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SweetCosmicPope t1_j21t296 wrote

I thought it was kind of cool they brought up how the staff run their own stores. And this does show. When I go to Barnes and Noble and they have staff picks or I can chat with the staff about what books they like, that’s a good sign of a great store.

Incidentally, I’d be curious to see what ebook sales look like to the average consumer. I don’t discount them as a market, especially among heavy readers, but I personally see less ereaders out there these days than I used to and I see many more books. And my personal preference is for books as I just don’t enjoy the format of ereaders. So I’d be interested to see if that market is dipping or not.

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AtomicBananaSplit t1_j22508z wrote

I think it’s hard to judge ebooks based solely on e-reader frequency. The kindle and Libby apps both work great, and let me read anywhere on my phone without having to carry a second device or a physical book around. It’s entirely possible the person next to you on the subway is reading The Count of Monte Christi, to Reddit’s great delight.

Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy a physical book from time to time, and the act of walking through a library or a brick and mortar store and getting recommendations from people who work there leads me into things I may not otherwise try. There are also things that don’t work well electronically, like House of Leaves or How to Survive in a Science Fiction Universe, or books with a lot of foot notes (eg Pratchett). But I probably read 90% on my phone, from disposable stuff to comics to literature.

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Hartastic t1_j22fref wrote

> I think it’s hard to judge ebooks based solely on e-reader frequency. The kindle and Libby apps both work great, and let me read anywhere on my phone without having to carry a second device or a physical book around. It’s entirely possible the person next to you on the subway is reading The Count of Monte Christi, to Reddit’s great delight.

Yep. As another anecdote, 90% of my reading is on my phone these days. I have an eReader and I do use it in certain circumstances. I haven't bought a dead tree book since the Bush Administration and I don't know that I ever will again.

My wife, who reads probably 5 books a week on average is phone, tablet, or PC and would never be seen with an ereader as such.

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PatBev_Clamped_Ja t1_j23lhs1 wrote

Haha I read on my phone, laptop, and ereader too. I have eyesight issues so I do prefer a screen where you can enlarge text. It is an accessibility preference for me, but it’s also because I love reading multiple books at once too. Like your wife I probably go through around 3-5 books a week simply because I always halfway thru one book or the other.

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ClarielOfTheMask t1_j22k8yu wrote

Yeah, I think the market is balancing out a little. There will always be demand for both mediums because they're not perfect replacements for each other. They fulfill different needs.

There are still issues with both industries but I don't see either one ever totally dying

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Spare-Variation-7702 t1_j230g2i wrote

Glad they are doing this. I was at Borders near the tail end of the business.

When I started it was very bookseller focused. Store managers had a big say in inventory and could cater to local interests. I for awhile was in an area with a large African-American demographic and we had a very large African-American fiction section. It quite literally rivaled in shelf space to our fiction and genre fiction sections.

Corporate buyers took the reigns and the section was reduced to about 3 cases cause that was the company average and our sales started to really suffer and the complaints came rolling in.

Don't even get me started on Borders "Make Books" sales strategy. Vendor provides us with a title at a huge discount for all booksellers to now push onto every customer no matter what. "Oh you're here looking for sci fi titles? have you thought about this book about dying of cancer instead? real page turner!" It was awful

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spookyspocky t1_j22nlms wrote

My local bookstore put little notes on books with the reader’s comments; most were on books I already read and loved. I bought 4 new books :)

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Illustrious-Net-7198 t1_j24dmeg wrote

Mine has a big section of employee recommendations, with little comments from each person as to why and what they loved about the book. Is it more expensive than other places? Sure. But it’s an amazing store, and I did a lot of my Christmas shopping there.

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hgaterms t1_j2517gw wrote

I was just at the B&N store in my city, and the staff picks were all stuff that I already loved. It was nice to see that we were on the same page.

(The "staff pick" for Project Hail Mary had me giggling what they had written. I'm paraphrasing, but it was "best book I've read in a while and I would literally die for the co-protagonist." )

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SweetCosmicPope t1_j252jov wrote

My wife was looking for some book (I can’t remember what now) a few months ago and couldn’t find it even though it said it was in store on their site. I told her I’d ask the girl at the information desk and she was like “awesome! I just read that book! It’s so great!” She excitedly asked one of the guys to check the back and he was just as excited and said “[book name]! Nice!” and retrieved it for me. Maybe they were just trying to be really customer service forward but they seemed legit excited to get that book for me so someone else could read it too.

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