Why the question now is when and not if Barnes and Noble will file for bankruptcy

In the last couple of years I started thinking B&N might file for bankruptcy because they have no strategy to transform their brick and mortar stores from a liability back to an asset. Now, after reading Julie Bosman's article 'The Bookstore’s Last Stand' on the New York Times, I'm more positive about it than ever.

Unfortunately after reading this article, I'm afraid the realistic question we need to ask is when B&N will go bankrupt and no if they'll actually do it. Here are five quotes from the article that will explain why:

1. "Mr. Lynch says Barnes & Noble stores will endure. The idea that devices like the Nook, Kindle and Apple iPad will make bookstores obsolete is nonsense, he says." - It's a 3-page article, yet you won't find there a word of explanation from CEO Lynch why its nonsense and how he plans to save his stores.

2. "For all the bells and whistles and high-minded talk, Barnes & Noble doesn’t exactly have the cool factor (or money) of, say, a Google or a Facebook." - Say no more. Do you really believe B&N can out-innovate Amazon and Apple with their very limited resources? I doubt that.

3. "Carolyn Reidy, president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, says the biggest challenge is to give people a reason to step into Barnes & Noble stores in the first place. “They have figured out how to use the store to sell e-books," she said of the company. "Now, hopefully, we can figure out how to make that go full circle and see how the e-books can sell the print books.”" - She is right and I guess she also knows B&N haven't provided yet any good reason for most readers to step into their stores. I can only wonder if she believes they'll actually find a way to do it.

4. "And yet, in three years, he (William Lynch, CEO, B&N) has won a remarkable number of fans in the upper echelons of the book world. Most publishers in New York can’t say enough good things about him: smart, creative, tech-savvy — the list goes on." - It's definitely great to have a nice guy at the top of the pyramid, but with no answers on how to transform the stores back from a liability to an asset and with little vision on how to keep B&N in business, not to mention relatively poor results, Lynch needs less fans and more people that will tell you what he's doing wrong and how to fix it.

5. "No one expects Barnes & Noble to disappear overnight. The worry is that it might slowly wither as more readers embrace e-books." - two years ago no one in the media would even speculate such a thing. Now it has became a reasonable assumption, which shows you how high the probability that B&N will file for bankruptcy is.

To learn more on our B&N index series visit Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index on our website.

You can find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Working to green the book industry!

What we can really learn from Booklr comparison between the top 100 Kindle and Nook lists

Booklr just released an interesting comparison between the prices of the top 100 sold ebooks on BN.com and Amazon. It's an interesting comparison, although it might have reached the wrong conclusion.

"With the Kindle Fire, Nook, and e-readers constantly in the news, Booklr took a look at the prices in the Amazon Top 100 Kindle List and the Barnes & Noble Top 100 Nook List over the past week. The results might surprise you. The price of ebooks from each retailer is not always uniform. Consumers should consider this important factor since once you choose a device, you’re locked in to that retailer."

As you can see from the comparison below, the average price of a book on the top 100 list on Amazon is $6.48, while the average price of an ebook on the top 100 list on BN.com is $8.94. As you can also see from the comparison below the main reason for the difference is that cheap ebooks, with a cost between $0-2, are 35 percent of the top list on Amazon.

What we can learn from this data?
1. Readers like cheap ebooks.
2. Amazon offers many cheap books.

What we can't learn from this data?
1. ebooks have different prices on Amazon and BN.com - it might be the case, but you can't learn it from this compassion.
2. Amazon is cheaper than B&N - to reach this conclusion, you need to compare apples to apples (the same books), not apples and oranges.























Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

5 reasons why the Nook spin off gets B&N closer to bankruptcy

Barnes & Noble announced this morning it is beginning “strategic exploratory work” to separate its rapidly growing Nook digital business. If you follow our blog, you're probably not that surprised - as we reported again and again on the B&N Bankruptcy Index series, B&N behaves for a long time like the Nook is its core business and not its 703 bookstore.

So you're probably wondering - would this spin-off will help B&N to avoid bankruptcy? Actually, I believe it only gets them closer to this unfortunate faith. Here's five reasons why:

1. B&N bookstore business is declining and B&N has no clear strategy how to transform it back from a liability to an asset. Frankly, this announcement only demonstrates that B&N is giving up on the brick and mortar stores and putting all its energy and resources just into the Nook. Don't believe me? Just count look how many times B&N mentions its bookstores in its press release from today (hint: less than one).

