Reading, Bookselling, and the Nitty Gritty of Staying in Business

I am a voracious reader.  This is no secret, not to anyone who really knows me.  I read and read and read in my spare time (and even when it is not my spare time).  As a child I was not very picky-- I would read the back of the cereal box if I was lacking anything else, and I pulled books from my parents' shelf that were way over my head-- but finally in middle age I have learned to be a little more discriminating.  I'm better about weeding out stuff I dislike, and I am better (though it's still kind of tortuous) at quitting a book that doesn't meet my standards or is boring the life out of me.

Part of that choosiness also means that I spend a lot less money on books.  Wait, that's backward-- I have a lot less money to spend on books nowadays so before I buy a book I make sure that it's one I really want to own a hard copy of.  It is very, very rare that I will purchase a book I have not already read.  I save my book dollars for 1) an author I have a really good track record with or 2) copies of books that I want to be able to reread more than once or that I want to share with my kids.

However, I still read as much as I ever did, even though I am not spending money every week on mass market paperbacks.  (I'm sure I wasn't the only preteen girl who spent her allowance on books!)  Now, I check out my books from the library.  If they don't have what I want to read, some library in the system often does.  Also, they have a wide variety of ebooks available to check out.  They have the entire catalogue of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books!  (Those are my go-to options for reading while I am on the elliptical machine at the gym.  My kindle is a lifesaver for the elliptical.)  If I fall in love with something (like I did recently with the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter), I wait until I have some birthday money or something and then I pick up hard copies. 

Switching tracks just a little, I've been following a couple of blogs for awhile that deal with the publishing business, especially as it applies to "indies" (those of us self-publishing).  Over the course of the last year, I have read a lot of articles about bookstores closing, bookstores that are surviving, why Amazon is evil and destroying everything readers love, Amazon is salvation for book readers that were tired of not being able to find books they wanted to buy, Barnes and Noble is about to go bankrupt, Barnes and Noble is reinventing itself, etc.  These stories are interesting to me both as a writer and a reader-- where I get my reading fix does depend on what goes on with bookstores to a certain degree, and as a writer, any chance of ever being able to sell my books will be affected by what goes on with bookstores.

In my own personal opinion, it's not looking good for Barnes and Noble.  They have posted profit losses for all but one of the last five years.  BIG losses.  (Tens of millions of dollars.)  They have tried various things to revitalize their business, and the latest tactic seems to be-- Nook was a bust so they're scaling back on the ebook/ereader front and putting trendy little restaurants into their stores to bring in traffic that no longer wanders by and into the store.  In a comments section on one of the posts, this question was posed:

If you were once a customer of Barnes and Noble, and you no longer shop there, what could they do to earn your business again?

That prompted some reflection from me, and I realized just how much my life has changed in the last twenty years.

The last time I bought a book from B&N was six years ago (I was browsing and enjoying a rare couple of free hours without kids, and picked up a paperback book).  Before that, I think the last time I even entered a B&N was when I was hopping bookstores trying to find Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse the week it came out (nobody had a copy).  But once upon a time, I regularly visited B&N.  I even dropped something like $130 for books in one visit, back before I got married and had bills to pay.

What could they do to get me to come back?

Well, for starters, they aren't close enough to where I live.  The nearest B&N is about a 50 minute drive, and I'm not as likely to just drop in on a whim.  But I can't blame it all on the distance because the store is in the same mall as my favorite gelato shop, and I have made trips out there with Terence just to have gelato.  Then we've browsed in Dick's Sporting Goods while we're there, and it never even crossed my mind to check out B&N.

Why?

If by chance I do have some spending money for books, I'm going to order them online.  My experience has been that I will find them cheaper there.  I might get a clearance discount price.  I might find what I want used.  And I know I will be able to search and find what I want in stock somewhere.  I think I was pretty badly burned by racing around trying to find that Meyer book (remember how big Twilight was?) and nobody had a copy, and worse, the sales people seemed baffled when I asked about it.  Why bother with that?

But, the B&N defenders say, in a brick and mortar bookstore you can browse, see if a new author catches your eye!

Right.  I'm so loathe to spend money on a book I'll hate now that very, very rarely will I risk it.  The only times I have risked buying a new author in the last five years have been with very reasonably priced ebooks.  Like $3 or $4 range.  None of those to be had from B&N.

So I guess for me, if B&N wants my business, it will have to be online.  They will need much cheaper books.  They will need super fast shipping (my Amazon stuff gets here quickly, and I don't even have a Prime membership).  They will need ebooks that are cheap and tempting-- but then again, I can't read them on my kindle, so I probably wouldn't bother.  Unless their ebooks could easily be read on my kindle.

Am I unusual?  Or am I not their target customer so they don't really care about winning someone like me back anyway?  They are mostly interested in those who buy books as gifts, or people looking for nonfiction titles rather than fun, genre "popcorn" books?  I have no idea, but judging by the statements their CEO has made about their future direction, none of their business strategies would win me over.

What about you?  Are you a reader?  Are you a Barnes and Noble customer?  If not, how could they win your business?

A girl following the cutthroat publishing business wants to know!