Comments on LinkedIn groups on the future of bookstores

I like to share interesting stories, both ones we write about here and others we read on the Internet, with relevant LinkedIn groups. Usually, when the story is interesting, the discussion continues in these groups and provides thoughtful and interesting comments.

This was exactly the case with the stories on Nick Sherry's comment on the death of bookstores and the article on Toronto Star on how Indigo Books & Music is remaking itself in the age of the digital book. I wanted to share with you some of the comments these stories received on LinkedIn.

The first story is the one I wrote here on the comments Nick Sherry made about the death of bookstores in Australia (Is Nick Sherry right about the death of bookstores within five years?)

Just a reminder - Nick Sherry, the Australian minister for small businesses started an uproar after predicting that "in five years, other than a few speciality bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a bookstore. They will cease to exist because of what's happening with internet-based, web-based distribution." Our post focused on the counter-arguments to his comment, trying to figure out if they could indicate if Sherry has a point in his comment or not.

The discussion continued on the ABA LinkedIn group. Here are some of the comments:

"Hate to say it but yes. Once publisher don't need to print / wholesale books to Bookstores they won't. Borders? Barnes and Noble?. When was the last time you went to a record store?" - Michael Ridgway

"Our small independent has already gone the way of Tower Records." - Sue Barnett

" I concur with the fact that bookstores are becoming extinct; in my mind, this is the paradox that comes with technology. Will people miss the experience of physically flipping through pages of potential book purchases? Probably not, particularly since we seem to have become more and more dependent on our computers as extensions of product availability. We're not simply couch potatoes anymore, we're techno potatoe patches!" - Leamon Scott

"Well I can tell you this much, our retail and wholesale numbers are up. We do not sell ebooks. While there is definately a big change in the book business I don't believe they will become extinct. People still love the feel of a real book. " - BooksCloseOut.com

The second story came from the Toronto Sun. The story was on Indigo, the largest book retailer in Canada (Indigo also supported our 2010 Green Books Campaign) and how it is remaking itself in the digital age. The article itself is mainly an interview with Indigo CEO Heather Reisman.

Here are the comments on the LinkedIn group Digital Book World following this story, which I linked there. I have to admit that in this case the comments are more interesting than the article..

"If the US booksellers' margins are anything like Indigo's margins, traditional book retailers are doomed. $1 billion in income and only $11.3 million in profit -- that is just a little over a 1% profit margin -- zero room for error and no room for a market decline due to eBooks." - Kent Winward

"Book retail has been living on a fragile 2% or less margin since the 80s but had to weather nothing so seismic as the ebook shift, poor economy and shrinking outlets as we are today. Five years from now it will definitely be a different landscape. What worries me is in the transition we may see be some non fiction categories really suffer to the point of extinction." - Jim Fallone

"It appears Indigo is on a pair of well-financed fool's errands...

Betting the business on the Kobo reader is crazy enough - near-zero market share, and nothing compelling to recommend Kobo over the Nook, Kindle, or iPad. But aiming to become a bricks & mortar version of Amazon by selling home decor and kitchen products seems insane. " - Paul Gardner

Thanks again for all the people who contribute to these interesting discussions!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Planting trees for your books!

Greenpeace wants you to think how many trees it takes to make chopsticks next time you order Chinese food!

Greenpeace launched last year a campaign in China to call attention to the urgent need for forest conservation in China. One of the main issues they focused on was chopsticks.

According to statistics from the Forestry Administration, China produced 57 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks in 2009 alone. How many trees were cut down for these chopsticks? According to Greenpeace , the production of disposable chopsticks required wood from 3.8 million trees!

Last year Greenpeace and Ogilvy Beijing have teamed up to plant an eye-catching “chopstick forest” that was displayed outside The Place, a popular shopping center in the heart of Beijing.

Ogilvy explained how it worked:

Over the last several months, Ogilvy worked with Greenpeace, local artist Yinhai Xu and more than 200 volunteers from 20 Chinese universities to collect more than 80,000 pairs of used (and sanitized) disposable wooden chopsticks from restaurants and repurposed them into a forest of chopstick trees that stand approximately 5 meters tall.

Aihong Li, director of Greenpeace's Forest Protection Program, said: “These trees should have been abundantly green and vibrant, but now they are pieced together with wasteful disposable chopsticks. Our hope is that everyone in China will join us in saying "no" to disposable chopsticks to protect our forests.”

