Traditional Sales

The Bookstore of the Future Is Here Today
March 15, 2016 at 8:00 am

I have finally come across the bookstore concept for the future and it’s not coming from Amazon or Barnes & Noble with their cross-channel pipe dreams. It’s Shakespeare and Co., which opened under new ownership in November 2015 and currently operates one store in the Upper East Side of New York, with more planned for…

Amazon's Bookstores Should Be Celebrated, Not Feared
February 26, 2016 at 3:22 pm

The view of Amazon from the wider literary world has become increasingly poisonous, to the extent that people have responded with grave concern because the Evil Empire is now … opening bookstores! Is this what we’ve come to, that the opening of new bookstores is something to be feared? Yes – because apparently Amazon will…

B&N & Amazon Take Steps to Reinvent the Bookstore
February 25, 2016 at 3:11 pm

On Tuesday, Barnes & Noble CEO Ron Boire announced at the eTail West conference that B&N will be launching a long-rumored prototype store this year. Though Boire did not reveal the exact launch date or location of this store, he did say that the goal of the store would be to bridge the digital and…

Selling Books in a World Without Bookstores
February 16, 2016 at 9:39 am

Let’s pretend for a moment that there are no bookstores and as publishers we still need to sell books. How are we going to do that? For starters, let’s take a look at the recent trends for physical bookstore sales. There was welcome relief this year that sales at physical stores have stabilized, although I…

After Eight Year Slump, 2015 Bookstore Sales Rise
February 15, 2016 at 2:24 pm

Bookstores sales rose 2.5% in 2015, marking the first time since 2007 that sales in the sector were up. According to preliminary figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau, total bookstore sales in 2015 hit $11.17 billion, up from $10.89 billion in 2014. The numbers come after continued signs about the category strengthening. Sales from…

The Big Book Metadata Overhaul
February 12, 2016

The Book Industry Study Group is looking to find a way to better drive book discoverability using metadata.

On Amazon Stores And Publishers Accepting Standardization; Two Unrelated Commentaries
February 11, 2016 at 12:08 pm

When the “Amazon-opening-400-stores” rumor landed a week ago, many people were gobsmacked. It took me a minute to get past that, which also required getting past my firm conviction when they opened the Seattle store last year that it was an information-gathering exercise, not the opening move of a bigger retail play. But, when you…

Press Release: Barnes & Noble Now Carries Put Me in the Story Personalized Books in Select Stores
February 9, 2016 at 10:59 am

NEW YORK—February 2, 2016—Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, is exclusively partnering with Put Me In The Story® to introduce the leading personalized books platform into many of their brick and mortar stores and online at BN.com/putmeinthestory. The initial…

UPDATE: Amazon Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Expansion Confirmed
February 5, 2016 at 4:05 pm

UPDATE 5/18/2015: CEO Jeff Bezos has finally confirmed that Amazon is expanding its bookstore division Amazon Books, reported The Seattle Times. He shared this news at a shareholder meeting on May 17th. While not providing exact details, Bezos said, "We’re definitely going to open additional stores. How many? We don’t know yet. In these early…