There are many times that my wife and I go out and she likes to go window shopping. I can understand that she goes to clothing stores. I can understand that she likes to go to department stores just to browse around. I can even understand that she likes to go to the mall to browse around the stores there as well.
Yet there are times that we went to a furniture store and looked at the furniture. We would also go to those small art galleries and look at the paintings. Then I would say to her afterwards “Why are we looking at furniture stores and art galleries?.” We’re not going to buy anything. After all, it’s not a museum. Of course, her answer is that 90% of the people go in and just look around.
It seems almost laughable to me that Barnes and Noble would even toy with the idea of charging admission to people to look at the books. Of course, in the article below, an official said that we would be done if we did that.
Let’s face it, if you do a Google news search on Barnes & Noble, you’ll see that they’re losing money and that Nook is not doing well. There was another report that Barnes and Noble would go from 651 stores to 489 by the end of the year.
So, why would they consider charging admission to the store. Not because they’re losing money. They’re doing it because they feel that 40% of the people that go into the store will look at the books, then go home and order them on-line.
Is that really happening? Well, I guess you can say that I do go to my neighborhood Barnes & Noble store and look at the books as well. What I do though is write down titles, then look them up on Kindle and put them on my wish list.
Okay, before you go crazy and start calling me names that wouldn’t be appropriate, I would tell you that this does work to Barnes & Noble’s advantage. I mean, let’s face it, not every book at Barnes & Noble is available on Kindle.
The truth is that it is very tough to shop for books. You can look up an author for example that has written a mystery and when you get to the part where it says customers ordered other mysteries, you would see all the popular names come up like MIchael Connelly and Harlan Coben.
Yes, I like to find new authors and it’s not that easy. Sure, I can click on the New York Times book review and get some names or the best seller list but again, the same authors usually come up.
So, in my case, someone on Goodreads recommended that I read Whisky Sour by JA Konrath. It wasn’t available on Kindle so I went down to order it at the store since it’s on my way home. Then I looked around and found another book called Out by Natsuo Kirino. It wasn’t on Kindle so I put that on the order for Barnes & Noble.
In any case, I’m not giving up on looking at newspapers and book reviews. It’s still good to read the preview. Here are some of my picks.
Washington Post - They have some reviews everyday and on the weekend but I think you may want to read the preview of the book. One book reviewed was called The Accidental Pallbearer by Frank Lentricchia. In the preview, you see his character make reference to Albany being the ______ of America. It seemed like a pretty stupid statement.
Millwaukee Journal - I find that there are some good recommendations for new authors. They recommend a variety of books in different areas of fiction from literary all the way to crime.
USA Today - I would say this is the best book site. Again, they have extensive reviews from a variety of fiction and they have reviews from Goodreads as well. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Rick Holman
http://www.mercurynews.com/books/ci_22573863/would-you-judge-bookstore-by-its-cover-charge