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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

My Open Letter to Barnes and Noble

Dear Barnes and Noble,

Why are you having trouble competing with Amazon?  Oh, let me count the ways.  But before I do, this is coming from the heart because I am a Nook User!  I love my Nook but you are making it so hard to continue.  So let's get started on the ways you are not competing.

1) Do you know what I get in my email, every day, from Amazon?  A Kindle Daily Deal. That's right.  Every Day.  To. My. Email.  A book for 0.99 to maybe 2.99, at the most.  Do you know what I get from Barnes and Noble?  An email that says Nook Deals $5 and under. But what is actually in the email?  The latest $12.99 releases!  Seriously?  Is it even remotely possible you aren't aware of this difference?

2) I am a self-published author.  Do you know how easy it is for me to share a link and a few words about my book on Amazon?  With one click.  That's right.  One click and I can share with Twitter, Facebook, or email.  Do you know how I have to share a B&N link?  I have to copy and paste with two different windows open.  Of course I advertise more on Amazon.  And, in case you are dismissing me because I am an indie author, just do the math.  Let's go with a conservative estimate of 10,000 authors selling one book a day at 0.99.  That's nearly 1.5 million dollars a year.  Chump change you say?  Your the ones complaining about losing money.  That's 1.5 million dollars of pure profit.  Just for making a couple of adjustments to your web page.  And, I really believe that is a conservative estimate.  I mean, I sell modestly, but still 3 to 1 Amazon to B&N.

3)  Message boards.  You don't have any message boards on your site, at least that I've noticed.  Do you think you are too high brow for message boards?  Have you been on Amazon?  Ever?  People like them.  We use them.  Get some!

Added 1/26
4) Oops - how could I forget that great Free list on Amazon?  Right there - side by side with the paid bestsellers.  Last time I checked B&N doesn't even have a Free list, let alone one that is with the paid bestsellers.  No you don't make money from the free books but readers come to your site, they try a free book, then come back and buy from that author.  How do you not get that?

I'm sorry to say B&N, but it feels like you are just barely trying to be in the e-book business.  Now you might be separating your Nook and B&N businesses!  Have you lost your minds?  The future is e-books.  Denying it doesn't make it less true.  So don't make me regret the $249 I spend last year on a Nook.  Don't force me to switch back to Kindle (not that I have anything against Kindle, I just don't want to lay out another $200).  Get in the game!!  Hire some people with foresight, with vision!  Stop fighting change.  It's coming and you will be left behind simply because you don't like it.  

32 comments:

  1. Well said. I have another complaint. I can't buy anything from Barnes and Noble as I'm in France and they won't send even ebooks abroad! Crazy and very frustrating.

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    1. Well there you go! Another reason. I just don't understand B&N.

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  2. They won't even send ebooks to Canada, you need to have a US address and a US credit card. I gave up on them a while ago, I'll spend my money where it's more appreciated. :)

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    1. Wow, that is just crazy. Can't imagine what they are thinking.

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    2. Maybe they hired the recently-out-of-work Borders "management" team?

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  3. Great write-up....just shared on Twitter.

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  4. All excellent points. I'd add another: Amazon just introduced KDP Select, a system for indie authors to cut B&N out of the equation. Apple just introduced iBooks author, another tool meant to cut others out. Where is B&N's response to this? The nook tablet is a great piece of hardware and I'd love to advertise for it more, but it seems that B&N is content to throw out some hardware and then just close their eyes and hope it all gets better. My new book will be kindle exclusive because the I literally see no reason not too. The few sales I make via B&N just don't compete with Amazon's programs.

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    1. That is exactly what it feels like. Even more so after reading this article http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120129/ARTICLE/120129451
      More about an new ereader than content. Too bad.

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  5. I think B&N is going for a hybrid Borders/Amazon model. From Borders they're taking the high price, old-school route. From Amazon they're taking the ereader and a watered down ebook sales route. But really, most of the authors I talk to sell the VAST majority of their work on Amazon.

    What have we learned from Kodak? It's simple, evolve or die! Kodak eventually came out with digital cameras and whatnot but it was too late, they'd lost their edge. I see B&N going the way of Borders if they don't start taking things serious. And honestly, I won't feel bad at all about the corporation failing. (I will feel bad for the out-of-work employees though).

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    1. Yes, the loss of jobs will be bad. I really feel like B&N could compete and keep their stores open if they would just TRY!

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  6. Barnes & Noble is simply incoherent in its management and marketing.

    As an indie author, prior to November 26, I sold vastly more ebooks on the Kindle than I did on the Nook. One reason, which you implied but didn't state bluntly, is that it was far easier for customers to FIND my book on Amazon than on BN.com, due to Amazon's abundance and redundancy of genre and sub-genre bestseller lists. My book appears on a host of Amazon web pages. On BN.com, it was barely visible anywhere, and you had to do a "search" to find it.

    I say "was" because that state of affairs persisted until November 27, when Amazon also did me the life-changing favor of casting a week-long spotlight on my debut thriller "HUNTER," propelling it into stratospheric sales and #4 on the Kindle bestseller ranks. I sold 50,000 ebooks there in the next 37 days. By contrast, what did I get from BN.com?

