Book Chase

>Like most avid readers and book collectors, I have my favorite bookstores.  Some of them are local, some are one or two states away from Houston; others are across the Atlantic.  One that I’ve mentioned before is Shakespeare and Company, a Paris bookstore that has to be seen to be believed.

George Whitman and daughter Sylvia in his bookstore bedroom Painting by Rosy Lamb

Shakespeare and Company, in its current incarnation, was reborn in 1961 when George Whitman opened up his English-language bookstore in the heart of Paris.  Whitman, who was born in 1913, plans to live in the bookstore until he reaches his hundredth birthday.  Thankfully, his 30-year-old daughter plans to keep the store open even after her father leaves the business.

This is a must-see spot for book lovers but, despite its proximity to Notre Dame, it is easily missed unless one is specifically looking for it.  This video gives a taste of what the bookstore is like, but hardly does justice to the real thing:

This April 21 Los Angeles Times article brings the Shakespeare and Company story current – and what a story it is.

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About now, Borders is being reminded of an old rule of thumb about shoppers.  As Sue Stock of newsobservor.com put it, “Shoppers love you when you have a liquidation sale.”

The kickoff of the clearance sale and the buzz it generated was enough to draw hundreds of deal-hunters.


Lines over the weekend filled store aisles, and even on weekdays, busy folks on their lunch breaks are making time to stop by.

[...]

“Prices at Borders stores are higher than they were three weeks ago,” de Grandpre said. “People think they’re getting a good deal. … The good deals do come, but they come at the end – six to eight weeks into the sale.”

[...]

“Don’t allow the hoopla that surrounds a liquidation sale to make you completely lose your judgment,” he said.


Before the sales are over in April, discounts will likely reach 80 percent to 90 percent, de Grandpre (dealnews.com editor) said.

Exactly the same was true when Barnes & Noble shut down their last Bookstop bookstore in Houston a few years ago.  I found that shopping experience to be almost like participating in an eBay auction where everyone strives to get in the last second bid that lets them run away with their “winnings.”  I bought a few dozen books over a 2-month period as the stock slowly diminished, most of them during the last week when prices were at, or very close, to the lowest levels they were likely to reach.

It was actually a lot like gambling.  Do I buy at this week’s price or gamble that copies will be available even cheaper next week?  Is someone else playing the same game with that last copy of  a book I’ve been watching for three weeks?  When do I push the button?  I was having fun, especially when I found that my tastes were much different than the average Bookstop shopper’s in that last two weeks.  That really improved the odds that my books would stay on the shelves a while longer.

I wonder how Borders employees feel about all these customers suddenly appearing in the same stores that have been ignored by book buyers for so long.  It must be a tad difficult for Borders salespeople to be polite to customers who have only come in to pick the stores’ bones clean – like the vultures all thrifty shoppers have, by necessity, learned to be.

(If, from their side, Borders is playing the game the way Circuit City and a few other chains have played it in recent months, prices are, indeed, higher on many items this week than they were before the liquidation began.  Many of those 20% discounts being offered at Borders right now might be starting from the full recommended sales prices of items rather than from the, possibly lower, prices those same items were marked at last week.  The result could be that, even with the 20% “markdown,” some items are higher priced now than before the sale began.  Buyer, beware.)

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(Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

Well, as predicted, they’ve gone and done it.

Borders finally filed for bankruptcy protection this morning and a few of the numbers associated with that move have become public:

Around 200 of the 642 stores will be shut down.


Of the approximately 19,000 Borders employees, some 6,000 are expected to lose their jobs.


The company has secured $505 million in financing to be used in reorganizing under Chapter 11 rules.


Borders shares can now be had for 18 cents each – an all-time low share price for the company.


Borders owes $41.1 million to Penguin Group, $36.9 million to Hatchett Book Group, and $33.8 million to Simon & Schuster – only a small portion of the company’s total debt of $1.3 billion.


Hiring 4 CEOs in five years (none of them with bookseller experience, by the way) is not a great idea.


A complete list of the stores being shut down can be found here.   (Surprisingly, none of the seven Houston stores are on the list but Dallas and Austin get hit hard.) 

Borders always did seem to be a step behind Barnes & Noble to me and I never really enjoyed browsing my local Borders the way I enjoy browsing so many other bookstores. There is just something about the layout of the store that creates such a sterile atmosphere that I seldom spend any real time (or money) there. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly, but it’s some combination of a less than personable staff and the floor plan that irks me.

But that’s just me, one customer. Where Borders seems to have been most shortsighted is in never really positioning itself in the e-book market; the company never could carve out an e-book niche for itself.  I mean, come on…all of us could see the trend coming years ago.  Right?  But for some reason, the revolving door managers of Borders missed the boat completely. Does anyone think “Borders” when they think e-books? Seriously?

I hate to be a pessimist when it comes to the survival of any bookstore but I can’t see a way that this is going to end well. Borders could not compete in the market place even when it was supposedly financially healthy (the company has not shown an annual profit since 2006). How is a company as financially crippled as this one going to compete in that same market place?

I sincerely hope that I’m wrong, but that’s not because I particularly love Borders bookstores.  It’s just that it would be a shame to see this huge chain bite the dust after it ruthlessly put so many indie bookstores out of business during the last two decades.  Is Amazon.com going to the the only major bookseller still standing ten years from now?

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What has seemed inevitable for months is apparently about to happen.  Borders Bookstores is preparing to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy because the company’s creditors refuse to throw more good money after the bad money they have already lost.  Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are reporting that the filing will likely occur early next week.

Borders, the beleaguered bookseller, is preparing to file for bankruptcy as early next week after efforts to refinance its debt faltered, people briefed on the matter said Friday.


The company had largely failed to persuade publishers to convert payments they had been owed since late last year into interest-bearing loans.

[...]

Neither of Borders’ biggest shareholders — the company’s chairman and chief executive, Bennett S. LeBow, and the hedge fund manager William A. Ackman — has indicated a willingness to put new money into the bookseller, these people said. Mr. Ackman disclosed in a regulatory filing late last year that he would be willing to loan Borders up to $960 million to finance a merger with Barnes & Noble, the company’s bigger rival.

Publishers are truly stuck between a rock and hard place when it comes to dealing with Borders.  On the one hand, they, as a group, have potentially lost several hundred million dollars on books already delivered to the chain.  On the other, if they cannot find a way to work with Borders that will keep the company in business, a major seller of printed books is lost to them forever.  In today’s publishing environment, one has to wonder if such a large chain of bookstores can ever be replaced.

Interestingly, Borders has apparently not given up on the idea of forcing itself on the Barnes & Noble chain.  Such a merger might save a healthy percentage of the Borders outlets (for now), but I can’t help but wonder how the deal would affect the economic health of the already weakened B&N chain.

If you’re a gambler, Borders stock can be had for about 25 cents a share.  Do you feel lucky?

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Does this U.K. Borders represent the future for U.S. stores?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Borders confirmed Sunday that last month’s decision not to pay the publishers who supply the chain with inventory (on credit) was no fluke.  Now it appears that the publishers will not be paid for January either.

The No. 2 U.S. bookstore chain said the move was intended to preserve liquidity as it works to restructure its finances. The company said it “understands the impact of its decision on the affected parties,” but wants to work with creditors and others to bolster its prospects.

[...]

Borders is negotiating with financial institutions for so-called debtor-in-possession financing that would keep it operating in bankruptcy court, said people familiar with the matter. Companies often hold such talks as a precaution, but they represent the surest sign yet that Borders is seriously weighing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.


To avoid bankruptcy, Borders needs to get concessions from publishers, renegotiate with landlords, and persuade other lenders to take on $175 million of the proposed $550 million credit line from GE Capital. One person familiar with the matter said it was a “long shot” for Borders to get all those pieces in place.


“It seems very likely, if not inevitable, that Borders will have to file bankruptcy,” said Donald Workman, who heads the bankruptcy practice at law firm Baker & Hostetler, and isn’t involved with the negotiations.

At this point, most publishers have seen nothing that makes them believe that Borders will survive the company’s cash flow crunch. The question for them is now more likely to be how much of their own product and bottom line they are willing to risk that Borders management will ever get things right again.

It is starting to look like Barnes & Noble will soon be the only major bookstore chain operating in the U.S. What are the odds?  Do you feel lucky, book publishers

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I’m confused.  How can a bookseller that cannot afford to pay publishers for new inventory be hoping to buy its biggest rival?  That seems to be the situation Borders finds itself in at the moment, although I do suppose that since the company cannot even finance new books for its stores that it is probably no longer dreaming of acquiring Barnes & Noble.

According to ConsumerAffairs.com:

Shares of Borders fell to below $1 after it announced that it couldn’t afford to pay publishers for their books at this time and would have to delay payment.


That news followed an earlier report in which Borders said a third party had lowered the value of its inventory in the event it had to sell the company or go out of business. That hurt Borders’ ability to borrow and forced it into talks with senior credit facilities to refinance its debt.

[...]

Barnes and Noble, which even put itself up for sale, so far hasn’t attracted any buyers other than possibly Borders. But then that would appear to be like the Hindenburg buying the Titanic.


Meanwhile both Borders and Barnes and Noble are closing stores. Borders is scheduled to close its downtown Portland store on January 7. The rest of the chain could be right behind.

Read the whole article for an interesting take on the situation that both bookstore chains find themselves in today. It appears that both chains are going to have to start liquidating some real estate holdings and closing down stores because of the rate at which in-store sales continue to drop.

I can’t bring myself to take this as lightly as the article’s writer seems to take it in his closing comments:

Studies show people with e-readers are reading more than they did before. I know that’s true among the people I know who have them, and they love their iPads, Kindles and Nooks. Still, it’s a little sad to see bookstores close, even though I never go there anymore.


