You may have heard Barnes & Noble’s Nook will be coming to the UK this October through partnerships with John Lewis, Argos, Foyles, and Blackwell’s. Exciting times for those of us on this side of the Pond, where the Kindle is King. A little competition – and a few more distribution channels – can never be a bad thing. But can the Nook really compete?
You’d be forgiven for shaking your head and asking: ‘Who the hell is John Lewis? And what the heck is Argos?’ Well, John Lewis is a department store along the lines of JC Penney, but with nowhere near as many stores – in fact, the company only has 36 across the UK.
Argos, on the other hand, is the UK’s largest general-goods retailer. It’s one of those funky stores where you rock up, look through the catalogue, write down your number, and the person behind the counter disappears into goodness knows where to secure your item. Perhaps not the first place one would go to seek an e-reading device.
Foyles is an iconic independent bookshop in London, once in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest bookshop. With only a handful of shops scattered across London (and one in Bristol), it seems an odd choice for B&N to select as a partner. Blackwell’s is also a smaller chain of bookshops, specialising in academic texts.
Hmmmm . . . just what is B&N up to? Are they too late to the ball to find top-tier dance partners?
Kobo has already partnered with WH Smith, while Amazon has secured a deal with Waterstone’s, the UK’s biggest high street book chain. So how will the Nook and its partners fare against Amazon’s dominance?
Only time will tell.
Do you have a Nook, Kindle, or Kobo? Why did you choose the device you own? Which had the greater influence: the partnering bookshop or department store, or by the design of the device itself?
B&N’s approach to the international arena has been curious – and that’s being kind. They should have come into the UK two years ago. It’s quite telling that as they move into the UK, Kobo move into Japan and Amazon into India. They are light-years behind.
They also seemed to assume that Waterstones would hang around and what for B&N to partner up with. As we all know now, they were blindsided by the infinitely faster-moving Amazon, and Kobo had already snaffled up WH Smith. I think the Blackwells part of the partnerships is quite clever though. They seem to have good coverage across university campuses in the UK – which is a real earner for B&N in the US.
Personally, I’m more interested in seeing if Barnes & Noble will now open Pubit to UK/international self-publishers. When PubIt launched in Dec 2010, they promised access for international peeps “soon”. Like many things with Barnes & Noble, we’re still waiting…
“Personally, I’m more interested in seeing if Barnes & Noble will now open Pubit to UK/international self-publishers. When PubIt launched in Dec 2010, they promised access for international peeps “soon”. Like many things with Barnes & Noble, we’re still waiting…”
Me, too, David!
… and me, too. I really hate using Smashwords to get to B&N — the sales reports are so slow and changing anything is like going through a filter of sludge.
Good point on Blackwells, David. I hadn’t thought about their uni presence.
Not sure what B&N are thinking, really. As you say, John Lewis doesn’t have many shops throughout the UK and although Argos are huge, the other retailers you mention in partnership with Kobo and Amazon are huge!
Argos is huge, but I wouldn’t buy an e-reader without having access to one to play around with it! And the drawback with Argos is that you can’t see the goods before buying. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future!
Very true, Talli.
You can always ask the staff to take the device out of its box saying you want to check that it is OK or not. I am sure you can do that.
I think you can, Julie. But still, I’d like to see it in action.
The Norwich store has loads of items on display in the store front. Not sure if they’re all like that but it would serve them well to put one on display for people to test out.
My nearest London one has some things on display, but still . . . I’d prefer a more hands-on PC World approach. Will be interesting to see how they choose to market them!
John Lewis may be small, but I bet they sell a LOT of Kindles – their demographic is the perfect fit. I wonder if they will STOP selling Kindles when Kobo comes though???
That’s true, JS – it’s perfect for their demographic. It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with the Kindle now that the Nook is their partner!
I have a Kindle. I bought it cos I have an Amazon account and have bought books from there before, oh and I had already installed the free pc version before that. I think the partnership with the two bookshops will work well, esp Foyles, as I know they do author events. So maybe they might do events with eauthors like us.
I bought my Kindle because of the ease and selection of the Amazon store, too. I don’t hold out any great hope for Foyles and indie author events, I’m afraid! They’re very friendly there but they seem to mainly cater to the big names.
I have Kindle because of its voice feature, in case I want manuscripts read to me in monotone. But I’ve heard good things about the Nook. In the US, Barnes and Noble is also the bookstore in many colleges, and it makes textbooks cheaper if you get the ebook versions. I wonder if a lot of students are buying them.
I love the voice feature on the Kindle, too, Theresa! And interesting point on B&N in colleges. I wonder if they’re trying to replicate that in the UK with Blackwells.
I got my first ebook reader, a Kindle, as a gift. I was torn between wanting that and a Nook. My librarian friend is getting a Nook as more of the ebook lending in our pocket of the world (at least through the library where she works) is through epub files and not the mobi.
