The UK’s WH Smith presented weak sales data that people are working hard to put a positive gloss on. Same-store sales at their High Street stores were down 7 percent for the eight weeks ending January 22 (so holiday sales, sort of) and down 6 percent for the most recent 21 weeks. The company says that “excluding entertainment” product, same-store sales were down 3 three percent. They say they are “rebalancing” their store mix to focus books, stationery and candy. The Bookseller says retail analysts were told once you isolate book sales, they fell 2 percent on a same-store basis […]
More Highlights From DBW’s First Day
We have lots more DBW coverage from Day 1 over at the PM website. Some of the highlights include: — An outside dose of reality on the future of brick-and-mortar bookselling from Goldman Sachs analyst Matt Fassler and Susquehanna Financial Group’s Marianne Wolk. Fassler was down on B&N’s prospects: “There are no safe investments, but publishers and booksellers are something to avoid” in his assessment, because they don’t control their own destiny. Wolk believes that Amazon makes little to no profit from ebooks as they try to maintain dominant market share, and doesn’t even think it’s a corporate goal to […]
Publishers Battle on Territorial Rights and Try Out New Skill Sets
The panel on territorial rights issues, Will Territorial Sales Become Obsolete?, moderated by Janklow & Nesbit rights director Cullen Stanley, showed some small shifts in thinking about English-language international sales. The always entertaining Andrew Franklin, president of Profile Books, got a laugh by pointing out that the structure of today’s contracts goes back to 1947: “The British had lost their empire, they kept everything that had been their empire and gave the US the rest. It has to go. The open market is absolutely a legacy of the physical book and it has to go.” Asked if he would prefer […]
Data Day at DBW
The second day of Digital Book World began with a block of three data presentations on consumer habits with respect to ebook purchases and ereading devices. (To be clear, we have cheated: since 92 percent of conference attendees and reporters find big presentations of data hard to take in, and take down, on the fly, the three presenters let us look over their slides in advance, which is the basis of this report.) Verso Digital conducted a new survey of book acquisition habits, this time looking at both purchasing and borrowing together–in print, digital and a mixture of the two–in […]
Have Sales Reps Turned Into Marketers?
The sales department is in transition for a variety of reasons–declining bookstores, increased digital sales, an emphasis on just-in-time inventory, and more. At Digital Book World on Tuesday, David Wilk queried Rich Freese from NBN, Alison Lazarus from Macmillan, Michael Selleck from Simon & Schuster and Jaci Updike from Random House on the changes underway and ahead. Clearly the traditional sales rep is turning into more of a local marketing officer, though the exact expression of how that’s working varied among the participants. Lazarus expressed it most dramatically, saying “we’re telling our physical sales reps, ‘don’t sell so many of […]
Analysts See Low Profits from eBooks for Amazon and BN
A Digital Book World panel on Tuesday presenting how Wall Street views bookselling and the future of bricks and mortar brought an outside dose of reality via Goldman Sachs analyst Matt Fassler and Susquehanna Financial Group’s Marianne Wold. Fassler covers Barnes & Noble’s stock (and used to cover Borders when they were big enough to be worth following), but is down on their prospects: “There are no safe investments, but publishers and booksellers are something to avoid” in his assessment, because they don’t control their own destiny. He believes that, while the retailer’s investment in Nook was necessary and prudent, […]