Barnes & Noble up for sale

[defendandprotect]

Barnes & Noble up for sale

By Phil Wahba and Michele Gershberg Phil Wahba And Michele Gershberg – 1 hr 6 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Barnes & Noble (BKS.N), the number one U.S. book store chain, is putting itself up for sale as business suffers in the high-stakes battle for a leading role in the digital books market.

Barnes & Noble, whose shares soared 25 percent on the news, said company founder and top shareholder Leonard Riggio is considering bidding for the company as part of a larger investor group.

An auction for Barnes & Noble could draw interest from several other quarters, including billionaire investor Ron Burkle, as well as raise speculation about a combination with smaller rival Borders Group Inc (BGP.N). Shares in Borders rose 6 percent late on Tuesday.

But valuing a deal for Barnes & Noble, beset by competition from the likes of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in the electronic books market, could prove difficult. The company's share price has lost more than half its value in the last year and its market capitalization was just under $760 million as of Tuesday's close.

"How do you value an asset for the future when the entire market is being essentially turned upside down?" said Forrester analyst James McQuivey.

Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom said the company was already trading close to his fair value estimate of $13 per share before it made the announcement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100804/bs_nm/us_barnesandnoble



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Anyone here doing most of their reading electronically -- ?

I prefer text -- but still prefer books --

Happened to have been in a Barnes & Noble here in NJ yesterday -- store was missing

huge stacks of books and presumed it was getting ready for fall?

I'm also guessing that so many years of right wing control over publishing has also

hart book sellers. But -- important for the rw that as little truth as possible gets

out there!!

[Radical Activist]

1. I'm online all the time but I don't buy digital books.

I don't like them. I see the digital book packages being sold at in-store displays in my town. That seems kind of dumb. Why would you turn your in-store customer base into non-customers? Their store locations as a social setting are their real asset that they should be building on.

I've also noticed them placing right-wing books more prominently in displays than they once did. It seems like they used to have balance. I wonder what happened.

[WCGreen]

3. People buy right wing books just to buy them....

They come out, people snatch them up and them they disappear. The shelf life for these books is what, three weeks at best.

They know the market.

Somehow reading a digital book in bed doesn't appeal to me...

[SoCalDem]

4. I always smile at the ad on tv with the two people on the beach reading their kindle-books

They can never go into the water together.. a snatched up paperback is no biggie, but who wants to come out of the water to find their electronic gadgets "missing"?

[bliss_eternal]

7. Good point...

...among others (some stated above). Apparently lots our our new "gadgets" are being targeted by savvy criminals (i.e. gps systems, ipods, pads, ebook readers, portable dvd players, etc.). Big rash of crimes prior to spring break and summer at Disneyland resort of those exact items. Saw warnings from OC police on the news.

I've left many magazines and books on the back seat of my car, and no one cared. lol.

[defendandprotect]

17. Also, like cell phones, aren't they difficult to see in bright light -- sunshine???

I've never used one so -- just askin' -- ??

[defendandprotect]

16. Well, actually we've had a few scandals where right wing was buying up its own books!!

That's been quite common for them -- but haven't heard of anyone catching them

at it recently?

Agree re book in bed -- and also I've actually had library books with an essential page

missing in an important non-fiction work --

and my library recently celebrated the anniversary of Grace Metalious and

"Peyton Place" by buying their first copy EVER of it -- and it was "abridged" -- !!!


Obviously, books are still as much a threat to the right wing as when Hitler was burning them!




:evilgrin:

[defendandprotect]

13. From what I think we've all known of publishing/book selling .....

it's always been kind of managed by the right wing -- and still is --

and they're still attacking libraries, as well. We've never really cleared that control, IMO.

Re the "in store" stuff -- yes, the other day B&N had a "NOOKS" set up everywhere in the

store -- evidently their version of electronic books? That's why I'm asking how inevitable

all of this is -- it's something I haven't paid attention to and not likely to use.

The other day, I was out just to check what I might need to browse in future over there --

but, as I mentioned, like almost half of the books were gone!

And -- yes, right wing books in prominent display -- and I couldn't find a "non-fiction"

section other than the new books.

I'd suggest that there are a tremendous number of new right wing books being published -

maybe they think their disgusting messages need to be even more hyped?

I like to keep an eye on bookstores and libraries -- slowing down a bit on that lately --

too much internet!






:)

[keroro gunsou]

26. i like real books better

easier to whack ignorant people in the head with a copy of harry potter and the order of the phoenix than it is with a e-book reader.... and less likely to break. :evilgrin:

[gateley]

2. Maybe this will bring about the return of small booksellers, those that

went out of business when Barnes and Noble sprouted up everywhere. That would be nice.

[SoCalDem]

8. Could be, but if they sold the place & have to now pay rent it could be hard to start up again

Barns & Noble always looked like overkill to me.. There was a smaller bookstore here that was more pleasant to be in

[shaayecanaan]

5. I wonder if that will delay the next firmware upgrade for my Nook...

I bought a wifi Nook even though B&N dont sell them outside the US and refuse to ship them here.

The Nook remains the one to buy, mainly for its epub and Pdf support, which makes it a less tied-down device than the Kindle.

