Bookstores

On Wednesday, November 2, Barnes & Noble will open a new store in Riverhead, NY, in the Riverhead Shopping Center, “the first new Barnes & Noble to open on Long Island in 14 years.” Most recent BN “openings” have been for replacement stores. In this case, they are serving a community that last had a chain bookstore in 2011, when Borders liquidated in 2011.

Longtime Kansas City independent bookstore Rainy Day Books will be sold to a local ownership group, with the deal expected to close in November. Some of the owners of Made in KC, a quickly-growing group of retail shops, have paired with a group of investors and bookstore customers known as Friends of Rainy Day Books, forming a consortium of at least 16 people financing the purchase. Made in KC co-owner Tyler Enders indicates “there are likely to be slight tweaks in the future, including the possibility of adding more locations. ‘We do want to bring more people into the shop, […]

Costco has stopped selling books in Hawaii and Alaska, Honolulu Civil Beat reports. The company told publishers that shipping costs were the a reason to stop selling outside of the contiguous US, but that doesn’t account for sales or returns from local distributors and publishers, who benefitted from the discoverability of the warehouse’s book sections for both residents and tourists. “We knew Costco had the ability to reach a broader market and as a result we’d print a wider selection of books and high print runs,” said Buddy Bess, publisher of Hawaiian publisher Bess Press. “Without that widespread distribution, it […]

Barnes & Noble will open a new store in The Festival at Woodholme shopping center in Pikesville, MD on October 19, down the street from the retailer’s current much-larger location, which will close on October 18.

For the eleventh year, Penguin Random House resumes their 2-Day holiday transit program on October 15, running through January 31, 2023. As introduced last year, the program includes a “no minimums” requirement for independent bookstores. President, US Sales Jaci Updike says in the announcement, “In this time of ever-rising freight costs and ongoing shipping-company challenges, we remain steadfastly committed to independent booksellers in the all-important final months of the year.”

Barnes & Noble is reopening a location in the Westfield Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie, IL a year after it closed its store there for redevelopment of the building. Opening November 16, the new store will have a smaller footprint than the old store — still a substantial 20,000 square feet, but that compares to the former’s 45,000 square feet. And a portion of that space, on the first floor, will include a Paper Source stationery store (the line also owned by BN’s owner Elliott Management.) CEO James Daunt said in a statement, “Old Orchard was one of the […]