Traditional Sales

Hummingbird Offering E-book Retailing Option
August 14, 2015 at 1:00 am

Hummingbird Digital Media is the latest company to try to develop a system that will allow booksellers to sell e-books and digital audio directly to consumers.

The State of a Genre Title, 2015
August 12, 2015 at 5:19 pm

Eighteen months ago, as Redshirts moved from its hardcover era into trade paperback, I did an examination of its sales to the point, across all its formats, and chatted about what its sales meant, or didn’t mean, and what we could learn from the numbers. Last week, Lock In, my most recent novel (until tomorrow),…

Barnes & Noble Stops Paying Marketplace Sellers
August 10, 2015 at 4:02 pm

Barnes & Noble has stopped paying some of its marketplace sellers, who said they have been unable to get information from the company about when payments will resume. The problem appears to be related to a 2-week outage of the marketplace section after Barnes & Noble relaunched its website in late June - sellers say…

Why That Ebook May Cost More Than The Hardcover
August 10, 2015 at 3:59 pm

Mike Shatzkin’s column of August 5 may be the one in which we someday remember hearing a new sermon, the beginning of the endgame. But Shatzkin is not delivering a benediction yet: This is not a death-knell for anybody. This is a changing world for everybody. His essay is The publishing world is changing, but there…

Barnes and Noble Education Spins Off, Looks for Growth in Digital Textbooks, Colleges
August 4, 2015 at 5:14 pm

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Barnes and Noble Education (BNED) rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange after officially spinning-off from its parent company, Barnes and Noble  (BKS - Get Report). Executive chairman, Michael Huseby spoke with TheStreet about what will change now that the education division is a publically traded company. Formerly the Barnes…

Legendary Bookseller Rizzoli Reopens Doors Monday
July 23, 2015

It's often that a venerable New York institution gets crushed under the thumb of Manhattan real estate development. But its far less frequent that they rise like a phoenix from the ashes of their last incarnation in grand style, in an even more desirable neighborhood, all while retaining the essentials elements of its original charm. Rizzoli Bookstore is about to do just that.

The 50-year-old New York bookseller specializes in art and illustrated titles, and shuttered its flagship location on 57th Street last April after its lease expired and building owners decided to tear down the building.

Books-A-Million Thrust Into Spotlight by 'Watchman' Sales
July 13, 2015

"Go Set a Watchman" is breaking records for booksellers across the nation.

That includes the country's second-largest book store, which shares a home state with the book's author.

Books-A-Million (NYSE: BAMM) isn't saying exactly how many copies it has on pre-sale "for strategic reasons," according to CEO Terrance Finley. But it's the most-preordered novel in the company's history. The book did not beat out Harry Potter, which Books-A-Million calls a "children's" book.

"From a business perspective, we took the position that we had to make this ours, because we're an Alabama company," Finley said.

Apple Loses E-book Appeal—Now What?
July 3, 2015 at 1:00 am

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2–1 margin, affirmed Judge Denise Cote’s 2013 finding that Apple orchestrated a 2010 conspiracy with five major publishers to fix e-book prices.