The same company will soon own the biggest bookstore chains in the USA and UK: is that a problem?
Barnes & Noble, the USA’s largest bookstore chain, is being purchased by Elliott Advisers Limited.
Barnes and Noble press release
The timing was interesting to me, since a Barnes & Noble just opened near me (indicating a certain level of commitment).
It’s in an upscale strip mall…the kind of place with a movie theatre with waiter service.
We visited it…the experience in the Amazon Books store was much better. Oh, the B&N has a lot more books, and a large selection of magazines…but the only time an employee approached me was when I accidentally walked up to an employee terminal rather than a customer one (it wasn’t really labeled obviously).
Another customer and I did the dance when we didn’t fit going opposite ways down an aisle.
I especially missed the information cards and stars at the Amazon Books store: there wasn’t much at the B&N to tell me about the books (including employees, as I mentioned above).
It felt somewhat like shopping at a grocery store.
It was clean enough and well-merchandised (I’m a former bookstore manager, so I tend to look at those things), but a brick-and-mortar needs to be more than that nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked going to a bookstore, but I think this one faces challenges to success.
In the not inconsiderable coverage I’ve seen on this deal, I haven’t seen people talking about this aspect: Elliott bought the UK’s largest bookstore chain last year, Waterstones.
From what I’ve read, they are doing a good job with the venerable UK chain, but it seems like more people would be worried about the same company owning both the UK and USA’s largest bookstore chains.
What people aren’t saying is the potential this has to impact the diversity of thought and viewpoint in the publishing business. Brick and mortar stores are still important to the success of tradpubbed (traditionally published) p-books (paperbooks). One reason for that is that people who don’t read a lot of books in a year prefer to give p-books as gifts, and I think they still tend to go to brick-and-mortars for that (although they also go to places like Costco).
While they may give local autonomy to book buyers, it’s very likely that some corporate philosophy will affect the selection (even in the case of a “hedge fund”).
If this was a TV or radio consolidation, I think we’d see concerns expressed. I don’t think legislators consider that bookstores have a big impact on people any more. It’s true that a lot of what gets purchased in a brick-and-mortar doesn’t have to do with public affairs…cookbooks and children’s books are likely a bigger proportion of the sales than they are with, say, e-books.
Still, I think it’s…interesting. I’m not particularly concerned about it: I do think brick-and-mortar stores don’t have the impact on public opinion that they used to have.
It just surprised me that it wasn’t more of a factor in the coverage.
What do you think? Barnes & Noble stock shot up in the wake of the announcement…is this what they need to thrive? Does it matter to you who owns Barnes & Noble? Do you care about this consolidation? Do bookstores affect elections and policy decisions? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.
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This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
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