Now, 6 months later, Greenpeace is coming out with a video entitled "Disposable Project" that is showing the campaign and calling for greater awareness among chopstick users for the materials the chopsticks are made from. In other words: Trees. Their suggestion? Very simple - replacing wooden chopsticks with a plastic or metal version, a reusable and environmentally-friendly alternative. Think about it next time you order Chinese take-out.



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

My article today on Triple Pundit about the coolest video on Whole Foods!

Here's an update on a new article I published today on Triple Punditv on a new viral video about Whole Foods.

The article is entitled "It’s Getting REAL in the Whole Foods Parking Lot, Good News for Execs." Here's the first paragraph of the article:

I’m sure that when Whole Foods’ executives saw for the first time the YouTube video ‘Whole Foods Parking Lot (see the video below)’ they were relieved. This self-mocking parody on a shopper at Whole Foods, they’ve learned, is very funny and does not include any nasty language. You won’t find any mention of John Mackey (Whole Foods’ co-founder and co-CEO) and his positions on health care reform, unions and climate change, not to mention the code name “rahodeb.”

We’re safe, they probably told each other – no boycotting groups on Facebook this time, just more than 1.77 million people humming to themselves ‘It’s getting’ REAL in the Whole Foods Parking Lot’.

And here's the video:




To read the full article go to http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/getting-real-foods-parking-lot-company-loves/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

10 best eco-chic and eco-beauty ebooks!

We're back with our weekly ten recommendations on green ebooks, and today we have a special list of eco-chic and green beauty ebooks!

The links of these ebooks are to Amazon.com and I apologize in advance to all the Nook, iPad, Kobo and Sony Reader owners. I hope you can easily find an ebook you'll like on other ebookstores. This is also the place to disclose that we're taking part in Amazon's affiliate program and therefore will receive a small percentage of every purchase made using these links.

We hope you don't mind! You can find all the lists published so far on our recommended green ebooks webpage (see examples at the bottom of this post).

Without further ado, here's this week's list of 10 recommended eco-chic and eco-beauty e-books for this week:

1. EcoBeauty: Scrubs, Rubs, Masks, Rinses, and Bath Bombs for You and Your Friends by Lauren Cox - Ten Speed Press (March 9, 2011)

2. Eco-Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Natural Beauty and Wellness by Lina Hanson - Rodale Books (May 12, 2009)

3. Eco Chic by Matilda Lee - Octopus (November 30, 2007)

4. The Cosmetic Chemicals Guide by Tamara Laschinsky - Amazon Kindle Services (Jan 6, 2011)

5. The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances by Julie Gabriel - Health Communications (September 8, 2008)

6. The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green by Starre Vartan - St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (August 19, 2008)

7. Organic Body Care Recipes by Stephanie Tourles - Storey Publishing (June 1, 2007)

8. Green Chic by Christie Matheson - Sourcebooks, Inc. (March 1, 2008)

9. The Essential Green You (Green This!) by Deirdre Imus - Simon & Schuster (December 30, 2008)

10. Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano - HarperCollins e-books (July 8, 2008)

More recommended green ebooks lists:

Best green ebooks for Father's Day

Best ebooks for green entrepreneurs

Best green marketing ebooks

Best green business ebooks

See you next week!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Planting trees for your books!

Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: Will John Malone still be interested in B&N following their 4Q loss?

After a break of couple of weeks, we're back with our B&N bankruptcy index, following the release yesterday of B&N's fourth quarter report.

Jeffrey Trachtenberg summed B&N's report on the WSJ: "Barnes & Noble Inc., the target of a takeover bid by Liberty Media Corp., saw its digital strategy pay off in its fiscal fourth quarter with healthy gains on the e-book and e-reader front, but investments in that business took a toll on the bottom line."

Still no word about the future of B&N's brick and mortar stores as B&N seems to be putting everything it got on the Nook and e-book sales, a risky bet that might be too risky for a brick and mortar company. Bottom line: This week our B&N bankruptcy index stays in the 50-59 zone: Bankruptcy is a clear and present danger.

Just a short reminder - As Borders filed for bankruptcy couple of months ago, we started looking at Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest book chain to see if they will follow Borders and also go into bankruptcy and if so, when exactly.

