it isn't tied to a service. For example if I buy and album off of iTunes I can download those files and copy them and do whatever I want with them. Apple can't take the files away from me. The only thing they can do is make is so that I can't download them from them again. Now if Apple where to say loose the license and make the files no longer available to download, and for some reason I were to loose those files, then it would be like I lost or broke the CD.

Music as a service is something that'll probably happen eventually, but music and eBooks / Audio books will probably be the last thing to fall to that model, and it probably won't be for a long time.

[Ben Staad]

I'm not sure that is right. I have saved music, on my desktop, that I cannot play. Whenever I go to play it on my computer or transfer it to a device it says, "Media Usage Rights Agreement", and will not let me access the file. This is coming from what I mentioned above with my Zune issue. I bought the music from MS outright, downloaded the file(s), and can no longer use them.

I get what you're saying about owning the music though, and you can still own digital media, as long as your consuming of it isn't tied to a service. For example if I buy and album off of iTunes I can download those files and copy them and do whatever I want with them. Apple can't take the files away from me. The only thing they can do is make is so that I can't download them from them again. Now if Apple where to say loose the license and make the files no longer available to download, and for some reason I were to loose those files, then it would be like I lost or broke the CD.

[Tommy]

CDs, especially those we play and handle the most, can degrade. It's called bronzing. Leaving your CDs in a hot car is a great way to deteriorate them faster. A digital copy will sound the same on the first play as it will on the 1,000 play.

My nephew and niece had no idea what either a CD or album was and I could have confused them further by bringing 8-tracks into the picture but, maybe when they are older.

[Dan Hocker]

I'm not sure that is right. I have saved music, on my desktop, that I cannot play. Whenever I go to play it on my computer or transfer it to a device it says, "Media Usage Rights Agreement", and will not let me access the file. This is coming from what I mentioned above with my Zune issue. I bought the music from MS outright, downloaded the file(s), and can no longer use them.

I think it all depends on the service you purchase it through / the lengths you go through to make sure you never loose it. I'm not familiar with the Zune (never had one, so I don't particularly know what their file formats are) but I've done this with iTunes and Google Play Music before. Granted it's been some years since I last did it with iTunes. You used to be able to convert the files to MP3's withing iTunes and then just load them up on any MP3 player you wanted, not just an iPod. I know you can do the same with Google Play Music. Maybe Zune used some weird proprietary file format, I'd guess you can find a file converter to strip off those protections though.