The little engine could, and did. This big bookstore seems to be running out of steam and sliding backwards down the slope and toward a crash. I spent several hours in the store I’ll call BN for brevity, yesterday. And the heck of it is, we hadn’t planned to go to the bookstore in the first place.
We met up for lunch, family and friends, and after a good meal the conversation was rolling and it was moved to adjourn to someplace quieter and more conducive to chatting without raising our voices. None of us were familiar with the area, so we had to look for a bookstore. A little google later and we met up at the local BN. All of us being bibliophiles, there was some browsing as well, since we were there. And of course more drinks from the café so conveniently located with little tables we could cluster around. I say little, because the larger tables we could have put the whole group around were all occupied by a single person with laptops, drinks, and no signs of budging any time in the future. Still, we made it work.
At one point in the conversation my brother-in-law was telling me about a book I should get for my son, 101 Things Every Man Should Know, and he looked it up on his phone. “It says they have it here.”
They may have. They may not. Their method of ‘organizing’ non-fiction books by topic was not clear, and as we wound our way through looking at signs trying to figure out what it would be filed under, I dryly commented that a Men’s Books section would clearly not be welcome in this place. Nor were any staff in sight to be asked, even assuming they would have known where to look. There were, in the afternoon to early evening hours, three staff in the store. Two cashiers, and one rather harried assistant manager, who I did actually track down immediately after entering the store, to let him know that two of the three stalls in the ladies room lacked necessary paper. He said he’d tell someone about it. This didn’t give me hope he could find the book… and after we found the section with the Dangerous Book for Boys and decided that if they’d had the book we sought, it would have been there, we returned to our table and I ordered the book from Amazon. This is why the bookstore is dying, point first.
Point second: selection, or lack thereof. I took the time since I was there anyway, to indulge in a little market research. I found the SFF sections, one for ‘New and Popular’, and the other all the rest. All of two ~12 foot long, chest high shelving units. There was a single Kratman title, three Correias, a handful of Drakes. I was looking for DJ Butler’s Witchy Eye in paper, and found the store only had the sequel, Witchy Winter, in stock. There were quite a number of classics, some in very pretty covers, including a lot of Tolkein with titles I hadn’t seen before, like the ‘Atlas of Tolkein’ which I assume is a work drawn from his actual books capitalizing on the recent movie-driven popularity. It was disappointing, and as you’ll see from my photo of the ‘New and Popular’ section, kind of pathetic.
I did wind up buying some books, though. Two were more for the kids – they prefer to read in paper. One was for me, but all of them were… classics. Books that I wanted fresh copies of, at a reasonable price, two of them being collections that mean I don’t have to keep several books on the full shelves at home. I don’t anticipate going to the BN again. Cincinnati is not a small city. There are – and I have shopped them – small Indie bookstores in the region. Generally speaking, they are cozy, clean, friendly, and have a nice selection of more regional interest books, like the book on mushroom identification I bought recently. And my local used bookstores are a delight, one I use as a reward for myself because it’s all too easy to increase my tsudoku every visit I make there!
Comments
35 responses to “The Big Bookstore that Can’t”
the boron nitride bookstore? /ducks
Huh, I wonder if you can even do that… off to look at bonding and valences!
We used Boron Nitride as a solid source of Boron in silicon processing. We got it in wafer form, a white ceramic-looking material. This replaced other methods, either gaseous or liquid. If memory serves, BBr3 was a liquid source.
It’s “fun” trying to browse the on-line B&N store and buying ebooks from them is a major pain (problems with downloading).
So I’m not surprised about your story about the brick-and-mortar B&N. 🙁
Paul: I find using BN’s web site for purchasing is truly a pain. But purchasing through their app is pretty painless, and less apt to accidently purchasing something than on Amazon.
The B&N Windows App?
Sure, I can read the ebooks on my PC but getting them onto my Kindle Fire appears to be impossible.
Most of my current ebook purchases are from Baen, Amazon and KoboBooks.
Baen lacks DRM and I know how to un-DRM books from Amazon & KoboBooks.
Of course, I use Calibre to convert Kindle Format to ePub format. 😉
I am actually impressed. You visited a BN and not only managed to find actual (non-SJW crappola) books, but some even worth buying? Alright, it’s not *quite* “We found Atlantis” but right now, I wouldn’t bet against it if you decided to go looking.
