What went wrong?
Amazon
>>7889235
Elaborate?
>>7889235
This and they tried pandering too hard to nonreaders and children who exclusively read comics/manga. It just came off as desperate.
>>7889239
You can get a book for roughly the same price or cheaper on Amazon than you would at B&N plus since Amazon is really other people selling via Amazon, they're not as limited by how much they can stock so there's more inventory overall. The only advantage to physical bookstores is that you can buy and instantly take the book home, but once amazon rolls out those drones that'll deliver shit right away, even that's not going to be an issue.
Really, physical bookstores are dinosaurs at this point.
>>7889231
I still go to Barnes and Noble to this day OP there isn't anything quite as nice reading Nietzsche on the second floor in front of the public marketplace, on a nice sunny day with a cup of Java from Starbucks downstairs. It's such an experience that the books are essentially free.
It's a combination of a few things.
Amazon has cornered the big box retail market. They've driven Barnes and Noble to sell dumbshit to stay alive, but in most fields they can't compete with prices.
>>7889251
Independent bookstores are actually doing better than ever. Big box stores may be a dinosaur though. http://publishingperspectives.com/2016/01/independent-bookstores-thrive-in-digital-age/#.VwPSI_krLIU
These days, the "buy local" movement is also at an all time high. So, the people who are more likely to pay full price for a book in-person are going to independent stores rather than a B&N.
>>7889264
Yeah, but that's just pretentious hipster faggots keeping indie bookstores afloat. They'll die off once they get bored of pretending to read and move on to the next thing.
>>7889264
And I forgot: as book sales have recovered from the recession/initial amazon fucking things up Barnes and Noble had reduced the amount of books carried so they didn't have the selection people had.Their business model is too focused on pedaling capeshit toys to children/"""""nerds"""""
>>7889269
It's seemed to outlast several hipster fads. I'm not convinced it will die off, they'll just move on to different books and shit. It's like buying music hasn't died off, they've just went from folk music to trap.
>>7889284
I dunno, with that crowd all it can take is some retarded trending hashtag about how books are evil oppressive tools of the patriarchy or some shit to do it.
>>7889290
Recent studies that I've heard some hipster types quoting showed the industry to be 75% women, so it's pretty much impervious to that, though the only reading women for a year may become even bigger than it is.
>>7889294
Almost impervious but not entirely impervious. They've been known to turn on women if they're white and can be perceived as racist or culturally insensitive somehow.
>>7889327
Fair enough, but there's enough minority focused presses to at least fill in that demand if it happens. I just got back from AWP and the number of LGBT and racial minority friendly presses/journals was at an all time high.