To do it more analytically we launched few weeks ago a new B&N Bankruptcy Index, which is based on 10 parameters, which receive a grade between 1-10 (1 - worst grade, 10 - best grade). Hence we receive a 0-100 point index scale, which we divide into several ranges as follows:

90-100: B&N is in an excellent shape. Couldn't be better!

80-89: B&N is doing great. Bankruptcy is no longer a real threat.

70-79: B&N could do better and has to be cautious of bankruptcy.

60-69: B&N doesn't look too good and bankruptcy is becoming a more realistic threat.

50-59: Bankruptcy is a clear and present danger.

49 and less: Red alert! Bankruptcy is just around the corner and is likely to happen within a short time frame.

We will check the B&N Bankruptcy Index every Thursday, updating each one of the parameters included in the index and will analyze the trend. You can follow the weekly changes in the index from the day it was launched on the Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index page on our website.
So here's our update for this week (in brackets is last week's grade):

1. Confidence of the stock market in B&N
This parameter will look at the performance of the B&N stock (symbol: BKS) in the last week. The performance of B&N's stock is an indication of the confidence the market has in the ability of B&N to maintain a viable business.

So let's look at last week's figures (for consistency we look at results from Wed. 6/15 to Tue. 6/21):
6/15: $19.90
6/21: $18.94
Change: -4.82%

As you can see, B&N's stock lost 4.82% last week. Just for comparison, Amazon gained 4.44% last week and the S&P500 Index went up 2.38%.

B&N's stock did well in the last couple of weeks and only fell sharply (about 6%) yesterday following the release of the 4Q report. We'll have to see how the market will digest this report and react to the relatively negative comments from analysts following the report.

This wee's grade is staying the same: 5 (5)

2. What analysts say on B&N
"Although store revenue fell, revenue from other sectors rose. Online revenue rose 54 percent to $217.3 million and college bookstore revenue rose 4 percent to $211.2 million.The revenue results show the diverging trends in book retail -- physical store sales fell while online sales rose. But the two aren't as separate as they may appear, said Simba Information senior trade analyst Michael Norris. "The physical stores are the cyclists shielding the team leader from the wind," he said. "There's no way on this planet that bn.com would have grown as much as it did without the bookstores performing as Nook showrooms for the past year." (Yahoo! Finance)

"The bookseller, which suspended its dividend this year to conserve cash, has been using its profits to invest in e-books and its Nook digital reading devices as sales of paper books falter. That helped attract interest from John Malone’s Liberty Media, which offered $17 a share for the bookseller last month. “They’re spending a huge amount of money developing a reader that people are afraid is going to go the way of the VHS tape or the CD,” Bill Kavaler, an analyst at Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. in New York, said in an interview. Kavaler recommends investors sell the shares." (Bloomberg)

"The company has had to ramp up spending on marketing on product development to stay competitive with Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), whose Kindle is the top selling e-reader, according to Michael Souers, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s in New York. The Nook is “the only driver of long-term growth and they have to establish that niche,” said Souers, who recommends holding Barnes & Noble shares." (Bloomberg)

The market sentiment looks negative after the release of the fourth quarter report - analysts don't like the fact that B&N put all its eggs in the competitive e-book basket. Therefore our grade goes down by half a point: 5 (5.5)

3. New strategy to regain sales in the brick and mortar stores
Just like Borders, B&N still doesn't have yet a clear and comprehensive strategy that will transform their brick and mortar stores from a liability back to an asset. This is also one the reasons their stores keep losing money - Sales at Barnes & Noble stores open at least one year fell by 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter, ended April 30.

Right now all they have is selling more toys and games - CEO Lynch predicted toys and games will become "a very sizeable business for us within a reasonably short time horizon." This doesn't seem to be a very viable strategy to me, as

For all of those at B&N and outside the company who think the brick and mortar stores don't matter so much, especially now when Liberty’s chairman, John Malone has indicated that his primary interest in Barnes & Noble is its Nook e-reader, I'd like to quote again here Michael Norris, an analyst of Simba Information, who said following yesterday's report:

"The physical stores are the cyclists shielding the team leader from the wind," he said. "There's no way on this planet that bn.com would have grown as much as it did without the bookstores performing as Nook showrooms for the past year." (Yahoo! Finance)

This week's grade stays the same: 3.5 (3.5)

4. What B&N is saying about itself
Barnes & Noble said yesterday it is reviewing Liberty Media’s offer, the first bid disclosed publicly since the company put itself up for sale in August. B&N said that while the offer is being considered, earnings projections for fiscal 2012 won’t be announced.

