It was just three years ago that Barnes & Noble announced that it planned to close about one-third of the 689 stores that it had at the time by 2023. Things have apparently changed in the book business since then, because the bookstore chain announced today that it will open four new stores and close eight by the end of the year. [More]
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Goodreads: A Better Alternative To Amazon's User Reviews
By 1.18.10
Amazon’s user reviews for books are problematic because they serve more than one master. They’re meant to help inform consumers, sure, but they’re also meant to drive sales, and sometimes they’re even used by angry consumers as a form of protest. If you’re looking for more honest feedback on books, try Goodreads. [More]
Borders Gets Into Ebook Business, Relaunches Shortcovers As Kobo Books
By 12.16.09
Shortcovers, an ebook retailer that I recommended to a Sony Reader owner last month, has morphed into something called kobobooks.com, and it’s now partially owned by Borders. If you own an ereader other than a Kindle, or if you read ebooks primarily on a smartphone, you might want to add it to your list of sources for ebooks. [More]
Barnes & Noble Says They'll Accept Gift Cards For Ebooks Before Christmas
By 11.16.09
Apparently Barnes & Noble meant it when they said that they were looking into the gift card issue for ebook purchases. Currently, B&N gift cards can’t be used to buy ebooks, but a new post on one of the company’s blogs says that should change by mid-December.
You Can't Use A Barnes & Noble Gift Card For Ebooks
By 11.13.09
Update: Barnes & Noble says they’re changing this policy. If you or someone you know is getting a nook, Barnes & Noble’s version of the Kindle, this year and you want to use a gift card to fill it with books, forget it. For mysterious reasons, the retailer won’t allow it. (By contrast, Amazon does.)
B&N Ebook Reader Lets You Loan A Book Just Once
By 10.23.09
One of the big selling points about the Nook, the new ebook reader introduced this week by Barnes & Noble, is that unlike Amazon they’ll let you virtually “loan” your ebook to a friend for up to 14 days (if the publisher allows it). What they don’t tell you–some smart readers over at MobileRead sussed it out–is that you can only do this one time per book. You’d better lend wisely–and your friend had better finish that book within 14 days.
B&N Wraps Public Domain Books In DRM To Protect Authors' Copyrights. What?
By 7.29.09
The ebook “war” is a race to the bottom, apparently, with Barnes & Noble trying to out-do Amazon on DRM stupidity. A reader emailed B&N customer service to point out that their “free books” offer consists of 5 public domain titles that are no longer protected under copyright, yet are still locked down with digital rights management (DRM). Their response? “For copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.”
Get Ready For More AT&T Data Slowdowns
By 7.22.09
Oh jeez, AT&T, don’t you have enough on your plate? You can’t handle your iPhone customers as it is. TechCrunch says some customers’ voicemails go missing for days or even weeks, you can’t enable MMS because there’s no room for it on your system, and the “faster” 3GS isn’t any faster at all on your network. Now comes word that you’ll be the one providing so-called “connectitivty” for Barnes & Noble’s new ebook reader coming out next year. The result: more congestion for every AT&T customer.
Barnes & Noble College Bookstores Sends Email Reminder That You Don't Want Them To Send You Email
By 4.3.09
Gosh, this is really thoughtful of the Barnes & Noble bookstore on the Georgia Tech campus. They sent Steve an email reminder that at some point in the past, he explicitly opted out of receiving any email communications from them in the future. See, he may have forgotten that he didn’t want to be contacted, and how else would he remember it if B&N didn’t contact him to let him know? Update: Shane at Mississippi State University received the same helpful reminder from his campus bookstore, also run by B&N.
Barnes & Noble Error Leaves Gift Card Unused, Doubles Charges On Credit Card
By 2.21.08
It’s bad enough when a glitch on a retailer’s side screws up your method of payment, but Barnes & Noble took so long to investigate and respond to one customer’s emails that by the time they acknowledged they’d made a mistake, they said it was too late to do anything about it.
