Until the Apocalypse
Posted on 02/20/2018 4:39:46 AM PST by foreverfree
Part of the employee thing may be due to various states hiking their minimum wages. To cut payroll you let go your more expensive, experienced workers and replace them with newer, less expensive, less experienced workers.
I have a number of e-books, but if I understand correctly the boilerplate from Amazon and B&N, I don’t actually own any of the ones I’ve purchased.
I’ve always said that when Barnes and Noble goes out of business it will be my fault.
I go there and browse books and when I find one I like, I go home and download the Kindle version. I love B&N, and I feel terrible about what I do.
You showroomer, you. I loved B. Dalton. I loathe B&N.
20 years ago when networking was new and booming i decided to educate myself thoroughly. I went to Borders bookstore and bought dozens of books on networking and computing at $50 a pop. When I say thoroughly I mean it, I even bought and studied books on the code for the TCP/IP implementation in Unix, cryptography, fiber optic physics, et cetera. It cost a ton but I became the smartest guy in my company in this hot new tech that our customer was demanding but nobody else understood well. I’m not the smartest guy in the company at this stuff anymore, not by a Longshot. But I was first and that has ended up paying off massively for me financially over the past couple of decades.
so not just best sellers.
Backed up in three places, one of which is off site, I hope.
Until the Apocalypse
Do a Google image search for “American scientists and inventors”.
That should be enough to make anyone swear off Google to the largest extent possible.
First, most small booksellers. Now, Barnes & Noble is hanging on by a thread, the last of the book store chains. When B&N is gone, Amazon alone will manipulate reading choices. That’s not good.
Amazon doesn’t have millions of books in stock. They have the books-in-print catalog incorporated in their interface.
Mine are ... although I've only got about 6500 or so.
My Amazon purchases are downloaded to my computer (Kindle for PC) and then I use Calibre to reformat each one to the EPUB format. Then I reformat each to MOBI and save both the EPUB and MOBI to different folders on my computer and on two separate standalone drives. Then I upload a MOBI copy to my Kindle for reading. I'm hoping that should take care of the "ownership" problem ...
Nook? It does not seem as ubiquitous as Kindle.
Beat me to it.
This began in Sacramento many moons ago. I was in a B & N because I could not wait for Amazon, and the lady that assisted with a DVD purchase was the same lady that eventually checked me out up front. The few employees that are left all have an earpiece to direct them to where they are needed throughout the store. I imagine a day when the only employee will be the person in the B & N coffee shop, and customers looking for and buying books will use those self check out kiosks. Brave New World.
I watched the C span video of the March for Justice last week.
Featured as a bit part was a small dog and some tennis balls. I was near certain that was your FReeper dog that could retrieve two tennis balls on one trip
Apple and the big publishers colluded. They had a press release about it, and then got fined.
So the publishers are telling Amazon that if you have an Ebook, the price must be just a bit lower than the dead tree version (at best). The publishing houses don’t want to go all ereader.
So right now, Amazon is the last one standing.
Correct. Just like you really don’t “own” any electronics or software.
But I have a back up of all my books, and reserve the right to remove DRM if need be.
Could it be a part B&Ns reaction to me having a Third Printing from Sep 1972 of SGT,MIKE IN VIETNAM?
My daughter works full time at Barnes and Noble. She’s the Children’s Lead at a store.
She was told her job is safe but doesn’t really believe them.
They laid off cashiers and now she’s working a register which leaves her department in disarray creating more work and less time.
Most customers know what book or what type of book they want. In Children’s, there’s a whole lot of “I need a book for my niece, what do you recommend?” She also has tons of kids who ask to go to the bookstore just to see her and learn about what the cool books are. She has regulars who will leave and come back later if she’s not there. So they dump her on a cash register.
There was a time in my life when much of my Christmas gift giving was hardcover books from Barnes & Noble. The children’s book section was a particular joy, all the intricate and beautiful popup books, I just hate to see it. I know as a company Barnes & Noble is a long way from conservative, but there was nothing better on a rainy weekend afternoon than to run over there, find a good book or magazine, buy it and sit in the coffee shop with coffee and a danish while reading it. Very comfortable environment. I don’t know what’s taking the place of it, but assuming they do go down they’ll be missed.
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