    Crickets chirping.

    So, when Amazon invited me to participate in their "Select" lending-library program to Prime Members, in exchange for making my ebook available exclusively on Kindle, I didn't hesitate a minute to remove it from BN's Nook. And I was amply rewarded by Amazon here, too, with a whopping 3,754 of my ebooks borrowed during December, @ $1.70 per loan! That handsome paycheck was in addition to the ones I'm receiving for tens of thousands of sales.

    So, from either the reader's or the author's standpoint, Barnes & Noble is not plausibly competing with Amazon. BN and other competitors may damn Amazon as "monopolistic," but it has become dominant in books only because the rest of the lot has surrendered the entire book marketplace to Jeff Bezos by default -- through marketing stupidity, poor customer service, and failure to cultivate authors.

    When (not if) Barnes & Noble bites the dust, it will have only itself to blame. And if it runs true to form, Amazon will probably step up to the plate and offer to service Nook owners with its own offerings. Because Amazon is always thinking of better ways to serve their ultimate customers: readers and writers.

    What's not to like?

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    1. What a great point about readers being able to find my books on Amazon so much easier than B&N! Thank you for the great comments and sharing your experience with Select. I don't know why I am hesitating to join.
      You are also right about Amazon becoming a monopoly, not by trying to be, but because others are not trying.

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  7. As a Nook Color owner I say "Hear Hear!" Any book priced at $5 or less is a no-brainer for me so the idea of $0.99 or freebie books doesn't interest me much, but if they're important elements of a successful ebook business they should be front-and-center.

    My primary stake here is twofold:

    1.) Since I have chosen Barnes & Noble's e-reader hardware over Amazon's, I have a vested interest in B&N remaining as a healthy, enduring ebook vendor. Though I lament the demise of bookstores per se, I'm a little amazed that B&N has been so slow on the uptake in realizing that the overhead in brick-and-mortar stores is a potentially fatal drag that needs to be cast off entirely in favor of electronic sales. For details, see the fate of Tower Records.

    2.) I want more than one primary vendor of ebooks, and Amazon is clearly the dominant player. A best-case scenario would be for both Amazon and B&N alike to agree to sell both Kindle and Nook downloads at each site, so as to avoid the profound stupidity of proprietary isolation that's hampered products like the Apple Macintosh vs. Windows and Sony's "Duo" and "ProDuo" storage media vs. SD cards. VHS vs. Beta, anyone? An imperfect analogy, but the core point holds. Flexibility for both vendor and buyer works to the benefit of everybody; proprietary restrictions don't.

    A major beef I have with Amazon is with Mr. Pierce's point #3. In calendar year 2009 I spent a total of just over $3700 at Amazon. Granted, a big chunk of that sum went to a Bowflex machine, but... $3700 total to Amazon in 2009. In calendar year 2010 I spent exactly $0 at Amazon. The reason?

    Amazon's message boards, heralded here, have a mechanism by which users can commit de facto censorship-by-majority against other posters, via Amazon's "hide" function. If enough people - or just enough iterations of one ideologue's multiple, bogus Amazon personae - vote that "This post does not add to the discussion," that post gets hidden from view for all users.

    Censorship is a crime that can only be committed by government, not by private business. But what Amazon is doing with its "hide posts by the tyranny of the majority" function, is promoting and conditioning people to accept the idea that it is ethically A-OK to silence/conceal the speech of others by mob rule. Amazon is not committing censorship, it's educating people to accept censorship as ethically proper.

    That such a policy is violently antithetical to the entire edifice of free expression, of publishing, of the exchange of ideas via print media, ought to go without saying. Yet to date Amazon has done nothing to remove that mechanism from its Discussion boards. Call me an oddball, but a company whose primary lifeblood is the free exchange of the printed word ought to view any promotion of censorship - either as a real instance or an indirect "tutorial" that conditions people to think it's acceptible - as a direct threat to its very existence. How very odd that such a company has written such a censorship tutorial into the coding of its own website, and refuses to remove it. Hence the $3700-to-$0 boycott.

    For all its managerial stupidity, Barnes & Noble is not promoting and educating people in the fine art of censorship by majority vote. Amazon is.

    As an optimist I look forward to the day when Mr. Bezos of Amazon finally clues in to the atrocity that is censorship and to the fact that his website is training people to accept it as S.O.P. and to engage in it freely. But until that day, it's all the more reason for B&N to heed these recommendations and reinvent itself as the primary competitor to Amazon.

    /soapbox

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    1. I definitely see your points. I actually haven't been on the message boards in at least half a year because of the points you made above. I would also like to have more than one vendor of ebooks - who knows what Amazon would do if they were the only controller of ebooks. And I would miss the bookstore. I think they could survive if they made some changes. I know J.A. Konrath had a really good blog post a while ago with suggestions - things like setting up video 'meet the authors', carrying indie paperbacks...can't remember the rest.

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    2. That is one of the stupidest reasons not to buy from a company I've ever read. The message boards are a community resource provided by Amazon for sellers and buyers, but you are the consumer, you can make the stupid decision to go with the crap company with higher prices and no customer service because you get your feelings hurt on a public message board. Hell this message probably makes you want to kill your self. You need thicker skin.

