Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble reported their latest earnings; the report was fairly grim news to anyone inside the industry who follows the financials. (Since August 2015, their stock has dropped 45 percent.)
The BN.com website suffered reduced traffic and sales to the tune of 22 percent since the problematic relaunch earlier this year. Nook sales continue to drop; sales are now 32 percent lower than a year ago. Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch wrote, “The company did not say anything [on their investor call] about salvaging Nook sales; they only talked about trying to trim away at expenses.”
As far as the bricks-and-mortar experience, B&N CEO Ron Boire says the chain is benefiting from the adult coloring book trend (they held coloring events at stores), and toys and games sales grew about 15 percent in the last quarter. The New York Times indicated that Boire hopes to turn B&N into a “lifestyle brand.” While Boire insists that “Barnes & Noble has become a destination for personal development, learning, and entertainment,” Cader calls this a stretch.
On the bright side, B&N plans to close fewer bookstores than originally estimated—only ten stores this fiscal year, rather than thirteen. Closing ten locations would bring sales down about 1.5 percent.
Bottom line: In the New York Times piece, one of the more interesting points made about the new B&N store experience is better shelving and arrangement of books within categories. Instead of shelving alphabetically by author, B&N is now arranging books into subcategories (e.g., parenting books are stocked according to the age of the child). Sales have predictably improved as a result. Expect to see more successes from B&N when they focus on improving merchandising of physical books—rather than trying to compete in online retail.
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.