2. B&N is focusing all of its resources on one egg - the Nook. It's a good egg, but even if it will have a bright future as B&N is expecting it's still too risky, especially in a market where your competitors are are Amazon and Apple.

3. B&N doesn't have the deep pockets Apple and Amazon have. Just look at the balance sheets of these three and compare how much cash each of them has - Amazon has $2.8 billion, Apple has $9.8 billion, while B&N has $23 million in cash and cash equivalents (latest figures available). Now, who do you think has a better chance to develop better tablets and e-readers in the near future?

4. Bad management - B&N would have a much better chance if it would have spun off its management instead of the Nook. Why it's a bad management? How else you can call a management that takes an asset like 700+ bookstores and makes almost zero efforts to save it from bankruptcy?

5. "Mr. Lynch said Barnes & Noble doesn't see itself as a competitor with Apple, as it focuses more on digital reading, but said internal research shows customers prefer the Nook over the Kindle." (Wall Street Journal) I wish I have a faith in a company that this is the worldview that directs its strategy and this is the quality of research data it uses. Unfortunately I really can't.

To learn more on our B&N index series visit Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index on our website.

You can find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Working to green the book industry!

Latest updates on the future of publishing

The publishing industry is one of the most dynamic industries I know, with new products and innovations coming almost every week, if not every other day.

Just think about the last couple of weeks, where we saw the release of two new tablets (Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet), significant reduction in the price of e-readers (again the Kindle and the Nook), introduction of Amazon new e-library and a new innovative book publisher (i.e. iPad editions of children's classics), Ideal Binary, raising $1.03 million in venture capital. And did we mention the upcoming Publishing App Expo?

And these are just the tip of the iceberg.. We keep tracking the most interesting stories on our 'future of the publishing' webpage. Here are links to couple of interesting articles we read in the last couple of weeks:

Amazon lending library and the future of digital publishing - Virginia Postrel, The Washington Post, November 13, 2011

Amazon.com Inc. is at it again. To the consternation of much of the book industry, the online giant is again offering digital titles for less than major publishers think books are worth. And this time, the price is zero.

The future of books? Publishing by numbers - The Irish Times, November 11, 2011

BARELY A week goes by without something – a full-page discursive article in a newspaper, a hefty blogpost on an arch American culture website – declaring the death of publishing. “Books are doomed. Doomed I tell you!” is the general gambit of these pieces, but many don’t share that view. At a time when books are engaged in a paper-versus- electronic tussle between physical copies and e-reader editions, at least people are still reading.

The Future of Publishing - Rocky Lewis, November 11, 2011

Let's talk about the future of publishing. This conversation usually looks like a self publish vs. traditional publish debate. I believe that is not the “bunny” we should all be looking at behind the camera.

Our relationship with e-books: It's too complicated - Mathew Ingram, GigaOM, November 1, 2011

One of the best things about media going digital is that it can be easily shared and distributed to others with just a click — except of course that it often doesn't work like that, thanks to copyright or licensing restrictions and competing platforms. E-books are a great example:

Epstein on the future of the publishing industry - Sophie Rochester, The Frankfurt Book Fair Blog, October 12, 2011

Jason Epstein has had an incredible career in books – co-founder of the New York Review of Books, a long-standing and lauded editorial career working with literary stars such as Mailer, Nabakov and Roth, and a pioneer in the 1950s when he created a whole new category of book publishing – the Trade Paperback. Most recently he has brought us the Espresso Book Machine – named by Time magazine as Invention of the Year in 2007 – which now gives retailers, libraries and other institutions the chance to offer readers a much wider choice of reading through a print on demand service.

Enhanced E-books and the Future of Publishing - Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, October 9, 2011

Enhanced e-books are thought to be the next major threshold in the digital book universe. We are still in the very early stages of the development and availability of these books, which contain audio and video features. An informal count of enhanced e-books, according to a publishing executive who is following the field closely, numbered about one thousand available on a variety of devices.

Will book publishers be able to maintain primacy as ebook publishers? - Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, October 4, 2011

Here’s an assumption that is not documentable; it is my own speculation. I think we’re going to see a US market that is 80% digital for narrative text reading in the pretty near future: could be as soon as two years from now but almost certainly within five. We have talked about the cycle that leads to that on this blog before: more digital reading leads to a decline in print purchasing which further thins out the number of bookstores and drives more people to online book purchasing which further fuels digital reading. Repeat. Etcetera.