I guess I just like to see them there when I drove by.

Those of us who continue to believe that e-books are a poor substitute for the real thing are losing ground every day. We are going to have to adapt to the new reality of the world of book-selling whether we want to or not.

(For those who might think I have my head in the sand when it comes to e-book readers, I will add that I have owned a Sony Reader for several years and that my iPad is loaded with software from Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and several other e-book publishers.  10 of the 125 books I read in 2010 were e-books and I do appreciate the convenience factor of reading that way – but e-books remain a poor substitute for reading from a physical book.)

>Once again, a child leads the way.  One little boy in Dalton, Georgia, decided that it would be nice to have a bookstore in his hometown – and he decided to do something about it.

According to PRWeb.com:

Charlie got the idea to write a letter to Books-A-Million, the nation’s third-largest book chain, after his parents told him one night they didn’t have time to drive to the store’s nearest location 30 miles away. His mom, Jody, told his third-grade teacher Debbie Reynolds about his plan. Reynolds moved up her persuasive writing lesson and encouraged her students to write letters to the CEO of Books-A-Million. By Thanksgiving, about 500 letters written by students in the Dalton Public School system landed on Anderson’s desk, begging him to open a Books-A-Million store at the local Walnut Square Mall.


On December 3rd, Anderson made a surprise appearance in Reynold’s classroom and announced that a Books-A-Million store would be opening, hopefully in time for the holidays. Anderson sealed his promise by giving each child a $25 gift card to the new store.

Charlie officially becomes the store’s first customer

But that was just the beginning.  Charlie and some of his classmates were part of the store’s official grand opening on December 18 when they probably took advantage of all those $25 gift cards.  Books-A-Million must have worked at record speed to get this location opened before Christmas, so here’s hats off to them for what they did for Charlie, his school, and the citizens of Dalton.  After all, how can anyone live 30 miles from the nearest bookstore?  That’s too horrible to contemplate. 

Thanks to Books-A-Million and to Charlie and his teacher for this just-in-time-for-Christmas feel-good story.

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Borders Being Carried Out by Rapidly Melting B&N Snowmen

Chris O’Brien has written an interesting piece over on MercuryNews.com today in which he explains his indifference to the prospect that Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books-A-Million may not be long for this world.  In fact, I think it would be a pretty safe bet that none of these national chains will exist in their present format by the end of this decade (and probably much sooner than that).

What I find interesting is O’Brien’s reaction to their probable disappearance.  He recalls how callously the “disruptors” moved in during the 1980s to wipe out thousands of local bookstores – and how consumers everywhere flocked to the big box stores, local stores be damned.  Now, he says it is the “disruptors” that are being disrupted and he really does not much care.

I’ve written here before about the irony of the situation in which the Big-2 bookstore chains now find themselves, considering how ruthlessly they behaved in city after city as they carved up the national market for themselves at the expense of the bookstores that preceded them.  That’s, perhaps, the main reason that, like O’Brien, I am not particularly upset to see the chains suffer this humiliation.  It’s one of those “live by the sword, die by the sword” things, after all.  What I’m wishing for is a return to the marketplace of independents willing to carve out a new niche for themselves.  How likely that scenario is, I’m afraid to guess.

We consumers are a greedy lot.  We want more stuff and we don’t want to pay a dime more for our stuff than we have to pay, meaning that online bookstores are going to dominate the industry very soon (some would say they already do).  If that means that used-book stores, independent bookstores and libraries thrive again – or at least get a decent shot at thriving – then this might not be such a bad thing.

And, as O’Brien goes on to say, no one will much care when the Amazon.com business model gets routed by the next big thing.  It’s just a matter of time.

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First there were locally owned, independent bookstores; then came the first of the big box bookstores to steal their market share and force the locals to close their doors by the thousands.  Next came the even-bigger box bookstores to knock off those earlier indie-killers – and we said goodbye to Crown Books and B. Dalton, and learned to live with the colorless, watered-down version of Walden Books.

Suddenly Barnes & Noble and Borders seemed to share the national book market except for the surprise of something called a Books-A-Million store that popped up every once in a while.  Mass market book consumers rejoiced at the low price of bestsellers, while hardcore book lovers grieved at the way the book market was being controlled by just two giant corporations.  Prices were down, but so was choice.

Then along came a little internet startup, Amazaon.com, to challenge the dominance of the Big 2 book retailers.  Barnes & Noble and Borders, used to having things their way, and not immediately recognizing the challenge of competing with an online bookseller the likes of Amazon, were slow to react.  So slow, in fact, that Borders has been losing money and closing stores for years in a desperate struggle just to keep its own doors open.  And now, even Barnes & Noble, the company that once seemed headed toward total dominance of the market, has put itself up for sale because it is not likely to otherwise survive into the next decade.

But even Amazon should not get complacent because, with the increasing acceptance of e-books, even a giant like Amazon is going to be challenged for market share.  Barnes & Noble did just that with the introduction of its Nook e-book reader but does not seem to have regained much, if any, market share in the process.  Sony tried it, probably with even less success than Barnes & Noble (just a gut feel on my part because I do not have the numbers to verify it).  But hold on, Amazon, because here comes Mr. Apple, Steve Jobs, with his iPad, a not-so-little gizmo that can function pretty well as an e-book reader among the countless other things it can do that the Kindle cannot.  Mr. Apple is, in fact, so powerful that he has already, much to Amazon’s chagrin, changed the whole pricing structure for e-books.

My question is this: what are you going to do when bookstores go the way of CD stores?  Remember those things?  I, for one, did not even realize they were disappearing until they were almost all gone, but I am a bit more aware of what is happening this time around.

Someone please tell me this means a return, at least, to the days of the local independent bookstores, a step back toward the way we were a few decades ago.  I am willing to pay higher prices (and do it all the time) if it means that I can still drive to a nice bookstore on Saturday mornings, especially to one that still feels like a real bookstore.  Alas, Sven Birkets of the Wall Street Journal does not believe this will be the case.  See this article, “Bye-Bye Bookstores,” for his thoughts.

Thankfully, I already own a pretty good library of my own and a room into which I can escape to be surrounded by books.  Perhaps that is where we are heading – a return to the fantastic home libraries of centuries past.  These days, I find myself singing the old song, “Stop the World and Let Me Off,” with a whole new appreciation for its sentiments.

>There are only two novelists whose work I always buy just about as soon as it is published in hardcover: James Lee Burke and Elizabeth George. Not so coincidentally, both are still adding to a long series featuring a detective who has seen great change over the years. In the case of Burke, of course, I’m referring to Dave Robicheaux and, in the case of George, to Thomas Lynley. I have way too many years, and reading hours, invested in these characters not to care what happens to them next. It’s been a bit painful to be a Thomas Lynley fan during George’s last couple of books, but I’m told that he’s back in fine form in This Body of Death. James Lee Burke has to be one of the finest novelists writing today, a distinction he has held for many years now, and I always look forward to the next Dave Robicheaux adventure.

I finally got around to buying both This Body of Death and Burke’s new one, The Glass Rainbow, this morning. Normally, I would have grabbed each of them within days of their hitting the bookstores, but things have been so frantic around here since March that my bookstore visits have been limited – and, even during my few visits, I always forgot to look for the books.

Today I made a special trip to Barnes & Noble to see if I could afford to take both of them home with me. And it appears that my slow purchase paid off. The Elizabeth George book had a 50% off sticker on it and the James Lee Burke book has hit the bestseller list, meaning that it carries a 30% discount. Add my B&N membership discount to the scenario and I ended up getting 60% off on the George book and 40% off on the Burke one. Cover price on the two books totals $58.98 but I ended up getting both for a grand total of $28.63, plus tax.

So now I feel guilty for stiffing my area indie bookstores. But times are tough, my indie friends, and I simply could not resist this deal because, when I left the house this morning, I feared I was going to have to make the near impossible decision of choosing between the new Burke and the new George. I do promise to keep buying as much from you indie guys as possible, especially when it comes to new authors and backlists. Forgive me?

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So Amazon has announced a new, slimmed down version of the Kindle selling for only $139 and the company is taking pre-orders now for delivery at the end of August.  This is the cheapest Kindle to-date and it will further accelerate the e-book reader price war that’s been brewing for the last few weeks.  This is all good news for those in the market for these devices, of course, and it will be interesting to see where prices bottom out.

But this has me wondering if e-book makers such as Amazon, Sony, Barnes & Noble and Borders aren’t using the wrong business model.  After all, the real revenue stream, and the most profit, for these companies will come from selling e-books to those who own one of their devices.  Each of these companies has an online bookstore from which new e-books can be downloaded to the readers, and the expectation is that those who have readers will need an endless supply of reading material.  Makes sense.

So why don’t the Big Four makers mark the readers down to something like $50 a pop?  Get those readers into the hands of readers and then sell the heck out of e-books to them.  Lock them in to your device and then aggressively market your continuing service to them.  Heck, why not use the safety razor business model and send coupons out to targeted readers offering them free devices?  How better to gain instant market share and ensure long term profits?

Of course, this will not work for the makers of the more generic readers not supported by their own online bookstores.  But, I suspect, even these manufacturers would find a way to make more money if the overall e-book market expanded by a factor of ten or more.

In the meantime, I’m watching with interest to see how all this shakes out.  I suspect there will be more losers than winners if things keep going the way they are.  Is anyone brave enough to try my suggestion?  I sincerely doubt it, but wouldn’t it be fun if one or two of them decided to give it a shot?

