Barnes & Noble Not Giving Up on Rare and Out-of- Print Books

When Barnes & Noble decided to close their Chelsea store in New York City many thought that the small rare- and out-of-print-book department that was housed at that location for the last 8 years would disappear too.

Instead the company decided to not only relocate the department to a larger store on Broadway and 66th Street but is also "spending a significant sum on the department, installing custom display cases with locked glass doors" and moving it to a more prominent location on the second floor of the store.

Although they are claiming that there are no plans to "replicate the effort in other stores" and are calling it the pet project of Karen Catalanotti, who set up the department in the Chelsea store, there exists a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on this growing market.

One can imagine in the not to distant future a Barnes & Noble Rare Book command center which would house seasoned booksellers and an extensive reference library and uses the latest technology to communicate with their various stores and booksellers on the front lines.

Picture this: Someone walks into a Barnes & Noble in Des Moines, Iowa with a box of books for sale. The trained used bookseller on staff deals with the general out of print material using a comprehensive internal database and if there is an item that might warrant further work they simply image or video it and send it off to the command center. A short time later the command center responds with either further bibliographic questions or a fair offer price.

For one, the profit margins are significantly higher than new books but more importantly it bolsters the role of the bookstore in the community and brings the company closer to being the full service bookstore they aspire to.

The future is near!

Celia McGee's piece, Rare Indeed: A Chain Committed to Selling Out-of-Print Books, in the New York Times

The Bright Spot at Barnes & Noble : The Rise of BN.com

In 2003 Barnes and Noble took over the reigns of BN.com and in October of last year relaunched a much improved website. In the last year traffic has almost doubled and sales have risen over 7% (compared to only a 1.1% increase in stores). It is safe to say something is working.

What I am most impressed with is the Barnes & Noble Studio. It is a rich, multi-faceted approach to the world of books and for those who follow Book Patrol you know that one of my main frustrations in the book world is how segmented it is. Barnes & Noble Studio is a valiant attempt to bridge the gap. Though the content so far leans toward the popular genres with only the latest in-print version of the books discussed being offered the seeds are in place for Barnes & Noble Studio to become a potential prime destination for book people everywhere.

Channels include:

Tagged! A weekly video magazine on the world of books.

Cover Story - video interviews with book designers.

Book Files- an in depth look at the stories behind particular books.

Book Obsessed - a look inside the lives of book collectors.

Here is the latest installment of Book Obsessed.

It is a look into the home and bibliomania of Leonard Schrader.
Schrader, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his screen adaptation of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman and is the only screenwriter to have written screenplays in both English and Japanese, was a book junkie who had over 100,000 books in his house. His collection included a significant Kurt Vonnegut collection, whom he studied under, and a world class collection of Japanese language books on Japanese cinema.

Forget Face-Out Borders Is Just About Face-Down

Following close on the heels of their recent shady pronouncement that they will be carrying less inventory and altering their display strategy to display more books face-out Borders announced today that they are hiring two Wall Street heavyweights to "explore strategic alternatives, including a sale of all or part of the company". They have also accepted a cash helping from the hedge fund Pershing Capital Advisors (at 12% interest).

PersonaNonData has a look at the numbers.

The Millions has the face-out issued covered here and here and offers the soundest advice for finding that "strategic alternative." By acknowledging that books are a 'knowledge product' and not a 'commodity product' then and only then can the right approach to successful bookselling be created. As Max says "it's crazy to try to sell books as a commodity product because, (and this is just a guess) out of all the retail categories out there, bookstores by far offer the widest array of products, and therefore would require the most guidance and the best systems to help customers find what they are looking for."

Books have special needs and until the chain retailers attend to these special needs they will continue to falter.

Borders Press Release.

Dress Your Books

Worried about reading O. J.'s If I Did It in public? Worried about selling it in public?

Worry no more, with Book-Frocks you can shamelessly read or sell whatever you want wherever you want.

"The covers fit any standard size trade-paper book, and even the extra tall/large ones. For you poetry lovers, the button closure keeps skinny ones from slippin about. Perfect to take with you on the bus, or to your favorite cafe, or to disguise the fact that you're reading."

This might be just what the doctor ordered for Barnes and Noble. They already stuck their foot in their mouths by saying they weren't going to carry the books in their stores. It now seems that it was merely a tactic to increase demand.

When was the last time there has been a book with so much pre-publicity that wasn't a bestseller?

When was the last time BN decided not to sell a bestseller in their stores?

Maybe by wrapping each copy in a dress they can ease the guilt of greed.

