Barnes & Noble - From Thug to Love

Publishing Perspectives takes note that B&N, once blasted for sweeping in and taking away indie booksellers right and left, is now, perhaps, the last, best hope for American bookselling.

From the piece...

These days, all the grumbling is about Borders, America’s second largest chain, which is flirting with bankruptcy (again!) and Amazon, which has for the last decade or so taken on the role of Bully-in-Chief. You don’t hear so much complaining about B&N. Why? The company now stands as perhaps the last, best hope of American bookselling.

Sorry Indies, but it’s the truth. B&N still has enough consolidated power to “make” books. Its buying power makes it indispensable to publishers who need advance orders to justify print runs and the various other knock on effects that entails. They are providing –- via their Nook device –- the biggest rival to Amazon’s e-reader hegemony. And, let’s face it, if they –- along with Borders -– disappeared, how many communities would suddenly be underserved or not served at all? This is the reason small towns lobby B&N to open stores in their community: people are now, like it or not, accustomed to the selection available at big box retailers. True, perhaps half of those who shop at B&N’s aren’t there for the books, but what better chance is there to entice a not-so-avid reader into picking up a book?

I live in Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, which has only two independent bookshops of significance -– Brazos Bookstore and Blue Willow Book Shop — as well as a premier independent mystery bookshop, Murder by the Book. The distance between the two indies takes a good 45 minutes to drive, in decent traffic. And the mystery shop happens to be all but across the street from one of the indies. What else is there? Well, there is a brand spanking new Barnes & Noble that’s a ten minute drive away, and several older locations (and several Borders –- though for how long remains to be seen). And before you suggest that it’s just Houston, please note this is the same situation in all the big cities throughout Texas -– Dallas, San Antonio, and yes, even Austin -– and in many other cities across the United States. (And before you suggest it might just be Texas, let me point out that some 45,000 doctors work and live ten minutes from where I’m sitting).