Design of the device really wasn’t a factor in my decision. Price was, though, especially for my inlaws who were so kind to gift me one for a combined Thanksgiving/Christmas present. Also, they don’t have B&N within 50 miles of where they live. I’ve dropped my ereader a couple times, though, and the plastic has a hairline fracture, even though it’s nestled in a hard leather cover! Perhaps it’s time to start looking at a new ereader…
Price was a factor for me, too — although I do like the design of the Kindle much better than the Sony device I had before. But really, for me, it was about price and selection. And Amazon definitely won out on that front.
Great post and questions, Talli!
I have two Kindles – a Kindle3 and a Kindle Fire.
I chose Kindles because Amazon’s customer service is tough to beat, and Nook definitely can’t beat it. Plus, I just don’t have a good feeling that Nook will survive. I hope it does – as I sell really well there. But, until they put their customers first and not their bottom line, I don’t think they’re gonna make the long haul.
And I’m tellin’ ya, I luuuvvv and live on my Kindle Fire!
I can’t wait to see what Amazon is announcing on September 6th…maybe a Kindle Fire 2?!
Amazon has great customer service, I agree! I can’t wait until the Fire comes to the UK! Gosh, we’re so far behind here…
Hi Talli. Loved your “interpretation” of John Lewis and Argos for our American cousins.
Presumably we’ll be able to upload on Nook UK site as well as Nook US from October in the same way as uploaded to the different national Amazons?
Oops! “…in the same way as uploading…”
We’re hoping, Alison! Fingers crossed.
For those in the UK, just because you can upload to B&N directly don’t assume it is better. B&N has next to no customer service for it’s indie authors and their interface is pretty lacking, not to mention that with a few exceptions, D.D. being chief among them, most people just don’t sell as well there.
Aw, way to dash our hopes, LC!
Well, it’s good to be realistic. My B&N sales are woeful compared to my Amazon sales.
I’ve had my original Nook for several years. At the time I bought it, you could only borrow library books in epub format. Epub in general was another deciding factor, since it’s the format most commonly used by those other than Amazon. I’ve also been a Barnes and Noble customer for eons, so it just seemed right.
If I were buying an ereader today, I’m not so sure I’d make the same choice. As others have said, I’m not confident in B&N’s long term viability, they don’t “get” customer service for indie authors, and they don’t have a great search engine for finding books. I used to go into the store just to walk around and discover new books. Since they’ve sacrificed so much shelf space to not-books, I can’t go inside a store. It just makes me depressed.
I’m really curious about the rumored mini iPad. With apps for both Kindle and Nook, it might solve my problem of the huge investment in B&N ebooks I already have. If only Apple prices it competitively.
Interesting that you might make a different decision today, Elise. When I first got my ereader, I got a Sony for the very reason you chose your Nook: libraries only loaned epubs. I soon find the selection woeful and the Sony ebook story very pricey, and switched to Kindle.
I haven’t heard of the mini iPad! Makes sense, though.
Any extra visibility in another country is exciting. I sure hope B&N stay around, though. I’m not sure why, but I sell 3 times as many books on nook as I do on Amazon, and, as yet, sales on all other platforms are tiny, the odd one here and there. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any ryhme or reason to it that I can see.
Every time I hear of a new reader or distribution site going live, I get tingles of excitment. This is such a great time to be an author.
Alison, that’s great that you sell so many copies of B&N! How do you do it? Tell us, tell us!
And yes, it really is a great time to be an author.
Thanks, Talli.
That doesn’t sound like the B&N I know. There generally pretty shrewd. Of course, they’d have to be to even still be standing today. From what you’re saying, it sounds like they may be settling. I guess we’ll find out sooner or later how they do over there.
David, I think they’re quite late to enter the UK market and are casting around to find partners, as the big guys are already taken by Kobo and Amazon. That’s my take on it, anyway. It will be interesting to see if their choice is a deliberate strategy or if they’re having to take the leftovers.
I think you’re right, Talli.
It just surprises me, that’s all. Makes me wonder.
I was more surprised they didn’t try to partner with someone like Tesco or ASDA. To me, it just shows that B&N isn’t a serious player internationally. I’ve lived in the UK for 11 years now and never bought anything from any of the stores listed. I did go into the John Lewis in Edinburgh (40 miles away) once… 8 years or so ago. We have an Argos in Perth… walked by it a billion times, but never gone in. Never even been tempted to. I don’t know if they’re like this elsewhere, but the one here looks… shabby.
Interesting. I wonder why John Lewis and not Debenhams, (160 stores in UK + Ireland branches, and International franchise stores). At least there is another outlet for authors in the UK, and that is a good thing.
I still don’t have an ereader, so it’s fun to see all the comparison comments. Eventually I’ll figure out one that’s right for me!