The Military Side of Barnes & Noble

This is the headline from the company's press release:

Barnes & Noble Donates Books, Toys And Games Valued At $3.4 Million, To Military Charities
Bookstore Joins America Supports You Team at Andrews AFB Joint Service Open House
Y3K Grafix and Penske Logistics Truck Goods Across the Country.

and from CEO Marie Toulantis:

“On behalf of all the booksellers at Barnes & Noble, we thank America Supports You for this opportunity to express our support to our fellow Americans,”

It sounds like as grand a patriotic gesture as one could hope for from a corporation.

But could it be so noble?

This is the how we got there:

Barnes & Noble decides to close their 38,000 square foot Memphis warehouse as part of a consolidation effort. 200 employees lose their jobs.

Typically, instead of incurring the expense of redistributing the merchandise to other Barnes & Noble locations they donate the books, toys and games to a local charity and take the write-off.

Luckily, one of those getting laid off was a former Marine and knew about the Department of Defense program America Supports You which connects "citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad."

The inventory was given to them and then 2 transportation companies take it all over the country.

The headline could of read:

Barnes & Noble closes Memphis warehouse
Barnes & Noble writes off $3.4 Million of inventory
Barnes & Noble joins America Supports You, a Department of Defense program
Someone else comes and does all the work

Then their first act as an "official America Supports You corporate supporter" is to set the military up as an affiliate, build them a "special website" www.BN.com/asy and give them 5% of every sale.

Only in today's America could putting two hundred people out of work be twisted into a patriotic gesture.

"Bookselling giant Barnes and Noble opened a new chapter in its history today by announcing a donation of 300,000 items to America Supports You" was the lead sentence of the American Forces Press Service press release.

I am not sure if this is a chapter I would want to open. Forget what's going on in the bookselling world, with all that is going on with the current administration and the war in Iraq this might not be the best time to align yourself with the Department of Defense.

Another University Bookstore Goes to the Chains

First it was Sonoma State University now it is the University of Kentucky.

The family owned and independent Kennedy Book Store has had the contract for the UK Book Store for the last 6 years. Kennedy Book Store has been a "campus mainstay since its was founded in 1950" by... Joe Kennedy, who remains the company president."

What the University wants for the right to run the bookstore:
a 10-year lease and $3 million to $4 million toward renovation of the 16,250-square-foot store.

Kennedy offered $2 million and wisely "could not go beyond that given uncertainties that could arise during a 10-year lease"

They are no longer in the running.

Whose left? the Follett Corp. and Barnes & Noble, two of the nation's largest college textbook corporations.

Follett operates 750 college bookstores
Barnes and Noble operates 570
Kennedy Bookstore operates 1

Let's see if the the students and faculty can put up a similar fight to the one waged at Sonoma State

The Borders Trilogy: Reward the Loyal Less, Kill the Speciality, Withdraw From Parts of the World

The Border's Trilogy. Sponsored by the Oprah Book Club who's latest pick The Road by Cormac McCarthy...

We won't get into the possible psychological motives for such a choice but let's just say that I can't understand half of what McCarthy writes, he is a bit reclusive and has given one interview in the last 40 years and he is going to Oprahland!

As surprising as this pick is for Oprah is how unsurprising the recent news is from Borders.

New CEO George Jones laid out his blurred strategic vision for the company.

It includes a new and less improved loyalty program
and "significantly reducing investment in segments that have not provided a satisfactory return, including the International segment and Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment"

Linguistic highlights of the strategic vision press release:

"Focus on Core Domestic Superstore Business"

"urgent need to go on the offensive and drive significant change"

"mission to be a headquarters for knowledge and entertainment"

"Highly aggressive efforts...to right-size the Waldenbooks"

"Reinventing the company by leveraging innovation, technology and strategic alliances to differentiate Borders in the marketplace, including the debut of a new proprietary e-commerce site in early 2008."

The holes in the machine:

The potential of success for a "domestic superstore" in this country is on borrowed time for most industries and will not be a viable business strategy in a few years. Simply the use of the phrase while talking about a bookstore is flawed.

A company first coming to the e-commerce table in 2008 is at a tremendous disadvantage. Reinventing and leveraging? This is Web 1.0

The story is a familiar one:
company losing money
bring in a CEO from outside the field to turn things around
company keeps losing money
sweeping reforms and changes are announced
some people make a lot of money
The company is sold or goes out of business

Sadly, in this case, there are books involved.

I can't wait to see where this one goes.


Michael Cairns gives his take on what the strategic version should be
Booksquare take
Related:
my post "Barnes & Noble: Is The End Near" after they reported their 3Q 06 earnings.