This week's grade stays the same: 6 (6)

5. Steps B&N is taking
No new steps were reported on the report. Apparently B&N won't do anything significant until it will be sold to John Malone if the bid will proceed as planned, even after the release of the 4Q results.

This week's grade stays the same: 6 (6)

6. Competitors
According to Yahoo! Finance, B&N said yesterday results were hurt by Borders' liquidation sales at 200 of its stores. Longer term, however, Barnes & Noble expects to benefit from the store closings. CFO Joseph Lombardi said in areas where a Borders store has closed, nearby Barnes & Nobles are recording revenue increases in stores open at least one year.

Also, it is reported there that "analysts have speculated over the possibility of some combination of Borders and Barnes & Noble as the industry consolidates. But Lombardi dispelled that idea. He said in a statement that over the past 5 years, before Borders filed for bankruptcy court protection, Barnes & Noble considered buying it "many times" but always came to the conclusion it wasn't interested. "We are still not interested," he said."

This week's grade stays the same: 5 (5)

7. Financial strength
Barnes & Noble released its fourth quarter report yesterday, and as the NYT wrote, it wasn’t pretty. "The company lost $59 million in the quarter, or $1.04 a share. Analysts on average had expected a smaller loss of 91 cents a share. Despite a rise in revenue, thanks to higher online and digital sales, Barnes & Noble was hurt by the liquidation of more than 200 Borders stores as part of that retailer’s bankruptcy. Sales at Barnes & Noble stores open at least one year fell by 2.9 percent in the quarter."

If you compare the results to last year's results, it doesn't look any better - B&N's net loss was $59.4 million, or $1.04 per share, for the three months ended April 30, 2011. A year ago B&N reported a net loss of $32 million, or 58 cents per share for the three months ended April 30, 2010.

This is not a good news from a financial strength perspective and therefore our grade goes does by half a point: 6 (6.5)

8. Strength of the digital business
Although store revenue fell in the fourth quarter, online revenue rose 54 percent to $217.3 million. CEO William Lynch said B&N estimates e-books added 1%-2% to its U.S. market share, bring its total to 26%-27%.

Barnes & Noble also said in its report that its Nook sales continued to improve. The company introduced a new $139 Nook last month in an effort to boost its share of the growing e-book market and also offers a NookColor for $249.

This week's grade goes up by half a point: 8.5 (8)

9. Sense of urgency
It looks like B&N still think they have time and are not worried at all, especially after they received a proposal from Liberty Media to acquire the company. They might be right because after John Malone will buy the company he's the one who will need to handle these problems. Yet, the purchase hasn't been completed yet and even if Malone will purchase the company, I'm sure it is the best interest of B&N to ensure the company reaches its next phase of operations in the best condition possible.

This week's grade stays the same: 5.5 (5.5)

10. General feeling
This parameter will be an indication of our impression of all the materials read and analyzed for this index. Our feeling that things are still not looking too good for B&N even with the offer they have from Malone - their current strategy of putting all their bets on the digital front is very risky given the fact B&N is still mainly a brick and mortar company. Yesterday's report presents this risk and its results very clearly.

This week's grade for this parameter stays the same: 5 (5)

This week's Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: 55.5 points (56)

As you can see, this week's index is set at 55.5 points, which means B&N is getting deeper into the 50-59 zone: Bankruptcy is a clear and present danger. It's still not the red zone but it means that bankruptcy is getting closer and is becoming a real threat to B&N. See you next Thursday.

To view the weekly changes in the index 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!

Is Nick Sherry right about the death of bookstores within five years?

Nick Sherry, the Australian minister for small businesses started an uproar after predicting that "in five years, other than a few speciality bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a bookstore. They will cease to exist because of what's happening with internet-based, web-based distribution."

His comments, as the Guardian reported, followed the collapse of Australia's largest bookseller, Angus & Robertson, and Australian high street chain Borders earlier this year. Still, Sherry got many book lovers and bookstore owners angry, but is there a chance he might be right, and as much as we hate to hear it, this is the future we're heading to?