The other choices are Border's Kobo, which suffers from the same problem. Or one of Sony's devices, which support more file formats, however the Sony ereader touch has a terrible screen. Or the iPad, which is a joke from the get go. $1,000 for an ereader with a 10 hour battery life? Please.

The main problem with the Nook is battery life which is adversely affected by its additional colour touchscreen.

The main advantage to having the device is that you no longer have to pay for books which are public domain anyway. I am reading the Iron Heel for free, as it should be, rather than paying $14.95 to Borders for the privilege, which is a pretty good margin for them given that they only pay for the price of the pulp.

[dkf]

6. Yeah I was thinking of getting a Nook but this gives me pause.

What to do?

[shaayecanaan]

9. Its still a good device...

epub is becoming the standard anyway, and Nook supports it. Fortunately the last firmware update added a go to page function, which was probably the biggest drawback with the Nook. I'd still buy it ahead of the kindle.

[LAGC]

10. I use the B&N reader on my netbook.

I prefer it over the Kindle of PC software, because you can't do key-word searches with the Kindle software...

[Book Lover]

11. Pedantic corrections

Lifelong publishing professional here. While USD$15 is a pretty high-margin price, please understand that there are many more costs than the "pulp" to publishing a public domain book: the text still needs to be set and proofed, the cover needs to be designed, the files have to be prepped and delivered to the printer, printers proofs have to be checked, and of course, the book has to be printed and shipped first to the warehouse and then to the stores.

I'd also like to point out that you had to pay USD$100-plus for a single-function device to read that public domain book, whereas someone with a laptop and connection to Project Gutenberg has more functionality than you do with the e-reader.

[defendandprotect]

15. Thanks for the reminder about "Project Gutenberg" . . .

just saved a link to it --

What's your view on right wing control of what we're reading?

[Book Lover]

21. "...right wing control of what we're reading" ?

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. Can you please fill me in? Is this something specific, like Amazon pulling 1984 off of the Kindle?

[defendandprotect]

27. Not specific . . . though there's been a long list of scandals of right wingers

buying up their own books -- 3 or 4 instances of that happening --

and lots of new rw books out there --

can feel the pressures on my library over the last decade and-a-half --

though to their credit, they've tried more or less to balance the rw stuff -- lots of

"god" books -- with liberal material. My library celebrated Grace Metalious' birthday

by buying their first copy of "Peyton Place" -- and it was an ABRIDGED copy!!



Well -- right wing -- don't mean just churchy stuff -- overall right wing pressures on

publishers? Are there none?


Books on JFK -- right wing political violence -- vote stealing -- ?


"Votescam -- The Stealing of America" was pulled from the stores after being published --

that's a long time back, but has all the pressure been removed now?


Mockingbird?

[shaayecanaan]

20. Like bows and arrows against the lightning...

remember how pointy heads at record companies said that mp3 would never take off because people relished the feeling of having an album cover in their hand?

Yeah, I paid $100+ for the device. But I already have fifty books on it, most of which are public domain and which I didnt pay so much as a zot for. Its just more convenient.

[Book Lover]

22. You mistake me for someone with a grudge against e-readers

I get paid no matter what the format of my books are, so there's no furor from this corner against e-readers. If having a dedicated device is worth that money to you, spend it, for cri-yi! Part of my point is that it still costs time (and therefore, absent volunteers, money) to produce even a public domain book. Those books were free to you because people decided to give their work away.

I only get upset when people don't read. Setting aside the e-waste issues (which apply to too great a spread of tech for this discussion), it doesn't matter to me what you read your books on; just keep reading :-)

[Anakin Skywalker]

12. ATTENTION WAL-MART CUSTOMERS!!!!!

Oops. Wrong store! :)

[AngryAmish]

14. They are in the buggy whip business

Even moreso, retail space. When b & N goes under for good in six years, what is going to fill up all that space? Indoor paintball? Roller discos?

[RainDog]

19. they were sued for unfair trade practices

...the very ones that Amazon engages in now in which they coerce publishers to give them a better discount for the price of a book. This is how Barnes and Nobles and Borders drove so many independents out of business. Wal-Mart was part of it, too.

While e-books are definitely part of the current book business, there is still a market for paper bound books for a variety of reasons.

If you have an independent bookseller where you live, the price you pay there for a book puts .40 cents on every dollar back into your local community (even if you're buying an e-book.) If you buy from a "Wal-mart" bookseller (a store not locally owned and operated) you put a little more than a dime back into the community.

People make choices every day about what they want their lives to be about. Where you spend your money is one of them.

[marmar]

18. I'm hardly a Luddite, but there's just something about having a book in hand......

...... A Kindle or iPad just doesn't do it for me.

[malaise]

23. Heartbreaking

I'm addicted to Barnes and Noble.

[Touchdown]

24. I do buy digital books... from B&N.

Apple's bookstore doesn't have much. B&N has a great selection, and as long as the reader app works fine, there's no reason not to buy from them. I like B&N! I hope whoever buys them will continue their great service.

[Odin2005]

25. NOOOOOO!!!

:cry: