Barnes and Noble's hardest lesson: It pays to be small

Barnes & Noble has struggled to keep up with the growth of digital books, but that's not the only hurdle it faces. We just want stores to be smaller now.

Barnes & Noble expects to close up to a third of its retail book stores over the next decade, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The closures seem inevitable. Like other retailers, the chain has struggled in a digital world, where readers increasingly turned to e-books and online discounts. Its savior is arguably its Nook products, but sales during the holiday season fell.