The fall of the big bookstore empire

Barnes & Noble was once the undisputed king of the retail book world. Now, a perfect storm of industry changes may lead to its dethronement. Julie Bosman at the New York Times shares B&N’s strategy to remain competitive amid the rising popularity of e-readers and the growing dominance of Amazon. But will selling more toys and games and creating in-store boutiques to showcase the Nook secure the retailer’s future? For some lovers of the printed page, the threat of diminishing books and bookstores is an existential crisis as much as an economic one.

Read on at the New York Times:

For readers, e-books have meant a transformation not just of the reading experience, but of the book-buying tradition of strolling aisles, perusing covers and being able to hold books in their hands. Many publishers have been astounded by the pace of the e-book popularity and the threat to print book sales that it represents. If the number of brick-and-mortar stores drops, publishers fear that sales will go along with it. Some worry that large bookstores will go the way of the record stores that shut down when the music business went digital.

“The shift from the physical to the digital book can pick up some of the economic slack, but it can’t pick up the loss that is created when you don’t have the customers browsing the displays,” said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, a literary agent. “We need people going into stores and seeing a book they didn’t know existed and buying it.”