I never posted the reply that I got from Barnes & Noble

[thewayne]

My original post of an email that I sent to their customer service address, complaining about them eliminating their new title section from science fiction and other areas.

Thank you for your email.

As a highly valued Barnes & Noble Member, we appreciate you feedback regarding the removal of the new releases. We understand and appreciate that some of our members have become accustomed to having New Releases faced out in certain subjects such as Fiction. We believe this is an enhanced shopping experience by integrating the New Releases into the bookcases creating a home for all of an author’s works. We think this is an improvement as discovery of titles that a customer may not have been familiar with.

We will continue to carry a dynamic selection of New Releases merchandised in the bookcases, on tables and other features throughout the store for the browsing experience.

Sincerely,


Well, good for them. I'm glad they believe it, because I believe that I won't bother stepping foot in their stores solo again to be forced to search through their stacks, looking for something that may or may not be there. I guess I'll confine my searching to online, which may or may not be via BN.com. I don't buy a lot of new books in physical format, most of the ebooks that I buy I get from Apple's store since most of the reading that I do is on my iPad. I hate not supporting my closest physical book store, but if they're going to make my shopping experience more difficult, so be it. And by more difficult, I mean that I have three fused vertebra in my neck and from having had cataract surgery I have prismatic distortion when trying to view titles sideways, so it's not easy for me to squat down to read lower rows.

So screw 'em. If my wife wants to go, I'll accompany her and peruse magazines and maybe get something to drink, but that'll be about the limit of my purchases.

Comments

[conuly]

They believe it based on what evidence? I'd love to see the scads of emails they've gotten praising this decision.

[thewayne]

So would I!  When I recommend an author that is new to a friend or acquaintance, I talk about their overall body of work.  I'm not going to throw their latest work at them, unless it's a new series or stands alone.  If I'm recommending science fiction in general to someone new to the field, then I'll recommend older works and frequently older authors, but then I'll often aim for short story collections to give them a broad overview of the writer's style.  But once you're in to an author and have consumed their back catalog?  YOU'RE NOT GOING TO WANT TO LOOK AT ALL OF THEIR OLD BOOKS, YOU'VE ALREADY READ THEM ALL!

[moxie_man]

You may just want to give them your post above as a follow-up. Not that it'll make a difference.

[thewayne]

I don't think it's worth the energy. Some middle manager told the C-level above him "this will cause people to stay in the store longer!", and the C-level didn't stop to think what it might mean for long-term customers. There's no easy way to reach that C-level, and with my change in buying habits, i.e. doing my best to not buy physical books while not buying ebooks from them as I don't like their app, it's just not worth pursuing.

[murakozi]

Maybe it's just me, but when I'm looking for the latest book by an author, I'm generally not looking for their older/previous books. When people have suggested that I might like work by a particular author that I've not read before, they usually seem to suggest an older work to start with. As a result, I'd be more likely to look at a display of new releases for a book that I've been waiting for and go straight to the shelves when checking out an author whose works are new to me.

I assume that the person who replied to you was trying to imply that by going to the shelves, you might see another author that interests you. I'm not sure I agree with that, though. If I'm going to get a book written by 'Anderson' I'm not likely to try one by 'Andrews' just because they're next to each other on the shelf. To me, that's like making one's reading decisions based upon the cover art.

[thewayne]

So many sales are driven by marketing: a catchy title, cover, blurb, or excerpt. And I freely admit that I have been captured by a clever pun. But you're right: proximity is unlikely to drive long-term sustained sales.

There's a basic problem that I realized ages ago: it's impossible for a person to read everything that comes out. It's equally impossible for a store to stock everything on their shelves that comes out. My authors list has been winnowing itself as I have grown older and my favorite authors have progressively died off or stopped writing certain series. I have learned of new authors that I want to read from two main sources and one new source. The first primary source is my friend's list on DW & LJ. Tied to that is John Scalzi's blog: he frequently invites an author to write a post ("The Big Idea", of which there is one today) doing a deep dive in to their new book, talking about what motivated them to write it and that gives deeper exposure in to the story.

The new source was my finally buying the supporting membership to this year's WorldCon and getting the Hugo nominee packet and reading all of the material therein. There are now several more authors on my list that I'm interested in. And the number carried on the shelves at B&N? Very low.

[silveradept]

That's not a good design decision. The new shelf is the best way to keep up with favorite authors, and to possibly discover some new good ones.