After Barnes & Noble announced February layoffs (read more in our last issue), their new quarterly earnings report offered more information on their strategy moving forward.
The largest US bookstore chain will open five new stores that are about half the size of the traditional superstores. Two immediate observations come to mind for anyone keeping tabs: (1) It didn’t take much more than a year for Barnes & Noble to abandon the original restaurant concept stores, now called “a great learning experience,” and (2) the new stores seem headed in the direction of Amazon’s small-format bookstore strategy. Still, this second iteration of concept stores will be about three times the size of the average Amazon bookstore. We’ll be keeping an eye on square footage for both chains.
Additionally, all stores will participate in a newly announced, nationwide Barnes & Noble Book Club. The first is scheduled for May 2 and features Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion; the store will sell an exclusive edition with a reading group guide. Additionally, book club attendees will receive a free coffee and cookie from the café after discussion led by B&N staff.
We’ve seen skepticism expressed about the changes by those inside the industry. Of course some believe Barnes & Noble is doomed regardless of what it does, but the same points tend to come up in any discussion: Why not allow each store more local control over its selection and management, to best serve its community? Or, as consultant Mike Shatzkin has suggested, why doesn’t B&N use its expertise to work with other retailers to offer a curated selection of books in their stores?
On the flip side, perhaps Barnes & Noble has more cards to play as a nationwide chain. Dominique Raccah, CEO of Sourcebooks, commented on the news in a private discussion group: “I think for authors and agents, the bestseller list is still a very important bar. Many contracts have bestseller bonuses, and it’s a way that authors and agents think about the milestones of their careers. A national book club seems more likely to make a dent in a list. And that speaks to the value of a large nationwide bookstore chain. I suspect at some point this gets tied to their membership initiatives and ecommerce in a meaningful way. Could be interesting.”
Bottom line: In light of Raccah’s insight above, note that Barnes & Noble has added half a million people to its membership program in the last six months, reaching 6.5 million members. In its latest quarterly earnings report, Barnes & Noble saw double-digit sales declines in the gift, music, and DVD categories, while book sales were down by 4.1 percent (the smallest decline for books so far this fiscal year). Soon customers will be able to pay for a book at barnesandnoble.com and pick it up at a store within an hour—although one has to wonder why this wasn’t possible before.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
