USA Today and numerous follow-up news sources have presented this terrifying information! Bookstores aren’t making profits! How could we let this happen?!
Here is why I’m not surprised: There are very few new good books out. Even the acclaimed Gone Girl won’t make this list, as it was released June 2012. If you found a great work of adult contemporary fiction that has come out this year, please let me know. It also seems that movie releases are major drivers of book sales, but most of the movies we are looking forward to are comic book movies (Thor 2) and series movies (Catching Fire) – both of which many of us have already read.
But enough of this Nostradamus-level doomsday speak for bookstores. We get it – it’s paper and paper is going to cease to exist in a matter of minutes. Even if that were true, B&N stepped into the digital age with the Nook. So why are sales still down?
Here is why I’m not fearful: The Nook has not fallen in line with the pace of technological advancement, meaning that it has not sold a new iteration of the Nook since February 2012. Rather, B&N and its software partners have committed to improving the devices they have. A noble effort, but this limits the growth potential for sales and depreciates the value of the Nooks already on the market.
So, of course your profits are down. You’ve made the weird decision not to advance in sellable units, and publishers just aren’t finding the top talent that engrosses audiences as last year. Hopefully this means we as readers have caught on to the lackluster serial books that are well paced but poorly written, which everyone reads with rolled eyes (Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey). Unfortunately this also means the book industry has more pressure on it to enrapture readers thoughtfully – not cheaply.
P.S. While I haven’t read 50 Shades of Grey and don’t intend to, I can imagine that The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek was a better version.
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