The Powell's Surprise

It was great to see an article on a book scout get coverage in the blogosphere and in the papers, GalleyCat covered it and the Seattle times picked up the AP story as well.

The article, "Rare Finds Make Stacks of Cash for Book Scouts" was written for the AP by Kevin Sampsell.

The problem is that the article is more of a commercial for Powell's than an appreciation of book scouts.

Why:
The article was written for the AP by Kevin Sampsell, a long time Powell's employee and the scout that is the subject of the article Wayne Pernu used to work for Powell's and who I am sure has supplied Powells with a boatload of books over the years.

The image used in the story is a copy of Charlotte's Web with the caption. "A rare first edition of "Charlotte's Web" for sale at Powell's is worth more than $1,000." not a picture of the book scout or a library sale.
A first edition of Charlotte's Web is not a rare book. There over 30 copies available on the market today.

The article begins:

"Carefully and lovingly displayed in the Rare Book Room at Powell's Books in Portland is an original edition of the Lewis and Clark journals. At $285,000, it's the crown jewel in a room full of gems...But where do they come from and who finds them?"

Not book scouts. Yes it is possible to find such a book at a garage sale or at a library sale but the odds are greater then winning the Lotto. Powell's did not get the first edition of Lewis & Clark from a book scout and it also about $100,000 overpriced.

Book Scouts like booksellers have seen their vocation turned upside down by technology in the last ten years and deserve the exposure that this story has garnered but unfortunately this story has very little to do with the current plight of scouts.

Powell's claims to be the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world. They operate five retail locations and five warehouses in Oregon.

But it is a story like this that shows that Powell's has pulled away from the independent values that molded the company and are quickly moving toward a corporate culture and existence.

After all weren't Barnes and Noble independent booksellers once.

"The Barnes & Noble flagship store was opened on Fifth Avenue at 18th Street in New York City, where it still resides today. This store developed a worldwide reputation for excellence by serving millions of customers with its comprehensive selection" from the B&N website

If you close your eyes and substitute Burnside for Fifth Avenue and 18th Street you would be talking about the Powell's of today. Spooky.

When a University Bookstore Sells Out: The Battle at Sonoma State

This one has all the makings of a David and Goliath biblio thriller. Corporate giant infiltrates university campus.

Book spies, stolen textbook lists, divided communities and tons of money at stake.

In one corner is North Light Books & Cafe and Coppefield's, two independent bookstores, in the other the Barnes & Noble run Sonoma State University Bookstore.

When the University was looking for new manager for the bookstore they sent out an RFP (request for proposal) directly to three national bookstore chains. There was no public announcement. The RFP also stated that the bookstore was "seeking to establish a business partnership with a nationally recognized bookstore company" effectively excluding any hope of a local or regional bookshop to submit a proposal.

Why the bookstore rejected the idea of simply hiring a new manager remains unclear.

In May of 2006 the Sonoma State Academic Senate passed a resolution strongly urging the university to delay the signing of the contract with Barnes & Noble. The "Outsourcing Bookstore Resolution" includes a letter from a lawyer representing the 2 independent booksellers. The letter contends that the agreement was not in" compliance with the publication requirements of state law"

In protest of this shady agreement some University professors gave their course textbook orders to North Light and not the University book store. Over 50% more profs gave their book orders to North Light then the year before ordering some 575 titles. North Light had to expand to meet the need.

asap the Associated Press website for the wired generation has a lead article on the story including video and a podcast.

Bookselling This Week story from early November

At the Library: Books on the Chopping Block

Much like independent bookstores, public libraries are struggling to come up with a strategy that will help them stay relevant in todays shifting landscape. I recently blogged about the changes taking place at the college library level but the public libraries are also undergoing a transformation.

John Morrison has a post at the Guardian that talks about some of the changes happening to the libraries of Great Britian. On of the most striking tidbits is that some libraries have been remodeled then reopened without the word library in their title! His local library is now referred to as the "Kaleidoscope".
Yes, there is expanded performance space and additional computers but there are also 1/3 less books in there. He also notes that "Public libraries now spend less than 9% of their budget on books". There are also some illuminating quotes from Labour MP Lyn Brown and culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

Then on our side of the ocean The Washington Post has an article on some changes taking place at the Fairfax County Library system in Virginia.

Let's start with this little quiz:

What do these 7 literary hi-spots have in common?

