Lynne Scanlon also complains about the shoppers in some stores, which I felt was interesting enough to put in a unique post:
If Borders were to become the preferred destination for book buyers, people would walk or drive the extra distance and pass right by a Barnes & Noble.
Jones already gets the message that too much time is spent by walk-ins and loungers who spend too little money at the cash registers. He’d like to remedy that, so would I. I loath tripping over those parked baby buggies (install meters!) and having to deal with kids whose moms use Barnes & Noble as a place to kill a few hours on the cheap. PT Barnum faced the same problem until he hung a sign that said: “This Way to the Egress!” I like the idea of a sign that reads: “First you pay, then you read.”
Is that too harsh? Does it conflict with her idea about inviting writers to write on in-store computers? Does it conflict a bit with coffeeshops in stores?
I had to laught reading this post when I remembered an old lecture I heard about India? (or was it japan?) where people were allowed to read books (at outdoor displays) for as long as they wanted… as long as they didn’t sit down. (If you sat down you had to buy the book.) The story was some poor students made it through college this way. (A story I realize might be apocraphal 🙂
Yes, it conflicts, and I left her a note to that effect. I for one think the marketing genius of B&N was that they gave people a place to sit down, relax, and spend more time in the bookstore looking at the books. More time equals more likelihood of buying a book before leaving the store.
Phil, thanks for linking up to my post in The Publishing Contrarian!
No disrespect intended toward Sherry, but I think authors might have a different take on people reading books as if B&N were a library, which it is not. (Sherry has a lovely Web site: Semi-colon. How the mother of 8 finds the time to blog, I don’t know!) B&N corporate doesn’t really care what you buy as long as you buy and B&N margins look good for the shareholders.
Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing
I didn’t mean to sound strident or disrespectful either. I just think being able to sample, comfortably, leads more people to buy the wares, in this case books. I know that some people abuse the privilege, but I don’t see any ay to avoid that abuse and still make it comfortable and reader-friendly. If I spend more than ten minutes with Book X, I have to buy it? Are the hidden cameras goiong to keep watch on how long I sit in a particular chair and read books?
Thanks for the compliment about the website. I have a secret as far as blogging with eight children; I neglect them and I don’t sleep 🙂 Just kidding!
My (adult/married) son and I had a long conversation about a book he read in it’s entirity at Barnes and Noble on Sunday. A three hundred page hardcover.
Then he bought it.
Because it was good.
I’m more bothered when the folks in the chairs are just sitting there – no book in hand – covered with shopping bags.