>That economic times are tougher today than ever before in my lifetime (and I’ve been around long enough to live through some pretty tough recessions) is beyond doubt. Frankly, I don’t see things getting much better for the average folks out there any time soon, either. In fact, I get the feeling that things will get worse before we finally turn the corner toward a real recovery some years up the road.

That’s why what this Houston Chronicle article describes does not surprise me in the least. Some bookstores are doing pretty well, others are suffering greatly. The difference? The ones doing well are primarily selling used books; the ones doing more poorly are selling just the opposite. With new hardbacks going for close to $30, on average, and quality paperbacks selling for $15, or more, is anyone surprised?

Sales at Dallas-based Half Price Books began to rise when gasoline prices soared during the summer of 2008 and again when the recession slammed U.S. consumers that fall.

Both events drove more traffic to Half Price Books’ 110 stores as Americans latched on to thriftier habits, said Kathy Doyle Thomas, the chain’s executive vice president.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Half Price Books racked up a 5 percent jump in same-store sales, which compare year-over-year revenue at stores open at least a year. Same-store sales at its 11 stores in the Houston area were up 5.6 percent.

The story doesn’t read as well at Barnes & Noble and Borders Group, as consumers shift to buying books online or reading digital books on electronic devices such as Amazon’s Kindle.

Borders has had layoffs and recently launched an e-bookstore to compete with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader.

I generally read at least 125 books a year, and there is no way I can afford to buy that many new books. So, at least 20 years ago, I settled into a plan to buy used books as reading copies and hardbacks for those books I want to give a permanent place on my bookshelves. (That does mean I often buy the same title, in different versions, two times.) The used books, including paperbacks, are often used in trades or as resales that get me a few more unread books.

I still, though, do shop for new hardbacks even though I cringe a little when I pay for them. I bought Mark Twain’s Other Woman by Laura Skandera Trombley the other day, a book about the woman who played a key role in Twain’s life during his last decade (after the death of his wife). The book sold for $27.95 and I purposely bought it from one of Houston’s independent bookstores. Add sales tax and I paid $30.25 for the thing because I want it for my permanent collection and I try to buy from indies when I’m reasonably close to one.

I suspect that books sales are in trouble and that library usage will increase at about the same pace that bookstore sales decline. Sadly, this is all happening just when local governments everywhere are slashing their library budgets.

>Maybe someone can explain to me how bookstores like Barnes & Noble can allow their stock to be trashed by non-buyers on such a massive scale. I am always a bit amazed at the number of people sprawled out at my local store with magazines, books and newspapers all over their chairs and on the floor around them. It is bad enough that most of these folks don’t bother to re-shelve anything – they do not even try to keep the products in good enough shape to sell.

There have been several instances in the last few months where I went looking for a specific title only to find that the only one in stock looked worse than something I might find at Half Price Books – for half the price. I will not pay full price for a book that’s dirty or torn, Mr. Store Manager…not gonna happen despite your unwillingness to mark down the damaged goods. Don’t try to buy an unsoiled newspaper in that store, either, where even the magazines are a hit and miss proposition.

Do these stores actually make so much money on over-priced coffee, drinks and snacks that they can cover the lost sales on the items they are really there to sell? Do publishers take back all those trashed books? I suspect that magazines and paperbacks still get only their covers ripped off and returned for full credit, but what is the deal on hardbacks and newspapers?

Anyone have the scoop?

Annie, are you out there? Cip, I don’t mean guys like you…we’re talking slobs here.

>One Australian would-be thief found out the hard way not to mess with Spiderman. It seems the perp was trying to walk out of a comic book store with a valuable copy of an X-Men comic. Unfortunately for him, he did not count on Spiderman catching him in the act and calling on the help of a couple of Jedi knights to block the door.

The Sun is one of the newspapers that seriously limit use of its content, so I’ll just provide a link to the whole story rather than to even quote from the article like I usually do.

Link to the Sun newspaper article, including a short video of the incident can be found here.

Good job, Spidie.

>I’m going to stray into politics today but it’s only because this free speech issue involves a new book and a controversial writer. I find what happened at one Beverly Hills bookstore last night disturbing, especially considering the way that an Ottawa university did the same thing to another conservative speaker just a few days ago. Free speech is apparently not for everyone – just those who shout the loudest and make the biggest fools of themselves (and, yes, I find this kind of behavior disgusting when it comes from either side of political spectrum).

I find this Examiner.com account of the incident embarrassing for the writer who posted it:

Karl Rove was forced to leave his book signing last night after being shouted down by anti-war protesters.

Rove was in Beverly Hills, California promoting his controversial book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Approximately 100 people had paid $40 each to hear Rove speak and then get their copies signed.

[...]

The Former White House chief of staff was berated with comments during his talk that ranged from being called a liar to a war criminal to one woman claiming “The only comfort I take is that you’re going to rot in hell.”

Stevens-Young pretends to be posting a news piece up to the point where she tries to get cute. I assume she thinks she’s preaching to the choir when she says:

Rowe reacted with some sophomoric responses including calling one person a “lunatic” and then ironically stating “they don’t believe in First Amendment rights for anyone but themselves.” When it was obvious there were a lot of people who disagreed with him, Rowe ran away before signing any books. Maybe he went to see a movie: Green Zone would have been a good choice.

I don’t know why I expected a news item when I decided to click on this link, probably because the article’s headline was hidden:

Karl Rove called a war criminal, flees before signing books

Somehow, I doubt that Karl Rove did much fleeing from a bunch of bookstore protesters.

I’ve never heard of Examiner.com, or Kristy Stevens-Young, the woman who seems to believe that free speech is a one-way street and that she’s managing the toll booth, but someone should tell her that she’s making a fool of herself. Don’t be surprised if she shouts you down, though.

>According to the Washington Post there is another snazzy e-book reader on the horizon, one that will use color more than the rest of the readers currently on the market. And, although it’s not mentioned in this Post article, Borders has apparently struck a deal with Spring Design, the new reader’s manufacturer, to ensure that the Borders e-book store is the first thing to be seen when readers power up the thing.

The device will feature a Google Android-based platform with full Web browsing capabilities, Wi-Fi connectivity, audio and video playback and image viewing in a variety of formats. The Alex eReader will also be able to run a number of Android apps.

The Alex eReader boasts a 6? EPD (Electronic Paper Display) screen which allows users to browse the Web in full color while simultaneously searching for and reading digital books. Users can thus click on hyperlinks within online books that lead to relevant information or multimedia content found online in order to enrich their reading experience. EPUB digital books can be searched and downloaded using Google API applications provided by Alex?s eReader.

This is another e-book reader using the EPUB format, further isolating Amazon’s Kindle users, and it won’t be the last.

As the article points out, Spring Design, just a few months ago, sued Barnes & Noble, claiming that the giant bookseller stole its trade secrets and incorporated them into The Nook. It’s a cruel old e-book world out there for booksellers, isn’t it?

Take a look:

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Mark this down as another of those stories I never expected to hear. It seems that some old age pensioners in the U.K. are burning books, instead of coal, as they try to stay warm during this unusually cold winter weather (are you paying attention, Mr. Gore?).

The complete article can be found here at this Metro website:

Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves.

[...]

Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.

One assistant said: ‘Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves.

A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.’

A 500g book can sell for as little as 5p, while a 20kg bag of coal costs £5.

Since January 2008, gas bills have risen 40 per cent and electricity prices 20 per cent, although people over 60 are entitled to a winter fuel allowance of between £125 and £400.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all…

>Will 2010 be the year it happens? Are e-books and e-book readers fast approaching the tipping point from which they will eventually come to dominate the publishing industry? Will Amazon rethink its approach to e-book formatting before it loses its dominant share of the e-publishing market? I am starting to believe that this could be a pivotal year for publishers and booksellers, alike, one in which independent bookstores continue to close shop at a horrifying pace, the national bookstore chains continue to bleed money, and publishers finally begin to rethink their own business plans.

I do not for a minute believe that e-publishing will ever kill off the publishing of bound books. Newspapers and magazines, on the other hand, could very well be doomed when e-book readers are finally able to cope with color, photos, graphics, and all the other flash that make magazines (and some newspapers) so appealing to the eye. At the moment, reading a newspaper or magazine on a Kindle can be a frustrating experience and it remains to be seen if the new Sony Reader Daily Edition will do a much better job. Newspaper and magazine circulation has already been clobbered by the internet and the availability of more graphically sophisticated e-readers could finish that job.

Sony is probably Amazon’s biggest challenger in 2010 but several smaller companies also have e-readers on the market. What Sony and the smaller challengers have going for them is their decision to use the standard EPUB format on their readers. This means that the owner of a Sony Reader is able to purchase books directly from Sony and other sellers, find hundreds of thousands of free books on the web, and download bestsellers from his local library without ever leaving home. Kindle users do not have those luxuries because Amazon uses its own proprietary format – limiting the usage of Kindle books to Kindle readers, PCs and certain smart phones. As Kindle owners begin to wonder what good all those Kindle books are if they decide one day to move on to a better reader, Amazon might find itself losing market share to companies using the open format.

What makes me think that 2010 might turn out to be a big year for e-books? Simply put: buzz. For the first time, I am hearing people talk about e-book readers and I am seeing them shop for readers at Barnes & Noble, Borders and the big box electronic stores. E-book readers are prominently displayed now, often alongside mp3 players, and shoppers are starting to notice them. Barnes & Noble displays the Nook right at the front door in its own huge display space, making the Nook impossible to miss. Shoppers are getting used to seeing e-readers and they probably know someone that uses one. There is a new awareness of their existence and, if sales progress at the pace that mp3 player sales did, in only a few years e-book readers might be a commodity product with too many manufacturers to count.