For more updates visit our Future of Publishing webpage at http://www.ecolibris.net/publishing_future.asp

Photo credit: marklarson, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

What's the best way to read a book? Nick Bilton compares the Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone and a paperback

Nick Bilton is writing great pieces on the New York Times, many of them related to our favorite subject - books. This week he writes about another favorite subject of ours - the multiple options you have today to read a book, from the Kindle and smartphones to good old paperback. In other words - what's the best format to read a book?

As he mentions this question becomes no less important than the question what book to read as we have a growing number of options available.

So Bilton went out and checked couple of popular options: The Amazon Kindle, the first- and second-generation Apple iPads, the Barnes & Noble Nook, an iPhone, a Windows Phone, a Google Android phone, a Google Android tablet and a laptop computer. Oh, and yes, he also compared it with reading on a paperback.

How he did it? He bought a book, “The Alienist,” by Caleb Carr, and read a chapter on each format. He's sharing his experience on this piece and you're welcome to read it all, but here are just couple of conclusions from his non-scientific yet so realistic experience:

1. Reading on the Amazon Kindle is a joy in many respects.

2. If you don't want distractions or you're the type that it's easy to destruct don't use a tablet, or otherwise you'll soon find yourself "sucked into the wormhole of the Internet and a few games of Angry Birds."

3. The Barnes & Noble Color Nook ($250) does allow you to surf the Web, but it is a little slow, though, and that sometimes frustrated Bilton. In other words, if you want to surf use the iPad 2, and if you don't use the Kindle. Nook's effort to provide you the advantages of both worlds is not really working.

4. Regular mobile users should be fine - "Despite the small screen on a mobile phone, I find reading on one to be simple and satisfactory. Maybe this is because I have become accustomed to mobile screens, using them for hours at a time to check the news, sift through e-mail and navigate social networks." One comment - I still have a feeling that reading a book on your mobile device is so much fun for your eyes, so be good to your eyes (you can't really replace them, right?) and just use a tablet or an e-reader.

Finally, Bilton says "but if money is tight, go for print. My used paperback cost only $4." He just forgot another option, even cheaper - taking it in your local library, either in a paper or an electronic format. Not only it's cheaper, it's even greener!

Photo: Nikkorz, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant one tree for every book your read!

Which e-reader is the greenest one - Kobo, Sony, Nook or the Kindle? An holiday gift buyer's guide

Black Friday is a good time to get to the second part in our analysis of purchasing an e-reader as a gift this holiday season. In the first part we discussed the question in which cases it can be considered an eco-friendly gift. Today we try to determine which e-reader is the greenest one.

We compared 4 popular e-readers - Amazon Kindle Wireless, Barnes & Noble Nook Wi-Fi, Kobo Wireless and Sony Reader Pocket Edition. As you can see we didn't include the iPad, as even after the discounts Apple is offering now, it costs $458, which I guess makes it less likely that it will become a popular gift. The other 4 e-readers cost $100-$150, which is a more reasonable pricing for a gift.

One obstacle we had is the lack of information. Unfortunately, the only company that publishes a detailed environmental report on its eReader is Apple. Therefore some important information that can change the results is still missing and we hope it will be available soon. We believe it is the responsibility of the companies selling these e-readers not just to provide quality products, but also to be more transparent and provide customers with information on the e-readers' environmental and social impacts.

We compared the characteristics of the 4 e-readers in 11 categories. Each e-reader that won a category got 1 point. In couple of categories there were more than one winner (for example, recycling) and then each of them received one point. So without further due let's go to the results:

Kindle - 4 points for winning the categories of battery life, ability of user to replace the battery, memory (storage) and recycling.

Sony - 4 points for winning the categories of weight, ability of user to replace the battery, availability of book lending from libraries and recycling.

Kobo - 3 points for winning the categories of ability of user to replace the battery, availability of book lending from libraries and toxins.

Nook - 2 points for winning the categories of capability to loan ebooks to friends and availability of book lending from libraries.

So technically the Kindle and Sony Reader share the first place, but among the two, the Kindle has better results as the 2 points Sony Reader got for ability of user to replace the battery and availability of book lending from libraries do not actually have any environmental impacts (they are more socially-oriented, which is also important, but at the same time do not have any influence on the footprint of the device).

The full comparison can be found at http://www.ecolibris.net/holidayguide.asp

So the bottom line is this: We still know too little on the environmental impact of e-readers, but from what we do know, if you went through the test we offered last week and still thinks e-reader would be a good fit for the person you want to buy it to, then from a green point of view the Kindle is your best choice.

