Years that end in zeroes summon a natural tendency to look backwards and forwards. So as we enter this century’s decade of The 20s, we’ll do just that. The ideas in this piece analyze what is mostly anecdata: “facts” that are real, that I’ve vetted with people who have lived through these times with me, […]
Barnes and Noble faces a challenge that has not been clearly spelled out
The sudden dismissal of Ron Boire, the CEO of Barnes & Noble, follows the latest financial reporting from Barnes & Noble and has inspired yet another round of analysis about their future. When the financial results were released last month, there was a certain amount of celebrating over the fact that store closings are down […]
The sea change that comes with the latest iteration of the book ecosystem
In the past 10 years (since the mid-2000s), the ebook has arrived and the amount of shelf space for books in physical retail has declined, as book purchasing has continued to move to the Internet. This has put pressure on publishers’ distribution costs, as we discussed in a prior post. In the 10 years before […]