I know that something has changed already, though, because a friend of mine purchased a Kindle for his wife this Christmas and she is not a particularly avid reader. Amazingly, she came into the office last week saying how much she loved the gadget and how great it was to be able to buy bestsellers for $9.99 a pop. Time will tell, of course, but for now she is more excited about reading than she has been for years and that cannot be a bad thing for publishers.

As for me, I was one of the Sony Reader early adopters and I have recently upgraded my original reader with the purchase of a new Sony Touch. I am happy with the touch features, the built-in dictionary, the note taking capabilities, and those hundreds of thousands of free books I can read. But what I like most about the reader is that I can download books directly from my local library system – and the “hold” lines are, at this point, shorter than those for the same physical books. Don’t get me wrong. I love books, real books, and I will continue to add them to my shelves, just at a somewhat slower pace than in previous years.

E-books have reached a tipping point in my world – and those are words I never dreamed I would be saying.

>Hardly a day goes by anymore without some interesting news about e-book readers and the companies that produce them. Today it is about the Amazon Kindle and how at least two hackers have broken the code that keeps purchasers of Kindle books from reading those books on devices sold by other companies such as Sony or Barnes & Noble.

CIO Today offers the details:

Internet retailer Amazon.com had all the luck in getting its family of proprietary Kindle e-book readers into the hands of consumers while its rivals were faced with delays, but its luck may have turned. The Kindle’s copyright protection Relevant Products/Services has been hacked.

An Israeli hacker who goes by the name Labba says he has been able to break the Kindle’s digital-rights management protection, allowing its electronic books to be viewed on non-Kindle devices.

A U.S. hacker has also reportedly created a program called Unswindle that converts books stored in the free Kindle for PC application into other formats.

[...]

Amazon may close the door on the DRM hack, but other hackers will likely attempt a hack again, observers say.

Eventually, Amazon may follow Apple’s lead. After launching its iTunes Store, a hacker broke Apple’s DRM protection. As a result, Apple closed the security Relevant Products/Services hole, only to be hacked again. Apple now offers DRM-free music on iTunes

[...]

Amazon may close the door on the DRM hack, but other hackers will likely attempt a hack again, observers say.

Eventually, Amazon may follow Apple’s lead. After launching its iTunes Store, a hacker broke Apple’s DRM protection. As a result, Apple closed the security Relevant Products/Services hole, only to be hacked again. Apple now offers DRM-free music on iTunes

Personally, I hate the idea of DRM because when I buy a record album or a book I believe I have the right to copy it and enjoy it on other compatible devices I may own. I understand the potential copyright violations me having that ability implies but, since I am not a pirate wanting to steal my original copy of the work or to sell it to others, I refuse to purchase digital content that limits how I use it. That is why I will never own a Kindle and why, until Apple stopped that kind of foolishness, I refused to buy music via Apple’s iTunes store. Who really believes that first-time Kindle buyers will remain content to own a Kindle forever? When better hardware comes along, why shouldn’t Amazon customers be able to move their books to a different device?

This is exactly what drove me to purchase my second Sony Reader a few weeks ago. Thank you, Sony Corporation for having the sense to choose a customer friendly business model.

>I suspected this would happen – but not this soon. Barnes & Noble is already pushing a system software update out to early bird owners of its Nook readers. Considering the poor reviews the Nook received upon its release a couple of weeks ago, this is an excellent move on the bookseller’s part.

According to Brighthand.com, this is what Nook owners can expect after the software update is automatically installed on their readers:

* Page turning and formatting of downloaded e-books has been improved.

* Start-up time for My Library, The Daily, and Setting has been improved.

* Barnes & Noble in-store content and promotions roll-out is fully supported.

* Launches reader immediately on Select from The Daily and My Library for books and subscriptions that have already been downloaded.

* Reading Now takes customer straight into the last book page read without reformatting the content.

* Displays the correct time on the status bar.

* No longer unprompted to the home screen when pressing the arrow or the select button.

* Displays correct error-message for pre-ordering books that are not yet available.

Good move, Barnes & Noble. I’m pulling for you guys to get this thing done right.

>In other words, “Hope springs eternal” over at Sony Corp. headquarters.

Sony was probably first out of the chute with an e-book reader but Amazon had such a huge built-in market advantage when it later launched the Kindle that the company almost immediately became the market leader. And it still dominates that market.

The Sony Reader has something strong going for it, however – its books can be read on other e-book readers and books bought, or acquired, in places other than the Sony Reader store can be read on a Sony Reader. Amazon, on the other hand, makes sure that its e-books can only be read on the Kindle device (or with a software installation, on your PC or smart phone) and that, without jumping through all kind of hoops, books from other sources can’t be read on the Kindle. For me, that’s a huge red flag and deal killer.

Matthew Graven has this to say in The Register:

Some of Sony’s confidence must come from having a certain world power Gin its corner. Sony has worked closely with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of free titles in the Sony’s ebook store. And now Google, another supporter of the ePub format, is getting close to launching its own store, dubbed Google Editions.

[...]

In a mocking tone, Haber (president of Sony’s digital reading business division) gibes at publishing companies who have delayed the release of ebook titles. Simon & Schuster, for instance, recently said it may not make digital versions of books available until the hardcover copies have been on shelves for four months. This is similar to the delayed release of paperback versions. “f you don’t allow the content out there, people will find a way to get that content,” Haber says. He adds that publishers cause piracy by delaying the release of books in digital formats and that their businesses will prosper if they embrace ebooks.

When asked what writers and publishers can do to help promote the growth of an ebook market and their own books, he suggests that they “spend time using the devices out there, experience them, and then think about what you can do differently with digital content that you couldn’t do with physical content.” He tells authors they should “think through, perhaps, how you could make your content more interactive.

And the plot thickens.

>Borders might be missing out on e-book sales during the 2009 Christmas buying season but the company hopes that will not be the case next year. The bookstore chain has just announced a partnership with Canadian company Kobo Inc. to produce an e-book application and a new e-book store of its own by the second quarter of next year. However, unlike its competitors, Borders will not be marketing its own branded e-book reader.

(Photo of the Sony Reader (Touch) sold in Borders bookstores)

From Ann Arbor.com:

The announcement comes as investors and book industry analysts have criticized Borders for lacking a defined e-reader strategy during the 2009 holiday shopping season, broadly considered a critical period for the struggling retailer.

The move means that Borders, which sells the Sony e-reader in its stores, is opting against developing its own e-reader.

[...]

Instead, Borders plans to allow its new e-book application to be downloaded on smart phones – including Apple’s iPhone, the BlackBerry and Android – and other digital devices for use by anyone.

There is little doubt anymore that e-books will become a significant percentage of all books sold by the largest book retailers in the country. The Borders approach is a much cheaper one than the one Barnes & Noble chose and, considering the early reviews of the Barnes & Noble Nook, maybe even a wiser one. 2010 promises to be an interesting chapter in the development of the e-book market and I can’t wait to see how all this turns out.

By the way, I’ve used Kobo’s Shortcovers software to upload a classic or two on my Palm Pre smart phone and have read most of Edith Wharton’s Summer on my phone. It works well, so I have to believe the Borders/Kobo partnership will be a good thing for both companies.

>Working models of the new Barnes & Noble Nook have finally made their way into the hands of reviewers and the reaction is not what Barnes & Noble hoped for – not even close.

I have taken a look at the dummy version that most B&N stores have been displaying for a while now, and my experience made me wonder how in the world so many people were willing to spend almost $300 on an e-book reader before first seeing it actually work. The display models don’t even include a battery (or the equivalent weight of a battery), making them deceptively lighter than they will be when functional and, until one sees the actual display of the reader, there is no way to judge what the experience of reading a book on it will be like. Is it easy on your particular eyes – or not? Is the contrast right for you? I don’t think I would have gambled $300 to find out but, according to Barnes & Noble, thousands of folks did just that.

There is “Not much love for Barnes & Noble Nook” according to The Christian Science Monitor:

The experts have finally gotten their hands on the device and the consensus among the media technorati seems to be: too little, too soon.

[...]

The color touch screen, writes David Pogue in the New York Times, “is actually just a horizontal strip beneath the regular Kindle-style gray screen.” Too often, he says, “the color strip feels completely, awkwardly disconnected from what it’s supposed to control on the big screen above.” Worse, he finds the screen to be “balky and nonresponsive.”

Reviewing the Nook for USA Today, Edward C. Baig (who overall finds the device to be “unfinished and sluggish”) notes although Barnes & Noble advertises that “a million titles are available for the Nook compared with more than 390,000 in the Kindle Store,” the comparison is “somewhat misleading, because Barnes & Noble includes a boatload of free public domain books, most from Google.”

And as for loaning books to your friends, Pogue says that the feature comes with a number of “buzz kill footnotes.”

He details: “You can’t lend a book unless its publisher has O.K.’ed this feature. And so far, B&N says, only half of its books are available for lending — only one-third of the current best sellers. (A LendMe icon on the B&N Web site lets you know when a book is lendable.) Furthermore, the book is gone from your own Nook during the loan period (a maximum of two weeks). And each book can be lent only once, ever.”

These reviews, and other comments I’ve seen make me wonder if Barnes & Noble has made a big mistake by rushing their e-book reader into this year’s Christmas market. As a matter of fact, they have largely missed even that market as many thousands of the readers already sold will not be delivered until sometime in January, at best. Now it seems that they might be hurt by early word-of-mouth about the product because they have pushed it out into the real world before it is quite ready.

I don’t doubt that the Nook will get a whole lot better than it appears to be right now. Firmware updates will likely solve most of the “sluggishness” issues this first version of the reader appears to have, for instance. But the company does risk irritating a large segment of the exact market it so desperately wants to capture. Today’s market is one in which word-of-mouth can make or break a new product in record time or, at the very least, damage an already shaky one. I hope the Nook does not turn out to be the case of a good product killed by poor marketing decisions. Time will tell.