More resources on the e-Books vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

What changed since the era of Mad Men? Not much when it comes to E-Readers!

Don Draper can sell you (almost) anything. One of the best examples for his brightness and creativity was his "It's Toasted" moment, when he created the slogan for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Don defines in the meeting with the Lucky Strike guys the essence of advertising in that era - "Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is?The smell of a new car, it's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing it's OK - you are OK."

Has anything changed since then? Not much. At least not when it comes to ads of of e-readers that sell you the same perception of happiness, mixed with some coolness.

The first example is the iPad:



So, yes, iPad is thin and beautiful. You can even claim it's magical. Maybe it's already a revolution. It's all true. But at the same time, "it's toasted" is also true. It's just not ALL of the truth. So just like Lucky Strike didn't mention the fact their cigarettes can kill you, Apple also avoids sharing some facts that aren't that happy and might let you think you're not that OK if you buy it.

Here are just couple of examples:

1. The iPad is manufactured at Foxconn, a Chinese factory, where 14 young workers attempted or committed suicide, the last one only couple of days ago. Foxconn was described by Li Qiang, an executive director of New York-based China Labor Watch, as a sweatshop that “tramples” workers’ personal values for the sake of efficiency."

These suicides got representatives of nearly 50 socially responsible investing groups to issue a public call to the electronics industry to step up their oversight of suppliers as GreenBiz.com reports today: "The statement, signed by 45 members of the investment community, condemns abusive workplace conditions in the electronics industry, where a recent spate of suicides at Foxconn -- supplier to some of the industry's largest firms, including Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard and many others -- led to widespread criticism of the company and its customers, and which pressured Foxconn to offer significant raises to its workers."

2. Minerals that are used to make components for many electronic devices, including the iPad, are bought from Congo, helping to finance a horrible war there. These minerals are usually referred to as "conflict minerals". Nicholas Kristof wrote about it lately on the New York Times:

"I’ve never reported on a war more barbaric than Congo’s, and it haunts me. In Congo, I’ve seen women who have been mutilated, children who have been forced to eat their parents’ flesh, girls who have been subjected to rapes that destroyed their insides. Warlords finance their predations in part through the sale of mineral ore containing tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold. For example, tantalum from Congo is used to make electrical capacitors that go into phones, computers and gaming devices.

Electronics manufacturers have tried to hush all this up. They want you to look at a gadget and think “sleek,” not “blood.”"

Apple response? Steve Jobs wrote to a concerned customer that "We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem." Definitely not screaming with reassurance that what you do (purchasing the iPad is OK)..

And what about Amazon's Kindle? Well, Amazon is no different of course, presenting an ad with a catchy and happy tune:

Reality check? Well, the Kindle just like the iPad is been manufactured at Foxconn and has also the same conflict minerals sourcing problems. Somehow (maybe because Amazon is even less transparent about these issues than Apple) Apple is more on the line of fire on these issues, but it doesn't mean that the Kindle is better with regards to these issues.

And the same goes for B&N's Nook: Very happy ad vs. a much more complicated reality:



Bottom line: The legacy of Don Draper's vision is live and kicking when it comes to e-readers! They're not cigarettes of course and they won't kill you, but don't forget the happy fuzzy feeling they try to sell you is just a sales pitch and nothing more. Reality is always more complicated and many times very different from the one you see on these 30 seconds.

And of course, don't forget to enjoy the fabulous season 4 of Mad Men that started yesterday. I know I will :)

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

How green is the iPad - Part 2: Is the iPad greener than the Kindle and the Nook?

Last week we started our 3-part series following the launch of the iPad. Our quest is simple - to explore how eco-friendly is the iPad.

Today we compare it to other eReaders and find out if it's really a green knockout to both Amazon's Kindle and B&N's Nook.

As you can see in the table below, we focused on the specifications that are most relevant to the device's footprint. When you look for such information, the first thing you notice is that all companies are far from providing transparent information when it comes to their device's environmental impact. Even Apple, which is by far better than both Amazon and B&N in providing such information, hasn't provided yet all the information.

Nevertheless, we believe there's still enough available information to determine that the iPad is greener than both the Kindle and the Nook. Again, it doesn't make it "eco-friendly", but it is still important to notice that it's better for the environment than other popular eReaders currently available.

This conclusion, though, is under the assumption that the iPad will be added to Apple's recycling program. We believe that it's on the way and I hope we're not wrong. Maybe they can even go further and actually incentivize customers to recycle, because unfortunately it seems that it's not just enough to offer a recycling plan to move customers to do the right thing - on USATODAY.com today, Martin LaMonica, who writes for CNET's Green Tech is quoted saying that "only about 10% of U.S. electronics get recycled, and Greenpeace's Guide to Electronics shows they don't always get recycled properly."