The last time I went in one, I came out empty handed. That’s been close to two years ago, now. They do have rather a lot of the classics like that Lovecraft in very nice embossed bindings, I’m tempted to drop some money on upgrading a few ratty old books with nice ones.
It was more than a couple year since I last visited a BN. The web site said they had $BOOK. They could order it.. and I could pick it up… but I wasn’t in my home state. They could send it.. for a fee. For a smaller fee (if any) I could order it off Amazon (and did late, in bathrobe as I recall). And even not having $BOOK I went for, the look of the place was that of a some that Once Upon A Time had BEEN a book store, but was committing suicide by trying to be everything else – none very well. I decided I didn’t want to be on that plane *WHEN* it crashed.
the last time i went in one, the person i was with and I looked around for an hour and left. it was more about being in her company than the bookstore anyway
Which is sad, because bookstores do make great Date destinations. You can learn so much about a person based on their reading preferences. I feel the same way about antique stores, so YMMV.
B&N outlets around here were not particularly welcoming to local indy authors – which was one of the things that might have helped … but then, it didn’t help the Borders chain, any — and they were very welcoming and helpful, before they went bust. Alan, of the Texas Authors Association had a meet last year with B&N’s top management, for which Alan had great hopes, but alas … B&N’s corporate disdain for indy authors is to much ingrained.
I was thinking that having local authors stocked, and local author ‘events’ like readings and signings would do a lot to bring people into a bookstore for reasons other than ‘office away from home’ which is what most in the store seemed to be doing.
My local used bookstore had me, and a bunch of other authors on weekends, in to do a reading with the ability to sell books out of hand while we were there. All they got out of it was community engagement.
Is Books & Co. still in business? It use to be in Kettering I think. [to quote my Mamaw, I’ve slept since then.] I recall that it was a nice locally owned store with a decent collection. Of course this was pre Amazon days. 😉
It seems to be in Beavercreek now, I will add it to my list of ‘visit there!’ thank you!
They had a location at Austin Landing (I-75 exit 41), but now seem to have only the large location at The Greene (I-475 exit 10). I’ve been there a few times with friends – the large selection of restaurants makes dinner and a bookstore visit a winner for bibliophiles. Along with Joseph-Beth Books down in Cincinnati, they’re one of the few bookstores in the region that usually has *something* of interest to buy.
I used to LOVE going to Barnes & Noble, Chapters/Indigo (Canada), Borders. I had to save up for a couple weeks before each trip, but that was okay, as there would be something excellent to read. A new release, an old release I’d never heard of, there’d be something.
But now, Chapters looks like “ye olde nick-knack shoppe.” And the nick-knacks aren’t even that good. Fluffy pillows and cheap throws from China, the kind that disintegrate in the washing machine. Science fiction section looks like what you had in your picture. There is no “NEW!!!” section because the staff is too small to stock it and rotate it.
Net result, I never go anymore. Maybe once in a while, for the nostalgia. There’s rarely anything to buy. I try to get new releases of favorite authors, but often they are not there and I must resort to Amazon.
I will note that this is the store in Ancaster, which has just had a million-dollar renovation and the decor is brand-spanking new. Its likely one of the nicest stores in the whole chain.
I want to say this occurred in roughly 2010. It was pre-Sad Puppies, for sure. I was used to coming home with two or three paperbacks, maybe a hardcover, and I just kind of stopped doing it. The books were all the same, they were horrible, and there were never any new ones. When MHI came out I gobbled them all up as fast as possible, it was like water in the desert.
Bottom line, the industry took something that I loved, that was a fun experience, and they managed to take all the fun out of it.
My revenge is to sit and eat popcorn while they go bankrupt. Won’t be long now, I expect.
Yeah, I need to figure out how to break the drm on my books so that when it goes belly up, I’ll still have them….
I would never advocate illegal activity, but if all you want to do is properly sort and organize your personal library, I highly recommend the program Calibre (it’s free) for converting books to the format you use most. Takes some time, but it’s so nice to have them all in one secure place.
I was just going to say Calibre. I think it has a batch-mode, even. ~:D
Just make sure all the files are on your personal hard drives and not residing in the oh-so-convenient “cloud”. One of these days all those services are going to have a bad day and need a little lie down, so plan ahead.
You also need to go to apprentice Alf’s site. There’s something there that you need to download and apply in Calibre to unlock your purchases.
” When MHI came out I gobbled them all up as fast as possible, it was like water in the desert.”