>The New York Times and some San Francisco books stores believe the world, as they know it, is soon to end. According to them, the twin monsters known as WalMart and Glenn Beck are on the verge of killing off liberal thought. In the best tradition of Chicken Little, the Times has this to say about the discounting of a handful of bestselling hardcovers by WalMart, Amazon and Target:

So if this is all a scheme to control those influential bestsellers, just what would a future look like if, say, Wal-Mart became the last bookstore standing?

A visit to Wal-Mart stores in Oakland and Mountain View revealed a remarkably limited selection, a narrow worldview and a political bent that can be summed up best with two words: Glenn Beck. The Oakland Wal-Mart carried only 21 hardcover titles: Mr. Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” (plus the audio book) and his holiday offering, “The Christmas Sweater”; “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin; the book of Carrie Prejean, the dethroned Miss California, “Still Standing”; and titles from the Rev. Rick Warren and the television minister Joel Osteen.

[...]

Praveen Madan, co-owner of The Booksmith in San Francisco, disagrees with this fear. He said people would not start “reading this rightist propaganda literature instead of reading more worthy things” simply because the books cost less.

Mr. Madan said bookstores were more threatened by the recession and e-books than the current price war. Censorship? Not with the Internet selling virtually every book. He, Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Petrocelli — all independent bookstore owners — sell online, and even Wal-Mart’s Web site has a larger, more diverse inventory.

Mr. Madan, at least, is bringing a little common sense to the scare tactics of the Times. He knows that his Bay area customers are not likely to buy “rightist propaganda” as long as he continues to be their supplier of “leftist propaganda.” Don’t think so? Just read what another bookstore owner there has to say about the Palin book:

“It’s like buying porn,” he said. “People might want to buy it, but they don’t want to be seen buying it in the Bay Area.”

>The bookstore from which I would never buy a book is at it again. Remember this from July 16,2008? Well, here we go again. This time it’s Sarah Palin and her new memoir that are being ridiculed by the business-plan-challenged management of Bookshop Santa Cruz. Not surprisingly, the Santa Cruz Sentinel is there to cheer them on:

By golly, a downtown bookstore has found a way to poke fun at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and draw attention to her new book released this week, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” Several copies of Palin’s book, about her experience as John McCain’s running mate in 2008 and life in Alaska, are stacked on the checkout counter at Bookshop Santa Cruz next to a bowl filled with small bags of walnuts — a 2-for-1 special of sorts. Customers who buy Palin’s book, priced at $29 in hardcover, also get a free bag of “Just Plain Nutz.”

[...]

However, down the street at Borders, customer Marc Schwartz laughed at the Palin stunt, but turned the joke on Bookshop Santa Cruz.

“For them, it’s hypocrisy. They’re using Palin to line their pockets,” Schwartz said. “They like capitalism as long as they have a monopoly on it.”

Bookshop Santa Cruz isn’t worried about offending many customers. So far only one book has been sold.

“We know some customers have to buy it because it’s on some uncle’s wish list,” Coonerty-Protti said. “But it’s not a big seller for the Santa Cruz market. We haven’t had a lot of interest in selling the book anyway.”

Why would any conservative-minded reader patronize a bookstore that believes he is an idiot? Obviously if Bookshop Santa Cruz has only sold one copy of a book that has already sold 300,000 copies elsewhere, the answer is: they don’t patronize it. I admit to getting a bit of a chuckle from the fact that this bookstore is located in a state on the brink of financial collapse and in search of a bailout from the rest of us. Does that tell you a little about who is “Just Plain Nutz”?

(No, I am not a fan of Sarah Palin and will not be reading her book. I am, though, intrigued by the utter stupidity of some businesses and those who “manage” them.)

>Sony may have just sold me a new e-book reader – with an assist from Kristy who alerted me to an email offer she received from Sony yesterday. It turns out that, as far as its e-book store goes, Sony is killing the e-book format that works on my PRS-500 reader. That means that I can no longer get new content for the reader from Sony.

Sony offers two workarounds, however, and both of them are tempting. Option number 1 involves sending my PRS-500 back to Sony for about two weeks so that they can do a free firmware update that would allow my reader to use the new format. Option number 2 offers me either $50 or $75 for my old reader if I buy one of the two new Sony readers.

I’m seriously considering the PRS-600, the “Reader Touch Edition.” What intrigues me is that the reader claims to work perfectly on PDF files, Word documents, other text files, the ePub format, and others. It also offers access to all the non-copyrighted Google books out there and to library systems that make e-books available to patrons. It seems to cover all the bases for me. Admittedly, if I understand correctly, there is no WiFi access for ordering new books from Sony or another bookstore but that is not an option I would use often anyway. No big deal.

The numbers look like this:

I spent $300 in 2005 for the PRS-500. Sony is willing to give me back 75 of those dollars if I give them another $300 for a PRS-600, leaving me with $525 invested in Sony readers. Now, of course, I’ve used the original reader for over 4 years so I’ve probably gotten my money’s worth out of it already. (I’m a CPA and I just can’t help running the numbers in my head – bad habit.)

I’m off the rest of the week, and I will probably run up to the big Sony Store at my local mall tomorrow. Can I resist the temptation? Should I even try? I suspect it’s hopeless.

>Juan Williams, one of my favorite political commentators and writers, has an article in the Wall Street Journal on what he calls Ghetto Lit. I’ve often wondered how serious black authors feel about having their books housed in their own little ghettos in bookstores all across America. You know what I’m talking about, those little sections labeled “Black Literature” and the such. I assume that black authors sell more books to African-American readers that way, but I also believe that they lose many more sales to white and hispanic readers – a net loss to them and to their publishers.

Ghetto Lit, admittedly, is a whole other thing. From what I’ve personally seen of it, and from what Mr. Williams has to say about the genre, perhaps those writers are lucky to get their books inside a bookstore at all.

As the author of books on black history and black culture, I was disappointed but not surprised. To see a working-class 30-ish black woman with a book these days is almost always to find her reading a selection from the fastest-growing segment of African-American letters, a genre called “ghetto lit” or “gangster lit.”

The best that can be said about these books is that they are an authentic literary product of 21st-century black America. Black women are much bigger readers than black men, and gangster lit dominates the best-seller list in Essence Magazine, which calculates rankings using sales at black-owned bookstores nationwide. Recent titles shout out to the hard, fast lifestyle: “Bad Girlz 4 Life,” “Still Hood” and “From the Streets to the Sheets.”

[...]

The black imagination as revealed in gangster lit is centered on the world of drug dealers— “dough boys” who are heavy with drug money—and the get-rich-quick rappers and athletes who mimic the druggie lifestyle. And there are lots of “ghetto-fabulous” women, referring to themselves as bitches, carrying brand-name handbags and wearing big, gaudy jewelry. Attitude and anger are everything. The dispiriting word “nigger” is used freely by black characters talking about one another.

[...]

At least two black-owned publishing houses have been created as a result of the growing market for these books. Large established publishers, including Simon & Schuster, Kensington Books and St. Martin’s, are on the bandwagon. They created “urban fiction” divisions after realizing that the grass-roots demand for these books was strong enough that authors were making money with vanity-press printing and hand-to-hand sales at black beauty salons, over the Internet and even from car trunks.

[...]

Not only the best but the worst that can be said about these books is they are an authentic literary product of 21st-century black America. They are poorly written, poorly edited and celebrate the worst of black life.

[...]

It is hard to believe, but legendary black writers telling stories about the full scope of the black experience, from Langston Hughes to Toni Morrison, are being pushed aside. Inspirational books on black history or the civil-rights struggle are now for the classroom only. Even libraries now stock gangster-lit novels, because they bring new readers in the door.

Mr. Williams obviously feels very strongly that this kind of writing is harmful to the community it is targeting – and I just as strongly agree with him. The other word that comes to mind is embarrassing. Come on, guys, you can do better than this. Is this really the way you want to represent yourself to the world. Shame on you, writers of this trash. Shame on you.

>Looks like Amazon, Walmart and Target are not too crazy about the idea of subsidizing the indie bookstores around the country by selling those stores bestselling books at prices lower than those at which the stores can obtain them from publishers on their own.

Indies were quick to recognize a win-win situation when they saw one. All they have to do is buy the books at these giveaway prices, mark them up enough to make a tidy profit, and still give their loyal customers a nice discount. Indies are happy; their customers are happy; Amazon, Walmart and Target are ticked off. What a deal.

This Wall Street Journal article has the details:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has limited its online customers to two copies each of certain bargain books. Amazon.com Inc. has a three-copy maximum on certain discounted titles and Target Corp. has a five-copy limit online.

[...]

The retailers are losing money on each copy sold because publishers charge them about 50% of a book’s hardcover price. The prices for the 10 books involved in the promotion are also lower than the wholesale price independent booksellers pay for the merchandise.

Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colo., said he had intended to buy as many as 70 copies of Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Lacuna” from Walmart.com, Target.com or Amazon, because their prices are “more than $5 cheaper than what we can get it for from the publisher, Harper.

Mr. Kashkashian said he was surprised to see that the three retailers were limiting the quantities sold. “We’re a big store, and if a customer wanted to order 100 copies of anything, we’d sell it to them,” he said.

[...]

Joel Bines of consultancy AlixPartners LLP said retailers commonly ration loss-leader promotions to stop competitors from buying up the merchandise. In the book promotion, Mr. Bines noted, some independent booksellers surely would purchase Wal-Mart’s books in bulk if possible at their below-wholesale price. He said some of the books would also probably end up on eBay, offered by speculators.