The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak
Desolation Angels - Kerouac
The Glass Menagerie - Williams
Rememberence of Things Past - Proust
To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee

The answer: They have just been yanked off the shelves of libraries in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The reason: No one has checked them out in at least 24 months.

Here is what Sam Clay the director of the 21-branch system had to say "A book is not forever. If you have 40 feet of shelf space taken up by books on tulips and you find that only one is checked out, that's a cost."
and some other disturbing quotes from the article:
"Fairfax library officials have started running like businesses"
"Like Borders and Barnes & Noble, Fairfax is responding aggressively to market preferences, calculating the system's return on its investment by each foot of space on the library shelves"
"Fairfax bets its future on a retail model"

Sounds like libraries might soon be sponsored by corporations - How does this sound - The George Mason Regional Library presented by the Barnes & Noble stores of Virginia. Yikes!

I bet Thomas Jefferson is turning over in his grave.

Luckily there was one breath of fresh air.

Diane Kresh, the library director of Arlington County, Virginia who says she is paying attention to usage trends in the system "but if they aren't checking out Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," she's not only keeping it, she's promoting it through a new program that gives forgotten classics prominent display" she goes on to say "Part of my philosophy is that you collect for the ages,...the library has a responsibility to provide a core collection for the cultural education of its community."

Amen!

While change is good and many libraries need to be updated or enhanced with new technologies and larger meeting spaces they also need more books. If shelf space is an issue why not place one of those soon to be released Espresso, print on demand vending machines in each of these libraries. Then each user will have access to millions of titles at their fingertips. And I think it would also be appropriate to charge them for it. Let's say a suggested donation of $3. The book is printed on demand, the user pays the $3 and can have it checked out for a month. Then they return it and it can circulate for 24 months (since this is the criteria used to weed out books) at the library. If no one else checks it out in that time the book goes to the local library sale and is sold for $1. Essentially their is no cost for library and they are able to provide all their potential users with an extensive selection of material.

I know people are going to say that the essence of the public library is to provide material free to the residents of the community. And this remains true but why can't it offer enhanced services as well? If the format of the public library is changing why can't the policies of what a public library can and cannot do change too.

Book Design, Bibles and Some Projections

The Book Design Review blog picks his favorite cover designs of 2006

The current issue of the New Yorker has an article on the best selling book of the year, wait make that every year- Here is a snippet:

The Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year. Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the United States is a virtually impossible task, but a conservative estimate is that in 2005 Americans purchased some twenty-five million Bibles—twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book

There is a short post on Metroblogging San Francisco on visiting a Barnes & Nobel titled "Retail Hell"- The most telling quote:

"As a friend who recently retired after ten years as a Borders general manager told me: "It's not bookselling any longer -- it's just retail."

Amen!

Finally, in case you were worried that there was no money to be made in books check out the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States released by the U.S. Census (Tables 1118, 1119 and 1120). They offer projections through 2009.

Some Projectoids:

Amount of books bought in 2009-3.22 billion (up from 3.150 projected for 06)

Total projected expenditures on books in 2009-58.8 billion!

That's a lot of bibles. Also keep in mind, the projections do not include 1 penny of sales in the used or resale market.


Thanks to kottke.org for the lead on book design review and beSpacific for the abstract lead

Barnes & Noble - Is the End Near?

A bold thought but are we starting to see at least some withering of this biblio monster?

Barnes & Noble reported their 3Q earnings (or should I say loss) today.

The first flag is that they called these results preliminary. As you might know, they are being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is never a good sign. They responded to the investigation by creating a special committee of its board to undertake an internal review of the company's option grant practices. The way I read it is that once they tell the truth one will see a very different picture of the health of the company.

Secondly, it seem that their years of growth are coming to end. They expect their same store sales, or sales in stores open at least a year to be unchanged or up slightly. What they don't say is that all the new stores they opened are probably losing money. I was recently in one that opened in my neighborhood in Seattle within the last year (they do have nice play areas for the kids on those rainy days :). I asked one of the clerks how the store was going. She gave me the usual "it's going ok, you know it is a new store", but it was her last statement that stuck with me. She said "the employees like it" which to me says they are book lovers who have a job being around books - it's like a cocaine addict saying they like living in Columbia.

So where is the growth going to come from- overseas? I don't believe our current trade policies are going to hold up much longer. They are completely unsustainable and the cost of doing business outside of this country has nowhere to go but up.

Also the recent news that publishers are finally getting more diverse in their marketing strategies and including specialty stores in the distribution of their titles cannot be seen as good news.

It makes me wonder if we are in the beginning stages of the bursting of a Big Box retail bubble!

Music to my ears. Stay tuned.