![]() ![]() “Other priorities include further narrowing the mix to books, educational games, puzzles and workbooks store refurbishments that include an emphasis on smaller tables and wider aisles expanding online (only 10 percent of sales) and reducing out-of-stocks,” notes RetailWire. Eliminating co-op displays (or “pay to display”, to put it in more practical language), in which publishers could purchase premium placement for specific titles.Down-sizing the central office formerly responsible for ordering for all stores, limiting them to a minimal order, and allowing store managers greater discretion in what to bring in based on local sales.Despite the pandemic decimating foot traffic to many branches, sales were up 3% in 2021 over pre-pandemic numbers in 2019. Daunt was responsible for taking the UK chain Waterstones from bankruptcy to profitability, and he has gained some ground for B&N since 2019. In 2018, the board fired its chief executive a summer later, hedge fund Elliott Advisors purchased the chain and put James Daunt in charge. We’ll get into discovery and the potential impact of this later, but first I want to talk about some pieces of “what’s actually happening” and “why now.” There are a few factors to consider here, and we’ll start with B&N’s recent sale and leadership revamp. This, above all other things, is one of the reasons that buyers bringing in fewer hardcovers is such a scary thought for so many authors. As Ellen Adler, publisher of New Press, told the New York Times, “It’s funny how the industry has evolved so that they are now a good guy… I would say their rehabilitation has been total.” And while highly selective buying practices are par for the course – it’s impossible for any store to carry every book published, and any store has to be able to select for what they believe they can sell – with stores across the country, B&N fills an important role in the ability of readers to discover new authors. Despite Amazon controlling the lion’s share of book sales in the US, everyone in publishing (including indie bookstores) seems united in agreeing that without B&N as even a small counterweight to the e-commerce behemoth, bookselling as we know it would be doomed. Independent publisher Disruption Books weighed in to note that this holds true with their own experience.ī&N is a key piece of the in-person bookselling world. ![]() Scroll through the responses to Baptiste’s tweet, and you’ll see many others with the same story. This isn’t limited to debut authors, either Kelly Yang, the award-winning author of the Front Desk series, posted a video in which she announced she had been specifically told that B&N would not be stocking the newest book in the series. Let’s take the newest news first: While much of this is anecdotal, it’s not likely that Barnes & Noble would go on the record about this kind of policy and there are enough supporting responses on Bethany Baptiste’s tweet on August 17th to make it clear that many authors with hardcover releases, particularly in Kids and Middle-Grade, are not being stocked even in their local B&N stores. So while this conversation doesn’t affect me directly, as a publishing auntie and citizen reader it’s something I take seriously. Zainab Williams, neither of which will ever be published in hardcover (because anthologies). I’m also the co-editor of two anthologies, Sword Stone Table with Swapna Krishna and (coming in 2023!) Fit for the Gods with S. I got my start in bookselling I was hired by Borders in 2004 (RIP, Borders!), worked for independent bookstores from 2005 to 2015, and have been working for Book Riot since then. I’m by no means an expert, nor do I (or have I ever) work for a publisher or for Barnes & Noble. When I saw this conversation take off, it pinged the former-bookseller part of my brain that has been tracking bricks-and-mortar news, because B&N has made quite a few changes to their stores in the past two years, and they’re worth looking at.īefore we dive in, let me give you my credentials. Writers recently sounded the alarm after hearing from various sources (other writers, B&N reps, former B&N employees, other industry professionals, etc.) that the chain’s stores would only be stocking hardcovers that had proven sales records. ![]() If you’ve been seeing the chatter on Twitter about Barnes & Noble not stocking debut hardcovers, you’re not alone. ![]()
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