“It’s to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak,” Mr. Bines said of the limits. “They are losing money on every item they sell at this price, so they want to make sure the items actually go to customers, who might then buy something else.”

I understand why the three big retailers are trying to protect themselves from this kind of thing and I wish them luck. I also understand why the indies, who are being crushed one-by-one by Target, Walmart, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders, would jump at an opportunity to stick it to the bullies on the block. Are the indies crossing an ethical line if they have employees, friends and family members order the maximum number of books allowed by Target? It’s definitely a gray area but I think that if I were in the shoes of an indie bookstore owner, I would do it. (And I know that Target, Walmart and Amazon would do the same if the shoe were on the other foot.)

>The new Barnes & Noble e-book reader, known as Nook, may prove to be more of a headache for Amazon’s Kindle than the Sony Reader has been. Nook offers some important features that users of the Amazon and Sony readers can only dream about: sharing of e-books and the first inkling of a color screen. According to Computer World, the color screen is limited to search results that come via Nook’s “virtual keyboard,” but that is a good start and it is certain to gain the Nook a second glance from anyone shopping for an e-book reader. Most important, however, is that Barnes & Noble e-books can be loaned to friends who have either a Nook of their own or access to the free download that B&N offers to computer users and those who own certain smart phones.

Nook weighs 11.2 ounces and is 7.7 x 4.9 x .5 inches in size. The upper electronic paper display, with 16 levels of gray scale, is 6 inches diagonally, while the lower color LCD display is 3.5 inches.

A first in e-readers will be the ability for users to lend their e-books for up to 14 days at a time. With LendMe technology, an e-book can be shared to a friend’s Nook, iPhone, iPod touch, and some BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones, possibly the upcoming Cliq, which is based on Android. Desktop and laptop PCs with Barnes & Noble eReader software can also receive the books being lent.

Users can also listen to songs uploaded through a computer to the Nook, as well as audiobooks and podcasts, using standard headphones.

OK, Amazon. The ball is back in your court now. The Nook is priced at $259, same as the Kindle, so here’s hoping that Amazon and B&N start a little price war of their own. Come on, guys, it’s all about market share at this point…start slicing away.

>One of the most memorable bookstores in Houston has just shut down. For 25 years, Houston’s old Alabama Theater was home to Bookstop, one of the first really big bookstores I ever visited. The bookstore didn’t do a lot to change the interior of the old movie theater when it moved in other than to remove the seats and set up bookshelves. The floor still ran downhill to a large magazine display where the old movie screen would have been and the lobby was used as the check-out area. The walls and ceilings still looked like something one would expect to see in the heyday of beautiful movie theaters – when people still got dressed up to go to movies.

Now the doors are locked and, as long as the building remains empty, its very existence is in jeopardy. According to Houston’s Channel 11:

”As long as the building stays empty and it isn’t in productive use, it’s a risk for demolition. It’s that’s simple,” said David Bush with the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. “The land is too valuable, that’s what it comes down to. Everything inside the loop, what it usually comes down to, is the land value versus the improvements.”

I remember seeing Star Wars there for the first time and bringing my young daughters to see a Donald Duck cartoon festival sometime in the ’70s. I also remember seeing the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show there at a couple of its regular Saturday midnight screenings – and how much fun it was to watch the audience do its thing.

Houston has a terrible track record when it comes to preserving its historic buildings and that doesn’t give me much confidence that the old Alabama, dating from 1939, will survive much longer.

>This is a clever little piece to encourage book buyers to support their local independent bookstores over the corporate giants like Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books-A-Million. It is written in a 1950s style of propaganda that gives it a light feel, but the message is a serious one.

Isn’t it amazing that this style was once used as a serious delivery system for propaganda? Have we really gotten that smarter or were we just seriously naive in the first half of the 20th century?

>Good news for those who are not already getting free WiFi via their personal AT&T contracts at the 777 Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country:

Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday that it had signed a strategic agreement with AT&T to provide free Wi-Fi to all customers in its stores.

Steve Riggio, chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said the company promoted its stores as “community centers” with cafes, comfortable seating and on-site events like book signings.

“It’s a gathering place and Wi-Fi access is increasingly becoming something that customers expect in public places,” said Mr. Riggio, adding that many airports now offered a similar service. “We’ve always considered our stores as quasi-public settings and public gathering places and thought this was the perfect opportunity to provide our customers with free access.”

As this New York Times article goes on to say, free WiFi in retail locations is the wave of the future, a sure way to attract customers and have them hang around to spend money for hours at a time. I suspect that this will become more and more common and that retailers not providing the service are going to suffer a loss of business to those that do.

I love it.

>Tell me it isn’t so, Jeff. Is Amazon about to take another misstep in the marketing of its Kindle e-book reader? There has been speculation for a while now that Amazon is looking into the idea of adding “smart ads” to the e-books it sells to its Kindle customers, the kind of ad that Google seems to be placing everywhere one surfs the net these days. The Google adds were a bit irritating at first but, since I don’t pay for the content on which the ads appear, I trained myself to ignore them. I wonder, in fact, just who it is that clicks on those things.

It would be a much different story, though, if I were paying for the pages on which those dozens and dozens of ads appear every day – and finding an ad embedded inside an e-book I’ve purchased would be especially irritating. Now maybe, just maybe, I could learn to tolerate the ads if Amazon were to share the ad revenue with me by cutting the high price of its e-books. Will this happen? I won’t be holding my breath.

From The Business Insider comes this:

Books are among the last bastions of ad-free content. But they won’t be so forever if Amazon has its way.

The online retail giant has been nurturing a growing e-reader market with its Kindle device; analysts estimate more than a million have been sold since its 2007 debut. And the idea of serving ads in e-books has been a subject of chatter for a while. But Amazon appears to have taken the next concrete step in that direction. Recent reports indicate the online retail giant has filed patent applications to stuff digital books with contextual advertising.

[...]

“There’s a movement in the industry to offset book prices through various ways,” said consultant Chris Andrews, who’s writing an e-book about the advent of e-books. “There’s more revenue per book with those ads and they allow publishers to sell the book less expensively. It also gives advertisers this cool market of people who spend hours with content. The relationship is longer than any other media — and it’s deeper.”

Others view in-book advertising as just one stop along a continuum of possibilities.

“They’re just exploring all the multiple ways you can monetize content, so you can offer a customer a full-priced book at $9.99 or you can offer them a half-priced book that’s partially underwritten by advertisers,” said Mark Coker, founder of e-book seller Smashwords.

With publishers already complaining that Amazon is selling e-books too cheaply, I suspect there would be some resistance to any talk about lowering e-book prices that contained ads unless the ad revenue was also split with the publishers. It is fun to watch the marketing for a new product like electronic books evolve over the months. Where we end up is anyone’s guess, but I will say that a book containing ads is a distraction that cheapens the whole product for me. I do not like the idea at all – and I wonder why Amazon seems so determined to shoot itself in the marketing foot these last few weeks.

(There is much more to the linked article, so please take a look at it and let me know what you think is going to happen and whether or not advertising in books will bother you.)

>I sat down to write a quick note about Amazon’s apology for its misguided decision to delete certain books directly from the Kindles of some of its customers without first bothering to explain why it was happening – or at least warning them. And then a television news break came on and I am suddenly looking at President Obama (yet again) and listening to him apologize for saying last night that the Cambridge Police Department acted “stupidly” in arresting Professor Gates at his home a few days ago.

My reaction to both apologies is that they are both “too little, too late.” The damage has been done. Amazon’s image took a hit and the company probably lost more than a few potential Kindle customers this week, me included. I was already concerned about the limitations on my personal usage of e-books bought for the Kindle, so being reminded just how easily those books can be stolen back from me by their seller ended my fascination with the Kindle. The price of the reader and the restricted value of the books convinces me that the Kindle is not the way to go. Bad move, Mr. Bezos.

The President’s image has also taken a hit. He played the “race card” last night on behalf of a personal friend of his. That was cheap and it is very disturbing. My personal respect for President Obama took a huge hit because of his eagerness to defame the Cambridge police on the behalf of a personal friend whose behavior helped spark a police incident about which the President apparently had heard only one side of the story. How stupid was it for him to allow a local Chicago issue to overwhelm the message he wanted to send about his healthcare legislation? Very stupid. The President acted more “stupidly” than he accused the police of acting. His apology, if that’s what this statement was supposed to be, was very necessary but it only came after he made matters worse by trying to defend his original statement earlier this morning.

I should mention, too, that my respect for Professor Gates is gone. I’ve seen the man on Book TV a couple of times and was impressed with him. Now, reading the police report (none of which Gates has denied) and seeing how Gates taunted the policeman and escalated the whole incident with his mouth and attitude, it will be difficult for me to take the man seriously again. He is obviously a hypocrite.

At least Jeff Bezos admitted that he and Amazon were 100% wrong, as can be seen from this quote from his blog entry:

“Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles,” Bezos wrote. “It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”

He signed his missive with the comment, “With deep apology to our customers.”

See this Computer World article for reaction to the Amazon apology.

How can so many supposedly brilliant people do such stupid things? Maybe someone should write a book called When Stupid Things Happen to Smart People.

>Don’t let anyone kid you, crime does pay. Some criminals, especially, it seems, politicians get away with their crimes for years. Some are never caught; others are caught with cash-filled freezers in their Washington D.C. apartments and still escape justice. I suppose that proves how special congressional criminals are.

But when it comes to the rest of us, a successful criminal career generally comes only to those with a little more intelligence than the common street thug or armed robber. This fact of life has apparently just been learned by two young Louisiana women who have been accused of stealing some 4,000 books from Barnes & Noble bookstores in two states and reselling them to a New Orleans college book reseller.

