The clobbering of Barnes & Noble’s stock continued yesterday after our post following their conference call, down over 19 percent for the day on trading volume more than four times higher than usual. It was the largest one-day drop in the bookseller’s shares since November 2001. At current prices that leaves the company’s market capitalization at a little over $750 million (and remember that it was just 9 months ago that the company itself decided the BN College unit was worth $460 million). In a rough day across Wall Street, Amazon shares declined as well, down approximately 7.5 percent. As […]
Bookstores
Waterstone's Sales Decline 6.3% for the Year. As Profit Evaporates
Waterstone’s parent HMV reported good sales for the overall group for fiscal 2009, reaching a new high of 2.017 billion pounds, though “the one area of disappointment was in the financial performance” of the bookselling unit. At 513.6 million pounds for the year, Waterstone’s sales fell 6.3 percent, as operating profit was just 2.8 million pounds, a significant decline from 10 million pounds a year ago. The company says that their previously-announced new strategic plan “is already beginning to have a positive impact.” On their controversial new distribution center, they say “it is clear that the implementation…also adversely impacted performance […]
Stock Market Turns On Barnes & Noble As Executives Detail Strategy
Following Barnes & Noble’s fourth quarter loss and prediction of more losses in the year ahead driven by their investments in technology, investors unloaded on the company’s stock in morning trading. On very heavy volume, the booksellers’ shares were down as much as 17 percent in the first hour of trading, touching levels not reached since the depths of the 2008 market collapse, before rebounding noticeably, down about 10.5 percent as we post. (The market is down broadly, with the S&P 500 off about 2.5 percent, and Amazon is down almost 5 percent this morning.) Having likely anticipated the market’s […]
People, Etc.
Penguin Australia marketing and publicity director Dan Ruffino is being promoted to group digital director for Penguin Group worldwide, starting September 1 based in New York. He will report to chairman and ceo John Makinson and “focus on digital publishing and new digital revenue opportunities; direct to consumer communication and business intelligence; and global partnerships.” Makinson comments: “He is a hugely talented marketing professional who has spent the last six years thinking about ways to make our content more enticing to the consumer. He has all the right qualifications and qualities for the job, but, above all, he has the […]
Bookselling: Titles that Sell Themselves
Daniel Goldin at Boswell and Books blogs about some indie bestsellers “that sell themselves.” He’s talking about “books that people are naturally drawn to” and if you “put a pile…on your paperback table, it will sell.” For his store, that roster includes MURDER ON THE EIFFEL TOWER by Claude Izner; THE POWER OF KINDNESS by Piero Ferrucci; Joseph Caldwell’s THE PIG DID IT (and now THE PIG COMES TO DINNER); and another “inadvertent sleeper” he just discovered–CHICKS DIG TIME LORDS: A Celebration of Dr. Who by the Women Who Love It.Post
Bookselling: A New Store, Australia is IndieBound, and Staff Picks Press
Spokane, WA-based Auntie’s Bookstore is opening a new branch on the second floor of the River Park Square mall.Local story Following an agreement with UK booksellers, the ABA has now licensed elements of the IndieBound marketing umbrella to the Australian Booksellers Association, which will launch the program in July. Albany, NY bookseller Susan Novotny, who owns The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza and Market Block Books, is using the POD technology at Troy Book Makers (which she co-owns) to launch a publishing imprint. It’s called Staff Press Picks. She tells the Times Union, “Our staff still reads books and they […]