![]() Publishers send books they believe will sell. Waterstones, at one point, was returning TWENTY PERCENT of their inventory for remaindering.įor those who don’t know how traditional publishing operates, the physical bookstore system is consignment-based. Publishers were smitten with their Buy Two Get the Third Free but, according to Daunt, customers rarely found the third book they wanted (FREE or not). *pictures Amazon sitting inside near roaring fire drinking vodka and playing checkers* What Daunt Did Well Why? Because they didn’t learn from Borders and believed they could win a land war in Asia book war on-line. Similarly, Barnes & Noble-apparently visited by the same ‘Bright Idea Fairy’-launched the Nook, and hemorrhaged over a billion dollars. In my recent blog post Amazon Publishing: The Road to Conquest & How Bezos Razed New York, I mentioned how Borders was struggling but doing okay, until they broke the deal they’d made with the devil Amazon and got the bright idea to go it alone on-line. Maybe y’all think I’m being melodramatic, but… ![]() Amazon hunkered down, and Borders ended up eating all their metaphorical horses before they finally starved.ĭid B&N learn? Nope. Only those born to it prosper and only fools believe they can win a war against the harsh elements they’ve never studied let alone mastered.īezos was only too happy to let Borders try to invade. Both giants engaged the competition (Amazon) on terrain where their adversary held almost total dominance. One of the single largest business decisions that killed Borders-as well as Barnes & Noble-had to do with crap tactics. In fact, it was precisely because Daunt didn’t engage with Amazon that Waterstones managed to regain financial footing. ![]() Daunt might have rescued the UK chain Waterstones, but his rescue plan had very little to do with directly combatting Amazon. First of all, this NYT title is grossly inaccurate and misleading. ![]()
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