Nola.com has the details – including pictures of the two women dumb enough to bring all the stolen books to the same college bookstore. I have to say that Chimes Textbook Exchange was awfully slow in figuring this scam out, though. Did they think these two were taking classes around the clock, seven days a week and actually owned all those books, even multiple copies of the same textbooks?

Authorities say Vatter, 33, of Metairie, and Tabora, 23, of Kenner, have admitted to stealing books from at least seven Barnes & Nobles stores in Louisiana and Mississippi – an estimated 4,000 books worth $325,000 since August, according to Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office incident and arrest reports. The two took their stolen tomes to Chimes, where they received 30 to 50 percent of the cover price.

[...]

“It’s really fortunate that they tried to sell those books to us. If they sold them all over the place, we would have never known and they never would have been caught,” he said.

Vanessa Tabora told detectives all the books she and a partner stole were resold at the same New Orleans book reseller…

So these two were stealing 15-20 books a day, books that had an average value of $80, and were able to hit Barnes & Noble for something like 4,000 books in all. It appears that they are smart enough to beat whatever theft prevention system (including employees) is in place at B&N, but stupid enough to bring all the stolen books to the same book reseller. And that decision was very, very stupid, indeed.

You are not congressional material, ladies.

>I saw a few days ago that Barnes & Noble lost approximately $2.7 million during the first quarter of 2009, a scary number to a guy like me but less than the bookseller was expected to lose by those supposedly in the know. Digging into the details a little, it seems that both store sales and online sales are slipping for B&N, so the company’s problems may be growing as the marketing of books continues to evolve.

Is the Kindle starting to impact B&N’s online sales? I don’t own a Kindle but I do have a first generation Sony eReader and I can truthfully say that I still, after all this time, much prefer owning a hard copy of a book – even the ones I might be disposing of later, or maybe, especially of the ones I am not all that sure I will want to keep. I know that I can get some cash back, or another book in trade, for a hard copy I own, something that seems impossible (or illegal) with e-books. But maybe I’m one of the exceptions to the rule and Kindle and eReader really are starting to impact the online sales of B&N and Borders.

The bigger problem that I observe when I go to Barnes & Noble is that so many people seem to be there to drink coffee, while trashing a few magazines and newspapers, or to do high school or college homework research. I seldom see those same folks at the cash register when I’m checking out. And, too, it seems that it’s mostly bestsellers and other books by “hot” authors that are going out the door when I’m around despite the tremendous number of square feet devoted to publisher back lists. I really, really hope that stores like B&N and Borders survive forever, but I’m starting to wonder what they will look like in another ten years – or if they will even exist (remember Crown books?).

>I’ve just learned something interesting about the Kindle that I don’t completely understand. From the sound of this ChannelWeb article, if a Kindle owner is banned from Amazon for abusing customer guidelines his Kindle becomes a worthless “$360 brick.” I had assumed that the Kindle stored purchased books the way that Sony’s Reader stores them – on a computer hard drive (as back up), on a memory stick, or on the device itself.

This article, though, makes it sound as if being banned from Amazon makes it impossible to use books previously purchased for the Kindle. I can understand why a Kindle owner would not be able to purchase new books (that’s terrible enough after buying the device to read them) but I can’t get my head around the idea that already purchased books become useless.

As you may already know, Amazon’s electronic reader, the Kindle (and newer Kindle 2) is linked to the owner’s Amazon account where the inventory of purchased books is managed. In addition, although there are a few other sources, it is primarily the only way to buy books for the device. When this user’s Amazon account was closed, he also lost access to all the books he had purchased, as well as the ability to shop for new material.

This situation brings the bigger picture of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to the forefront. When you purchase any form of media from a company, do they have the right to deny you access in the future (presuming it was not purchased on a subscription basis)? The above mentioned user ended up with a $360 device that was totally worthless to him. He couldn’t even access books he had already paid for.

Can someone clarify this for me?

I do understand that very, very few people will ever be banned by Amazon, but I find it hard to believe that the company can get away with keeping the Kindle purchase price if being banned has the effects this article describes.

A little help, someone?

>Wow, it looks like Amazon.com really stepped in it today – and made an even bigger mess when it tried to scrape it off the bottom of its shoes. I’m not one who generally believes in conspiracy theories or cover-ups, but something does seem to smell about the massive de-ranking Amazon did of “adult books,” many, if not most, of which fall under the “gay and lesbian” banner. Amazon is claiming this was all part of some kind of super systems glitch and that rankings for the pulled books are being restored as we speak. Some are buying the excuse – most, though, don’t seem ready to let Amazon off the hook that easily.

The best recap of the situation I’ve seen anywhere comes from Jezebel.com. Check this out; it is fascinating regardless of how this all happened, and I have to wonder how this blunder will affect Amazon book sales – at least in the short term.

This will make a great MBA case study some day.

>According to Publisher’s Weekly, the three major chains had such a devastating fourth quarter of 2008 that overall 2008 sales fell more than five percent from those of 2007:

Dragged down by a horrible fourth quarter, in which sales fell 9.0%, total revenue for the country’s three major chains fell 5.4% in 2008, to $8.9 billion. This is the first year that their combined annual sales have fallen since Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books-A-Million came to dominate the retail book market. In 2007, sales rose 2.7%, despite a weak holiday season.

Borders seems still to be suffering the biggest decline in year-to-year comparisons: down 8.9% for the whole year and 13.8% in the fourth quarter comparison. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, is down 3.1% for the year and 6.2% for the quarter. Books-A-Million is down 4.1% for the year but had the best fourth quarter results of the three chains, only falling 2.5% as compared to 2007′s fourth quarter.

I suppose that the economy is having such an impact on discretionary spending that bookstores are certain to feel it. I know that I’ve purchased considerably fewer books in the last six months than in any six month period in several years – and that’s a psychological thing. Since I feel poorer than I have in years and because it is impossible to ignore all of the negative economic news about at least the near-term future, I have, almost subconciously, cut back on spending for just about everything. I search hard for book bargains – and the library is my best friend.

I hope the chains survive this mess, but if they don’t, I can easily believe that someone will be there to pick up the pieces when the economy takes off again – and that a new chain or two will be born.

>I’m sitting in a local hospital with my dad who is suffering a severe case of double-pneumonia – a fairly dangerous situation for an 87-year-old. He’s having a bad reaction to some of the medicine so I will be here indefinitely, it seems (as I have been since Thursday afternoon). The good news, though, is that the hospital has a nice WiFi server working and I’ll be able to keep myself from going completely stir-crazy by making good use of the tiny Acer Eee PC that I bought a couple of months ago.

That said, I noticed an interesting article in the Houston Chronicle this morning about one of Houston’s most unique independent bookstores, Majors Books. Majors is located in the heart of the Houston Medical Center area and has served the medical profession down there very well since 1954. According to the article, though, Majors was actually founded in Dallas over 100 years ago. Obviously things are tougher for Majors in this Amazon.com age, but the stores have adapted and are hanging on pretty nicely.

From the Houston Chronicle:

In the age of Amazon.com, it’s hard being a family-owned bookstore. But Majors Books has managed to survive for a century by offering special services to its customers, opening the store to events and adapting to the online world.

It resembles a model that the American Booksellers Association believes other independent bookstores should follow if they want to survive in this digital age of Kindles and iPods, where books can be purchased and downloaded in seconds.

Majors’ two stores, in Houston and Dallas, are among the largest medical bookstores in the U.S. Majors also sells medical equipment and scrubs.

Despite the emergence of medical information on the Internet, many health science professionals still prefer a book, said Roger Torres, the Houston store’s general manager.

“They still want to hold and feel a book, particularly the older doctors,” he said. “Just being able to pull out that book when you need it.”

…

Majors’ Houston and Dallas stores post combined annual sales in the $6 million range, he said.

“The online challenge to independent bookstores is still strong,” stronger than what they face from major bookstore chains, said Meg Smith, spokeswoman for the American Booksellers Association.

“The independents still doing well have strong ties to the community and regularly hold events in the stores,” she said.

I’ve lived in Houston 37 years and have never been inside Majors Books – but I would grieve its loss to the community. Judging strictly by the tone of this article, Majors will be around for years to come..deservedly so, I think.

>I jokingly said a couple of days ago that criminals don’t go to used book stores. That reminded me, sadly enough, of all the headlines I’ve seen in the last few months regarding all kind of criminal activity in bookstores. Maybe we’re not as safe browsing the shelves as we like to think:

Man Charged with Bookstore Assault – Ohio

Man Guilty in Bookstore Molestations – California

Blogger Stabbed at Bookstore in Bejing – China

Adult Bookstore Robbed at Gunpoint – Kentucky

Jimmy Carter Visits University Bookstore to Sign Books – Washington

Teens Treated After Collapsing at Bookstore – California

Bookstore Evacuated After Electrical Problem – Texas

Man Guilty of Punching Bookstore Owner – Canada

I’ve noticed this kind of thing for a while now and 2009 seems to be getting off to a really quick start when it comes to bookstore crime. The links above are all from just the last two or three days, in fact.

What really kills me, though, is the number of child molesters who do their sick thing in the children’s section of bookstores – and how many parents send their small children there alone while they themselves wander around the rest of the store. I take my grandchildren to bookstores on a regular basis and, I guarantee you, that the last thing I would ever do is lose sight of them for ten seconds – even in a bookstore. And yet I see little ones in the children’s section all alone for fifteen to thirty minutes at a time. That scares me.

Lessons to be learned: Stay away from Adult Bookstores and Jimmy Carter book-signings.

