Barnes & Noble

I caught a video by a Youtuber named abookolive a title of one of her videos and name caught my attention. She talks about the recent success Barnes & Noble are having with the new CEO and his idea of going back to being and feeling like a bookstore. This new idea may be working, but does it work for me? Also, is this a longterm success idea?

Looking at my past experience with bookstores, I relied on two sources for my book purchases. The first was from those who read the books. The second was the images on the book cover. Frank Frazetta caught my attention numerous times. As this was pre-internet days, I relied on bookstores for information when I got there, and then it was very limited. I always went directly to the fantasy and science fiction section as well as history. All other areas were ignored. Whatever book was on the shelf was what I knew about the genre I liked. Unless someone told me about a specific book or it was on the shelf, all other books never existed. Bookstores choked out options for me as they didn’t dedicate a huge amount of space for what I was interested in. Until I went to college, I wasn’t aware of how inadequate bookstores were and a frustration they were.

Listening to abookolive’s talk about how Barnes & Noble changed their fortune, I thought about whether or not it would succeed with me. For that answer, I need to look at bookstores. I am familiar with three types. The first are the used bookstores which is heaven to me. I have to spend a lot of time there but I find many books that I never knew about or want cheaper. There are some small bookstores that have a similar feel to used bookstores which I enjoy and often feel like Indiana Jones as he’s making his archaelogical discovery. Then there are the corporate bookstores of which some are long gone which leaves Barnes & Noble.

I have never been a fan of Barnes & Noble for some of the reasons abookolive mentions. You are placed in this huge Walmart-like room that offered very little in selection. Yes, you could buy games, mugs, and other items, but the genre I was searching was very limited. I am not even certain there was more variety of books than smaller places but more of the same books. B&N left me disappointed. Also, they had what appeared to be a coffee shop where you could also buy pastries, but the price was not worth it, and the seating, for me, wasn’t ideal. If I were to pick up a book from the other side of room why would I walk all the way to get coffee and a danish to sit and peruse the book?

B&N failed from the start and it isn’t about the look of the place. Yes, I love small, intimate bookstores, but that doesn’t have me buying books. A coffee shop isn’t going to get my money. The closest B&N is now over an hour away from me, so that doesn’t interest me. Unless it is in the closest town of where I live and I visit in the morning, I just have no interest in any of that unless the now defunct used bookstore that was in the basement of a building. I would go there and peruse, maybe buy something, and then go somewhere to get a drink where the drink and food prices were cheaper. That leaves me to the real reasons why B&N isn’t winning me over.

First, price. B&N isn’t competing with the much hated Amazon on prices for books. To go along with that, there are some “book writers” or sites that sell specialized books that I am more willing to spend extra in order to help support them. Price is a big issue with me. It means do I buy five books or two or three books? When I am research a specific subject I do not want to go months before buying the next piece of the puzzle. I just purchased 3 books and got free shipping from Amazon, and I do not believe B&N can compete with that.

Second, books. I know B&N has changed since I was last in one, but are they going to have the books I am searching for? Do they carry scholarly books specifically on biblical history, theology, or books on injuries and violence in early medieval Europe? I think not. The best they offer is some fly by night person who believes themselves to be some sort of expert that writes complete fictional nonsense. I saw that too often then and do not think it has changed. Even with the fiction I used to read, are they going to have authors’ works from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that were not huge sellers? I doubt that.

Third, will B&N have specific gems that I find in those tiny bookstores on the Outer Banks, Port Royal, or even Gettysburg and other such similar places? No. I understand that those running the store will be allowed to select the books based on what they see and feel, but again, I doubt their selections will work for me. In fact, I doubt of B&N will put a bookstore in these locations.

Can B&N compete with Amazon with the online selling? This is where they can win me over. Looking at “Ahab’s House of Horrors”, I see they are equal in price and shipping. However, there is a slight problem for B&N, and that is that I can sometimes get books for free. Online purchases work best for me simply because of location and now the ease of searching for a book.

Do I care how the bookstore looks, feels, and smells? Not really. Yes, I get some type of fictious nostalgia feeling in small bookstores, but, honestly, they’re not a great as one would like them to be. The selection is quite limited. If a B&N were closer would I visit? Likely not. Having been conditioned to just buy online nearly everything, I just do not find the hassle of driving to a strip mall worth the effort, and that isn’t B&N’s fault. I refuse to pay the high price for food at restaurants and many of the old haunts aren’t there anymore for my wife or me. I always enjoyed visiting stores I normally ignore because I would find something interesting but now there has to be a purpose and that is usually clothes shopping. I can tell you that watching my wife try on countless outfits and then judging them wears me down especially when there is no chair for me to half sleep in. And, I get tired of trying things on myself. The internet has destroyed this method of doing business.

Barne & Noble lost me years ago if they ever had me, and they are not attracting me now. If I have to drive an hour or more to one only to discover they don’t have the book right there for me then it is a huge waste of a day. Are they gonna sell me a bad cup of coffee for less than a dollar? No. The ship has passed on this, but maybe for many others who love their fiction or the other fiction of spiritual self-help books will enjoy it, and I believe there are some who will and do. If B&N wants my attention then have a place where I can read, purchase, or record journals that I have to go online to read while overpaying. Now, there is where I may actually overpay for bad coffee in order to read an article from the journal. Also, they need to open at 7A which is a great time to read and drink java.