Are Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and Indigo making a wise move by not carrying the books from Amazon’s publishing arm, or are they cutting off their noses to spite their faces? This is the question that Mike Shatzkin addresses in his latest column. He notes that a reporter contacted him, undoubtedly expecting the same sort of attacks on the move posted by some major media outlets, and was rather surprised when Shatzkin said that, from a self-interested point of view, the decision made perfect sense. Shatzkin recapitulates the recent history between Amazon, the Big Six publishers, and...

Canadian bookstore chain Indigo has added its voice to Barnes & Noble and Books a Million in stating that it will not carry books published by Amazon’s publishing imprint, the Globe and Mail reports. Indigo issued the standard statement decrying Amazon’s predatory tactics and congratulating Barnes & Noble for “taking a leadership stance on the matter.” Not too surprising, especially given that Indigo was the creator of Kobo, one of the only serious e-book competitors Amazon has. The Globe and Mail article characterizes this as a “setback” for Amazon, and quotes the Wall Street Journal that this is “sending...

PaidContent reports that the US’s second-largest bookstore chain, Books a Million, is following in the footsteps of Barnes & Noble and proclaiming it will not stock Amazon-published titles in its brick-and-mortar stores. It’s not clear whether, like Barnes & Noble, they will sell the titles online. Books a Million sells a version of the Nook as its own e-reader. There’s a Books a Million store in Joplin, Missouri, and I stopped by it a few months ago. I wasn’t particularly impressed. Unlike Barnes & Noble, the store does not offer free wifi for its customers—you have to pay for...

The Authors Guild blog has an interesting piece looking at Amazon’s growth in light of a decline in antitrust enforcement. For background, it brings up the Bloomberg Businessweek story I covered the other day, it moves on to excerpt a piece in Harpers by Barry Lynn that compares Amazon to the current state of other monopolized markets, such as the chicken-raising industry: Mr. Lynn makes the case that Amazon’s dominance isn’t just a story of an industry disrupted by online commerce and digital upheaval, it’s about the abandoning of New Deal era protections of retailers in...

Barnes & Noble has announced it will not be carrying Amazon-published titles in its stores. B&N chief merchandising officer Jaime Carey issued a statement saying that the company was taking a stand against “Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity”, and that B&N didn’t get many requests for Amazon titles anyway. So, Carey said, if B&N customers want Amazon titles, they’ll just have to order them online at bn.com. Um, what? Look, guys, if you’re going to take a principled stand, go all the way. Decline to carry the titles on your web store too. I’m sure there are plenty...

Three articles have sparked my thinking on this post. The are: The Charlie Stross piece entitled Cutting their own throats, Joseph Esposito's insightful post on How B&N Can Take a Bite Out of Amazon, and The New York Times article, The Bookstore's Last Stand Stross talks about how the publishing industry has allowed Amazon to use DRM as a tool against itself. Esposito suggests "B&N needs an MCI solution" while the Times piece encourages B&N to have a sense of urgency in avoiding the same fate as Borders. Rolling all of these together I have a radical, three-step suggestion for William Lynch, CEO...

EBookNewser and GalleyCat have posted an infographic from e-book sales tracking company Booklr which compares the average e-book price of the Top 100 e-books for the Kindle and Nook platforms. Based on information collected over the week of January 12th through 19th, the chart shows that the average price of an Amazon Kindle e-book is $6.48, whereas the average price of a B&N e-book is $8.94. The difference seems to be caused by fully 35% of Amazon’s titles being $1.99 or less, whereas none of B&N’s were. I wonder, though, whether this might be caused by Amazon counting...

PaidContent reports that Amazon has officially reached an agreement with publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to print and distribute all titles published by Amazon Publishing everywhere in North America outside of Amazon.com itself. This will allow Amazon to work around B&N’s insistence on not carrying any print book it cannot also sell electronically without having to enter into a direct agreement with its competitor—for B&N’s purposes, the books will be “published” by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt rather than Amazon. Of course, it’s patently obvious what Amazon is doing there, and B&N can still refuse to carry any Amazon-published titles (as it...

I previously mentioned Barnes & Noble selling refurbished Nook Colors on eBay for $130, but it turns out that’s not the only great e-reader deal the site is offering. CNet notes that, today and tomorrow only, B&N is listing the new, not refurbished, Nook Simple Touch e-reader on eBay for $74.99 ($25 off the current sale price elsewhere) with delivery by December 22. It notes that only a limited quantity of the readers are available, and it seems to sell out and get resupplied throughout the day. That’s $25 less than Amazon’s touchscreen Kindle With Special Offers. Might be...

The Bookseller reports that Theresa Horner, vice-president for digital content at Barnes & Noble, has announced that the Nook will be coming to the United Kingdom in the “not too distant future.” Though B&N hasn’t determined whether it will be partnering with a UK company or creating its own UK presence, it is seriously considering expanding now that it has created “a successful platform in the US to work from.” There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader. However, the company has...

From the press release: Overstock.com Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK), today announced that it has partnered with Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, to sell eBooks through Barnes & Noble.  Visitors to Overstock.com will now have access to the digital edition of hardcover and paperback books available on the site through Barnes & Noble's NOOK Store. To learn more visit www.overstock.com/ebooksA link on Overstock.com book product page will take visitors to Barnes & Noble.com's NOOK Store, the world's largest bookstore, where they can seamlessly and easily purchase the digital version of the book they...

Black Friday is almost upon us, and it bids fair to be an e-reader kind of holiday season. There’s no word yet from Amazon on any discounts on its Kindle products (though it seems to be discounting just about everything else), but Barnes & Noble has announced a special deal on a “Limited Edition” of its Nook Simple Touch e-reader—in stores only, it’s knocking $20 off the price. This brings it down to $79—on par with Amazon’s lowest-tier ad-supported Kindle price. Amusingly, one of its listed benefits is No Annoying Ads Reading...