>Most everyone has seen one of those “special” hollowed-out books that are supposedly used to hide cash and other valuables in plain sight on a person’s bookshelves. I remember seeing a variety of pre-made book safes on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble a couple of years ago, in fact. That selection, all minus dust jackets, seemed to be books purchased in bulk from publisher overstock and subjected to very sharp slicer of some sort. If I remember correctly, there was a cheap little plastic insert-box pushed into the carved out hole, complete with a little door to trap the valuables inside.I think they sold for four or five dollars and I would have been tempted to buy one if it had included a dust jacket. Without a jacket, the book would have stood out on my shelves like a sore thumb – not a good thing when you’re hoping something will blend into the background.

Well, someone actually used one of those things (or one he manufactured himself) to stash emergency cash and credit cards and almost 20 years later his brother donated it to a library book store in Maryland. Maryland’s Gazette.net has the story – including the surprise happy ending:

Schnitman said his younger brother, Jeffrey Schnitman, had kept a “rainy day fund” of cash and credit cards in the book. He would not disclose the full amount of money.

When his brother died 17 years ago at the age of 36 from Crohn’s disease, Schnitman kept the faux book along with its contents on his own bookshelf.

But in the months following his move from Gaithersburg to Chevy Chase last July, Schnitman accidentally donated the hollowed-out book and several others to the Montgomery County Friends of the Library’s used bookstore on Boiling Brook Parkway.

“So I realized probably six weeks later that the book was missing and I went to the bookstore and magically someone had found it and turned it in,” the 56-year-old said.

Frankly, the most surprising thing about this story is that Mr. Schnitman got his money back (click on the link for that part of the story) – maybe criminals don’t frequent used book stores?

>What is a bookstore? For the uninitiated, this guy has the answer – and a few tips on how to behave there.

…and how not to behave there.

Retail work must really test the patience of store employees – maybe I’m lucky to have been rejected by three major bookstore chains in one three-week period of 2007.

>We’ve all heard about the dangerous toys imported into this country from China – along with the Chinese-manufactured pet food that seems to have killed more than a few U.S. pets a few weeks ago.

Now parents have to worry that the storybooks they hope will inspire their children to become lifetime readers may be as toxic as those Chinese toys. Libraries and bookstores across the country seem to be faced with the possibility that they will have to clear their shelves of books aimed at readers under 12-years old until those books can be checked for toxic lead paints and plastic.

According to the Mercury News:

That little-known consequence of a law passed to protect kids from tainted toys has librarians and publishers lobbying furiously for an exemption before it takes effect Feb. 10. Without a reprieve, San Jose library officials say they could be forced to close their children’s sections and send off all 700,000 volumes in them for safety testing.

…

Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August to protect kids from exposure to lead and plastic. The law followed the discovery of lead paint in imported toy trains and mounting health concerns about baby bottles and toys containing phthalates, used to make some plastics more flexible.

Lawyers for the Consumer Product Safety Commission told publishers in a recent opinion that the law covers children’s books as well as toys and applies retroactively to include library collections. All books aimed at kids under 12, the commission said, need to be tested to ensure they don’t exceed the new lead and phthalate limits.

Although publishers presented the commission with evidence they say proves books don’t pose any of the health risks to children that the law intended to address, the agency has yet to be convinced.

Applying this law retroactively to libraries and bookstores seems to me to be an impossible burden despite the fact that so many little ones keep their books in their mouths as much as they keep them in their hands. This is a tricky question but the word “overkill” does come to mind pretty quickly.

>

From the “Just When You Think You’ve Heard It All” file, England’s Northumberland Gazette offers this true story of a book thief who dares compare himself to Gandhi:

A man fined £255 for stealing a book from a shop in Gateshead has vowed not to pay it and compared his plight to that of Gandhi.

Raymond Scott, 51, was caught stealing The Cannabible Collection – worth £18.99 – and a £32 book on stone sheepfold artworks from a branch of Waterstone’s in the MetroCentre.

Speaking outside the town’s magistrates’ court, Scott said: “I am not going to pay the fine because the amount was totally inappropriate and if they want to send me to prison for non-payment then so be it.

“Was not Gandhi imprisoned by the British?” he asked reporters.

Well, I’m certainly impressed – “Free Raymond Scott, free Raymond Scott…

>

How bad can the business of selling books really be when an independent bookstore in North Carolina fails to notice that a “trusted employee” has walked away with $348,975?

I’m just kidding – I know these are tough times for booksellers – but this kind of thing always amazes me and makes me wonder how some people can be so blind to what is going on around them.

According to the News & Observer,

A former bookkeeper with Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh was arrested over the weekend and charged with embezzling $348,975 from the popular independent bookstore.

Anna Susan Kosak, 43, of Raleigh is charged with taking the money over several years, according to court records. Quail Ridge General Manager Sarah Goddin said Sunday that Kosak was employed as the store’s bookkeeper twice, from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2004 until September. Goddin said Kosak’s departure in September was not related to the embezzlement charge.

Goddin said the missing money went undetected because it disappeared over a long period of time. Quail Ridge does about $3.4 million in sales a year, according to Nancy Olsen, who owns the 24-year-old store with her husband, Jim.

“We’re shocked,” Nancy Olsen said Sunday.

Well, duh. Pay attention, guys.

(Admittedly, I’m an accountant by training and experience but I refuse to believe that this woman could not have been stopped early on in her serial thieving. It’s not that easy to pull off something like this – much easier to stop and detect than to accomplish, in fact.)

>Bookstore chains like Borders and Barnes and Noble are able to offer big discounts on bestsellers and sales specials because publishers generally give the booksellers a hefty discount off of cover price: typically about 48%. On top of that discount, the booksellers are also given the right to return the copies they are unable to sell.

But now a new HarperCollins imprint, wants to change the traditional agreement and Borders has agreed to the new terms. This could be tricky for the booksellers and it will be interesting to see if the new agreement is just the first of many new ones between publishers and the big chains.

According to Minyanville, the new deal works this way:

Borders Group will get a discount of 58% to 63% off the cover price on initial orders from the publisher, a new imprint of News Corp’s (NWS) HarperCollins. Typically, the discount is about 48%.

Under the deal, Borders won’t return unsold books to the publisher. This could be a gamble, because an estimated 30% to 40% of adult titles are eventually returned to the publisher.

The new agreement may mean remainder bins filled with steeply discounted books will be sittng next to bestsellers, or at least tucked away in the back of the store.

As someone being forced to keep a tighter than usual watch on my spending right now, I know that I’ll be tempted to buy new books later than usual in hopes of picking up a bargain by waiting. This sounds like a good change for the publisher – and a huge amount of risk being placed entirely on the shoulders of the bookstores.

>

Yes, indeed. Don’t forget to give lots of books this Christmas.

>

Now comes the rest of the story on the two big U.S. bookstore chains – and it looks like Borders Group continues to have much bigger problems than Barnes and Noble. According to the Bloomberg people:

Borders has fired 20 percent of its corporate workforce and reduced inventory while it seeks ways to win sales from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

The bookseller posted a third-quarter net loss of $175.4 million, or $2.90 a share, wider than the $161.1 million, or $2.74, deficit a year earlier, as consumers cut back on purchases of books and magazines.

Revenue for the three months through Nov. 1 fell to $693.4 million from $765.2 million, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company said. Sales at older stores dropped 12.8 percent, while debt was reduced by 34 percent to $525.4 million, Borders said.

I’m a bit surprised that Borders management is trying to steal sales from Wal-Mart and Amazon.com rather than from Barnes and Noble. I suppose that, in one sense, that’s logical since it will be easier to focus on the differences between Borders and those companies; Barnes and Noble is simply too much like Borders in presentation and services for the two to really gain much of a competitive advantage on the other that way.

This is not good news for book lovers, that’s for sure.

>I haven’t done one of these “state of the business” posts for a while but it looks like the time has come. I’ve seen Barnes and Noble in the business news several times lately and even received one of those trashy chain-letter emails that warned me that Barnes and Noble is among a group of companies that are in danger of folding before all those Christmas gift cards can be used up. Ridiculous as that notion sounds on the surface, it did grab my attention since that’s been the gift-of-choice that I most often receive from my wife and daughters.

And now I see on the Forbes.com website that the latest Barnes and Noble numbers are downright ugly:

Barnes & Noble just reported a third-quarter loss of $18.4 million, or 34 cents per share, compared with profit of $4.4 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier.

Same-store sales fell 7.4% for the quarter. Barnes & Noble said a significant drop-off in customer traffic and consumer spending affected its business in the third quarter. Management says it is taking measures to reduce expenses for the rest of this year and next.

The family has already decided to cut back on Christmas gifts this year, concentrating only on giving the three little ones a good Christmas, so I was not going to receive the usual B&N gift cards this year anyway. But if this were a more normal year, I might have suggested avoiding the cards after seeing numbers like these and knowing how tough it has been in recent years for even Barnes and Noble and Borders to turn a profit.

Come to think of it, I don’t hear much about Barnes and Noble wanting to acquire Borders anymore.

Just a quick aside – There are two Barnes and Noble stores in my immediate area and I live almost exactly between the two so I shop at both of them on a regular basis. The two stores are a lot alike, of course, but there is one huge difference that continues to irritate me. One store includes almost no fiction in its publishers’ remainders section and the other one is filled with it. I really like shopping the markdowns and always get a kick when I find a title that I couldn’t afford at full price there in the stacks of cheap books. I even mentioned to the store manager who seems to avoid mark-downed fiction that he was pushing me to the other location but he just “politely” blew me off with some kind of excuse I don’t even remember now.

I wonder if it’s up to each store manager to determine how much emphasis to give to the publishers’ remainders or if there is a Barnes and Noble store policy regarding the books. Anyone know the answer?