Our conclusion is also based on the lack of information concerning the environmental impacts of the Kindle and the Nook. We wish both Amazon and B&N will provide further information on their websites and maybe even prove us to be wrong about their eReaders. We'll be happy to correct ourselves if necessary!

In the meantime, this is the comparison, based on all the information we found available (double click on the table to view full size):






















If you got more details or observations to contribute, please feel free to comment.

Tomorrow we'll bring you the third part on this series with our final analysis.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

How green is the iPad - Part 1: What was said so far about the green side of the iPad?

It looks like everything to be said about the the iPad and the ways it will change our life was said in the last couple of days. The buzz is amazing and it's no surprising given the fact that Apple are the masters of marketing. But what about the environment? Is the iPad eco-friendly? Is it greener than other eReaders? And of course, the ultimate question: does it bring to an end the debate of what is more environmental friendly - eBooks or paper books?

We are going to explore these questions in a 3-part series. On the first part, we check today what others think about the green side of the iPad, bringing you a summary of the articles published about it in the last couple of days. Tomorrow, we'll bring you part two with a comparison of the iPad's green features to those of the Kindle and the Nook, and on the last part we'll give you our final analysis.

So, here's part one: What was said so far about the green side of the iPad?

1. Is there an eco-angle to an Apple tablet?, Martin LaMonica, CNET News.
Bottom Line: "From an environmental point of view, that shift is a mixed bag, depending as much on user behavior as on technology...Overall, an Apple tablet, or the host of electronic readers expected this year, can bring many benefits of digitized content and even change how we read, day to day. Whether it brings a net environmental benefit, though, has more to do with the owner than the device."

2. Apple’s new iPad is deep green, but a planet saver? Nope., Matthew Wheeland, GreenerComputing.com
Bottome Line: "In a nutshell, the iPad is a nifty little gadget, I'm sure it will do wonders for how people engage with technology, and hopefully will give a boost to the flagging newspaper- and book-publishing industries, but it is still another resource-intensive gadget that will be an add-on rather than a replacement."

3. The Apple Tablet: Better for the Environment?, The Daily Green Staff, thedailygreen.com
Bottom Line: "..there is some real potential for the Apple Tablet (or whatever it might be called, or whatever tablet manufacturer wins the hearts of the most users) to reduce the strain on the environment caused by both our print and electronic habits ... if, that is, it is built smartly and responsibly and we change our existing habits."

4. Green Features We Love in Apple's New iPad, Jaymi Heimbuch, Treehugger
Bottom Line: "All in all it's a game-changing device and while far from perfect when it comes to sustainable design - or even pushing into new areas of sustainability in its features like using recycled aluminum or glass for the casing - it still hits a few sweet spots. We're hoping new versions will only be more and more eco-friendly."

5. iPad "green" but not sustainable, Lisa Poisso, Super Eco
Bottom Line: "Yes, the iPad is green—but it's not sustainable. It offers nothing that actually replaces existing electronic tools...the iPad is another toy in the endless parade of electronic consumerism. We'll take a pass until a truly greener apple worth picking comes along."

6. The Apple iPad’s Green Grade: B, Pedro Hernandez, earth2tech.
Bottom Line: "All things considered, and given the laundry list of things it can do, the iPad is a pretty green little machine. Maybe even green enough to impress Al Gore (who was in attendance at the launch today)."

Tomorrow we'll bring you part two: Is the iPad greener than the Kindle or the Nook?

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

Knock, knock: It's the Nook!

Barnes & Noble launched earlier this week their e-reader, the Nook.

I heard today an interesting interview on NPR's All Things Considered with Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan, who talked about the one thing that everybody is occupied with: is the Nook better than the Kindle? You can listen to the interview right here:



I checked later on Gizmodo.com for more information on the Nook and found an article entitled "8 Reasons You Can Finally Love Ebook Readers (Thanks to Nook)", which gives you a good idea about the Nook's features and compares it with the Kindle.

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, brings very good reasons explaining why he fell in love with the Nook - the only reason I was missing of course was the "green" one: how it's more environmentally friendly than a physical book. Amazon didn't provide yet the Life Cycle Assessment that will provide us with the reply to this question, or the data required to conduct it. Hopefully Barnes & Noble will.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!