Is Barnes and Noble trying to expedite Chapter 11?

There are a lot of noise about Amazon vs Barnes and Noble recently on the Internet. Barnes and Noble is saying that they will stop carrying books that Amazon prints, and I am guessing that Amazon is afraid, really afraid. NOT!

The reality is that people go to Barnes and Noble and browse, wait for others, have a coffee and leave. The problem is that there is no book or volume purchasing, or at least not on my local one. People walk in, and leave, empty handed.

I can remember when was the last time I stop on Barnes and Noble to buy a book, but I guess was more than a year ago, since that was the time we quit on the Nook Color. Yes, we even try the Nook, (my wife didn’t like the Kindle for periodicals), so we got the black and white and later the color one. The devices where OK, the Barnes and Noble service not so much. After a mess caused by a Groupon, we decided to stop using the product. Barnes and Noble was simply unable to figure it out the problem, we forgot about the books, my wife got the Kindle, iBooks and Magazines in the iPad. For her the Nook was dead, and there was no interest ever on bring those memories back.

I have been an Amazon Kindle costumer since the first gen Kindle, guess how many problems Amazon has not resolve to my satisfaction; none, not even one. All had been resolved above and beyond my expectations. (and I have high expectations)

So, back to my original point, Barnes and Noble is not going to sell Amazon books. That’s actually great news to Amazon; guess what’s going to happen when people get used to their Prime Membership and the fact that books arrived now on two days (or less) with free shipping, to make things even worst, guess how many people will be willing too get a Kindle on Target, or Walmart, or Best Buy and never look back.

I only know two people that use the Barnes and Noble Nook, they got a nook, just because when they got the device, they want it to test the product before buy it, and at that time the Kindle was only available trough Amazon. Guess witch device they will consider when time is right to upgrade: The Kindle (or the iPad) (The rest of the people I know that use e-readers use an iPad/iPhone/iPod or a Kindle)

In my experience, people want to bet on the winner horse. Barnes and Noble doesn’t look like the winner one to me. As Borders didn’t a little bit ago.They need to make people fell in love with their stores, go there with the same illusion and emotion you go to an Apple Store; otherwise the paper lovers will continue getting the books cheaper in Amazon and when the want instant gratification they will drive to their local Target or Walmart and get a gallon of milk on the same trip.

There is no reason to stop in a Barnes and Noble unless you are looking for a book that it is in the Best Seller list, oh wait, those are already at Walmart and Target, by the way, most likely cheaper… Why I need to stop on Barnes and Noble? They don even offer anymore a comfortable area to sit anymore (our old Barnes and Noble use to, since we moved my local one only have uncomfortable ones)

Bring it on Barnes and Noble, stop carrying all Amazon Books, while you are on that, stop carrying all self publish books that are not exclusive to Pubit (your self-publish platform); and then make sure you remove the chairs (even the uncomfortable ones) so people come to what they suppose to come to your stores, Buy a book.

While you do that, and expedite the process to file Chapter 11, I will be browsing Amazon catalog to order my next book…
UPDATE: Since I wrote this, Books a Million is claiming that they wouldn’t carry Amazon Books either. The problem is that in the case of Books in a Million they don’t even have their own platform to compete with self publish books, and with Amazon getting more and more writers under their imprints, and more deals on printing, I wonder what and how Book a Million is going to differentiate from Walmart or Target… But as I said before, unless a really extreme transformation happen to bookstores, Indies or the likes of Barnes and Noble or Book a Million they will be soon in extinction soon.