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  8. OMG - Ms. Pierce, not "Mr. Pierce" :facepalm:
    Copious apologies. "Look before you type," yadayada...

    Seriously, I think my subconscious mind must thrive on burning embarrassment, because I seem to produce it with alarming frequency...

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  9. I completely agree with your open letter. I have a kindle and don't like the navigation or features very well. SO, I bought a NOOK TABLET and fell in LOVE! There is absolutely nothing bad I can say about this tablet. I CAN say how frustrating its company is! Thank goodness I can access the web and amazon to check on my sales with it. lol

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    1. I love mine as well. Which is why I am so sad for B&N (and angry) that they have dropped the ball so bad on the content.

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  10. What fantastic points all. I plan on responding when I return home tomorrow. Too hard from my phone:). And no problem on the Mr/Ms thing

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  11. S.L, Thank you for posting this. You are spot on. But this is not just about B&N. This is about any business that is failing to compete with Amazon. If fact, I assumed that B&N and Apple and Smashwords would march right up to the battle lines after Amazon anounced the LDP Select Program, but I was so wrong. It seems that big business thinks that if they resist, they will win. I don't get it. I resist change all the time, but I always lose when I do. And honestly, I thought those folks up there in the high brow clouds were smarting than me. Guess I was wrong.

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    1. Why is something that is so clear to 'us' such a mystery to them. How about this article I found this weekend? http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120129/ARTICLE/120129451
      Just more of the same. I predict problems this year and they will never understand the reason why!

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  12. I really love everyone's comments here so first, thank you for posting! Second, sadly, I just read this article over the weekend: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120129/ARTICLE/120129451

    I understand they are trying to save the bookstore but they also seem to be focusing on the reader and not the content! The reader is good. To me the Nook had the Kindle beat (before the Fire anyway). I still can't believe they are this out of touch!

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  13. I have a Nook, and while I can't speak from a writer's POV, I can say that for a reader, I wouldn't change for anything. I can download a free book every Friday, and with the exception of a few flops, the choices are incredibly good. I've even spent money to buy books from authors that I was first introduced to from their free books. Plus the fact that you can take your nook into the B&N and read anything for free is an incentive. So while the store may be slow as far as taking care of writers, I feel that it's definitely taking care of the readers :)

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    1. Nice. A comment from the other side. I do like the reading for an hour in the store. And I am going to check out that free friday thing. Why am I just hearing about this now? Poor marketing by B&N?

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  14. I think your post is very clear! I hope you sent it to Barnes and Noble too! Maybe they will listen! I found the points you brough up to be quite interesting. Good luck!

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    1. I haven't sent it to B&N. I'll think about it - seems like it would just get lost in the mess:)

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  15. I'm going to agree with everything here EXCEPT the message boards. Maybe you haven't been bit yet, but there is a core group of "regulars" to the Amazon boards that love nothing more than to destroy indie authors. Made a comment somewhere they don't understand or like? They'll vote down all your good reviews and leave you one-stars out of spite. Did you make the mistake of mentioning your family and friends in your acknowledgments? Then any and all 5-star reviews you got must have come from them and they'll post all over the boards about how all your good reviews are fakes....then they'll leave some fake 1-star reviews to balance it out.

    Did you offer your book for free on Kindle? Then you're a loser who can't get people to read her book otherwise.

    Are you a first time author whose book is more than .99 cents? Then you're ripping them off.

    Did you have some success with your book? Then you must have a whole lot of blogging friends and no talent.

    And on it goes. I loathe what the Amazon boards have become. I loathe that a core group of about a dozen people, all with multiple accounts, use their "power" to destroy others just because they can.

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  16. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  17. B&N tweets their daily deal every day and it is always under $5. I have to say I like this method more since I don't ever open emails from B&N (I get them on my phone) because it is usually just advertisement for the newest bestseller.

    If you didn't know about the free book Friday, that's not the fault of the company necessarily but the person who sold it to you. When I bought my tablet I think the sales person told me 3 or 4 times to make sure I check for that book. She told me that they post what the free book is in their employee room so they can tell customers what it is.

    Also, I have to argue with you saying that B&N doesn't have a free list. The B&N free list consists of 1,836,919 books. Yes you read that right. Last I checked, that was more books than Amazon even has available. You can't search the word free to get the list because it'll bring up books with free in the title. Search "0.00" to get the whole list. I usually narrow mine down to "0.00 fiction" or something like that so I don't get all the results at one time.

    I can't say anything from a writer's POV, but as a reader it was easy to see that B&N offers more books (more FREE books) and makes the reading experience much more enjoyable.

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    1. I appreciate your thoughts on this Ronnie - and thanks for letting me know how I can search for the Free books. I will start doing that. My point was that on Amazon I don't have to search - they keep a list of the top free books right next to the top paid:)

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  18. This post is absolutely spot-on! Amazon makes promotion of our books SO much easier than B&N does. We, too, sell far more books on Amazon than B&N. I hope B&N reads this article and makes some changes. They will be most welcome.

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