Same here, for DH it was the steampunk-superhero series. I felt similar toward CJ Cherryh’s stuff back in the stone age … Indie has been good to us …
I am amazed that there are extant bookstores. Haven’t visited one in DECADES.
How much floor space was given over to toys and games?
The local one gave over about 1/6th to that, not including the Children’s Section and Cafe floor space.
Local shiny new Chapters store is 25% merch, 25% Children’s, 25% Starbucks. Leaving us wondering when the final 25% at the back of the store will become auto-parts, or cooking utensils, gardening sundries, etc.
Oh yeah, and all the books are at the back of the store. The good real estate at the front goes to the Starbucks and the merch.
At some point the publishing community -will- understand that wokescolding is not a successful business plan in the Doug Ford/ Donald Trump era. The only question is, will they realize it before or after they go bankrupt?
Was it like this in 1930s Germany, I wonder? Did all the book stores in Germany suddenly shift to propaganda and empty themselves of anything good to read?
The last time I was in a BN was probably 2012 and I had pretty much the same experience you had recently. I really liked Borders before they went belly-up – nice and knowledgeable staff, easy to find books, clean. I haven’t been in even an indie bookstore in years. (Living in the middle of nowhere and all that means I have one local bookstore and she keeps strange hours.) Now I stick mostly to thrift stores for my hardcopy purchases – they have newer books sometimes, too, at prices I can actually afford. Everything else I buy at Amazon. Except for one friend’s Harlequin series which I can find at my local Wallyworld when the new ones come out.
If someone had told me twenty years ago that I wouldn’t be setting foot in a brick n mortar for years at a time, I would’ve laughed in their faces. So sad.
“I was looking for DJ Butler’s Witchy Eye in paper, and found the store only had the sequel, Witchy Winter, in stock.”
This has been my experience at BN for the last decade – any time I’ve been interested in checking out a series, they never have the first book. Sometimes they have the second, or possible the third, or the second and the fifth. This is so nonsensical from a business perspective it boggles the mind. I can understand carrying the most recent entry, while not carrying the entire series if it’s not a big mover, but how, if you carry any entry in a series, could you not also have the first book? *shakes head*
Your other observations are also spot-on. Death by self-inflicted wound.
I mean, I can sort of see if they are only stocking one or two of book one, several of newest book in series, and then book one sells out. But there was no gap there. And in this day and age of JIT ordering and fulfillment, there is no excuse at all. Especially because for some mystifying reason trad Pub still clings to the ‘inventory in stock’ system of printing thousands of copies at once. Which has to have tax penalties because of how inventory is treated now. POD makes so much more sense.
True! And for it to happen so many times over the years – they can’t always be sold out (well, they can be if they never actually reorder book one….). As writers, we know that the second purpose of a new book in a series (after making existing readers happy) is to sell book ONE in the series and create new readers. The fact that this core publishing business truth appears to be completely lost on BN is inexplicable.
I still enjoy going to one from time to time, but the nearest one is about a 40 minute trek from us. The one in Snellville, GA is the one closest. They did gut their video section recently and have dedicated that huge section to games and toys. The sci-fi fantasy section is small. The manga and light novels section is pretty good.
I was impressed by the Manga section and commented I should bring my girls in. Also, the game section would rival some of the smaller game stores I’ve been in, which was impressive. I wouldn’t mind a gaming and bookstore combo whatsoever.
Those gaming and bookstore combo are called comic book stores, and they are also going out of business all over the place. Because again, no margin and comics SUCK these days. They’re really awful.
Well, I’ve never been in a comic book store that also had novels and such – I’ve never gotten into comics. We had a new gaming store open near us just recently, I want to go check it out soon.
Friends of mine used to run Unknown Worlds on Danforth Ave. in Toronto, they had all the new releases for comics every week, all the new books in SF/F, games, figurines, all of it. My weekly stop to load up and then go home and gorge on comics.
They had everything, for sure, unfortunately they were early victims of the Great Comic Crash of the early 1990s. Roughly around the time of Death of Superman as I recall. It was pretty sad, but they had to fold it up. They were getting killed on costs, and the comic companies were going crazy with minimum buys.
I buy a lot of e-books through B&N and have never had a problem with them downloading to my various devices, a couple of tablets and 2 phones. It can be confusing when buying an e-book from the Baen site or someplace similar. You have to download it to your device then find it on the device and open it then tell it that you want Nook to open it, but once it’s been opened it stays in your bookshelf on Nook, though.