"Immersion in the life of the world, a willingness to be inhabited by and to speak for others, including those beyond the realm of the human, these are the practices not just of the bodhisattva but of the writer." --Jane Hirshfield

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Barnes & Noble Surprise

Barnes & Noble, through its combination of physical bookstores and bn.com, remained the largest outlet for the sale of trade books in 2010. That was one of the first findings from Bowker’s annual rollup of its monthly book consumer tracking program, PubTrack Consumer. According to PubTrack, B&N’s share of spending on trade books rose from 22.5% in 2009 to 23.0%; sales exclude used books. While B&N held onto the top spot, Amazon showed the strongest gain in the year, capturing 15.1% of print trade book dollar sales in 2010 compared to 12.5% in 2009.
From Publisher's Weekly, via Laurie McLean.

This from back in March. I just saw it, and have to say it surprised me that Amazon did not hold the top spot. I guess all the actual bookstores work in Barnes & Noble's favor. And, probably the fact that their membership deal with preferred shipping is only $25 a year compared to Amazon's $79. Their prices are usually around the same. I'm happy that there is at least one venue for physically handling books before I buy them that is not going under. Even Borders was doing a reasonable share of business. This has me scratching my head and thinking about buzz vs. facts.

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