I write here extensively about the challenges of brick and mortar bookstores and about the fact that both large retailers (B&N, Borders) and indies haven't found yet the right strategy to bring customers back to the stores. So you might guess I wasn't surprised to hear Sherry's remark. Still I was curious to see what arguments were made against his prediction as I thought they might be a good indicator whether he has a point or not.

So let's look at some of the arguments made against Sherry's prediction:

1. Joel Becker, chief executive of the Australian Booksellers Association, said he was "gobsmacked" at the "extraordinarily unhelpful" remarks, and had written to the minister asking him to explain himself. "It's an industry that's obviously going through changes, and we're responding to those changes by working out ways for even the smallest bookstores to go online and sell ebooks; we've been doing it so far without any support from the government," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

2. Jon Page, president of the ABA and a bookseller at Sydney's Pages and Pages, insisted on Twitter that "we are not a dead or dying industry". There is "still a place for an independent that services their local community", said Page, telling the SMH that Sherry had shown "a distinct lack of understanding about the Australian book industry".

3. Daniel Jordan, managing director of Collins Booksellers, also dismissed the comment, stating: “To assume that bricks-and-mortar retailing won’t exist in five years is just plain wrong.”

4. Shadow Small Business Minister Bruce Billson also slammed Sherry’s comment, describing the minister as a “prophet of doom”. “Senator Sherry’s defeatist and demoralising commentary adds insult to the injury of his lack of support for retailing as small business adapts and innovates to respond to market trends and difficult trading conditions,” Billson said in a statement.

5. Page has had the same response in his Mosman store, and says it started in February when RedGroup Retail, the parent company of Borders and Angus and Robertson, called in administrators. ''Ever since the collapse of the RedGroup, customers have been coming into my bookshop asking if I am going to close, too,'' he told me yesterday. ''The minister's comments have been very damaging because they have reinforced in some customers' minds the idea that bookshops are on the way out.''

My impression from all these arguments and comments is that they don't really challenge Sherry's assumptions. They don't show in any way how the future of bookstores can be different from the one Sherry predicts and how bookstores can fight back online stores and be relevant to e-book consumers. His prediction might be unpleasant and even wrong in terms of timeframe, but it still important to be aware of this possibility, especially given the fact that we see so many bookstores closing and as we see from Borders' case, even the large retailers are not immune.

Bottom line: Let's not shoot the messenger. It won't help the future of bookstores even a bit.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Planting trees for your books!

10 best green ebooks for Father's Day!

We're back again with our weekly ten recommendations on green ebooks, and today we have a special list of book recommendations for Father's Day, which is celebrated today in the U.S.

Yes, if you haven't bought your father anything yet and he has an e-reader and would enjoy a good book on a green topic, a green ebook can be a great option! The list is including ebooks on a varied list of green topics, which we think will suit different types of dads. We hope your dad is one of them and that you will find this list helpful!

The links of these ebooks are to Amazon.com and I apologize in advance to all the Nook, iPad, Kobo and Sony Reader owners. I hope you can easily find an ebook you'll like on other ebookstores. This is also the place to disclose that we're taking part in Amazon's affiliate program and therefore will receive a small percentage of every purchase made using these links. We hope you don't mind! You can find all the lists published so far on our recommended green ebooks webpage (see examples at the bottom of this post).

Without further ado, here's this week's list of 10 recommended green e-books for Father's Day:

1. No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes Abo by Colin Beavan - Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 1, 2010)

2. Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen - Penguin (July 27, 2010)

3. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben - Times Books (April 13, 2010)

4. The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (P.S.) by Josh Kilmer-Purcell - Harper Collins, Inc. (June 1, 2010)

5. Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life by Ed Begley Jr. - Crown (March 25, 2008)

6. Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth by Robin White and Ray Anderson - St. Martin's Press (April 1, 2010)

7. The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) by Kelly Coyne - Process (June 1, 2008)

8. Sustainable Value by Chris Laszlo - Greenleaf Publishing (March 7, 2011)

9. Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman - Picador (April 1, 2010)

10. Boiling Point by Karen Dionne - Jove (December 28, 2010)

More recommended green ebooks lists:

Best ebooks for green entrepreneurs

Best green marketing ebooks

Best green business ebooks

See you next week!

Happy Father's Day,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Planting trees for your books!