B&N discontinuing Nook in all but USA & UK

Oh, dear.

I'm unclear from the article whether they're talking about only the Nook devices or about flat-out carrying ebooks. I mean, right now you can buy an EPUB from B&N and read it on a reader that's not a Nook, right? Will that still be the case in the places they're discontinuing Nook stores, or does closing the Nook stores mean they are literally no longer going to be selling ebooks of any kind? (Is this a dumb question? IDK....)

My understanding is that, since Microsoft and Barnes and Noble have now parted ways, the Nook on Windows is no longer available outside the US. The Nook devices are still available, and the store, while broken at the moment, is still functioning. Of course, Nook is in trouble and sales have plummeted anyway, B&N has hired a new CEO but the financial world kind of expects them to die a slow death instead of innovating into niche markets or surviving as a general purpose book outlet. They've been in a death spiral for many years and there's likely no way out.

Jeff

WeaselFire said:

My understanding is that, since Microsoft and Barnes and Noble have now parted ways, the Nook on Windows is no longer available outside the US. The Nook devices are still available, and the store, while broken at the moment, is still functioning. Of course, Nook is in trouble and sales have plummeted anyway, B&N has hired a new CEO but the financial world kind of expects them to die a slow death instead of innovating into niche markets or surviving as a general purpose book outlet. They've been in a death spiral for many years and there's likely no way out.

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Yeah. I rather like my Nook Glowlight for reading in bed, but frankly I find it easier to read ebooks on my smart phone nowadays. B&N is dying, and will go the way of Borders eventually. The only question is whether sooner or later.

Another nail in the coffin.

I have a Kindle so this doesn't affect me directly, but it's just another bit of spiraling downward for B&N. I love going into the brick-and-mortar B&N and looking at all the books. But sadly, even that is becoming more of a toy and game store.

It makes me sad, but 'toy and game store' is an adequate description of the B&N near me in Chandler AZ. I used to have fantasies of doing a book signing there. Now? Meh. The last time I went to buy a friend's just-released paperback, the B&N computer said there were 3 copies in stock, and no one could find them. I ended up ordering online from Powells.

Dang... hope this isn't a death knell for the Nook. I love my Nook HD+ - I use it light a light tablet, and I can get library books on it through the Overdrive app. (I have a Kindle, too, but it's just a black and white older model, not app capable; it lives in my purse, and holds a battery charge for weeks at a time, unlike a tablet.) I hope someone else takes up the format/support, as they're pretty popular devices.

As for the store, though, I keep expecting them to vanish. Every time I go in there, there's less of what I want (and less period - they rearrange things on the shelves to make it look fully stocked, but the inventory's definitely thinner than it used to be)... plus the overall air of the store is less and less helpful. I've walked out of there empty-handed and wound up going to Amazon more often than not in recent years.

It looks to me like a big part of this is the move from windows 8 to windows 10. The new incarnation of windows may not be able to run the nook app and rather than fix it and enter into a new licensing agreement they just plan to drop it. I wonder if you kept a win8 device and just went to the American web page (from Italy,for example) if it would still work.

Amadan said:

B&N is dying, and will go the way of Borders eventually. The only question is whether sooner or later.

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Where will I get to see my (someday) book on a bookshelf?

*sigh* I still haven't bought an eReader, but I am weakening. This is bad because I do NOT want to support Amazon, but anything that is not Kindle is potentially as vulnerable as the Nook has just proven to be. Amazon got there first (with an excellent product, admittedly) and proceeded to build a fortress so heavy it crumbles the foundations of the latecomers' castles.

jjdebenedictis said:

*sigh* I still haven't bought an eReader, but I am weakening. This is bad because I do NOT want to support Amazon, but anything that is not Kindle is potentially as vulnerable as the Nook has just proven to be. Amazon got there first (with an excellent product, admittedly) and proceeded to build a fortress so heavy it crumbles the foundations of the latecomers' castles.

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Truth. And I, too, am fighting tooth and nail against succumbing to the Kindle juggernaut.

You can buy non-Kindle ereaders, you know, and read Kindle books on them. (You may have to use some software to convert them, but it's not difficult.)

Amadan said:

You can buy non-Kindle ereaders, you know, and read Kindle books on them. (You may have to use some software to convert them, but it's not difficult.)

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It's more the fact that I fear the eReader will get discontinued. Paper stays readable until it falls apart, you know? There's no guarantee my expensive hunk of plastic will continue to be usable if technology (or a company's commitment to the technology they created) goes away.

Amadan said:

Yeah. I rather like my Nook Glowlight for reading in bed, but frankly I find it easier to read ebooks on my smart phone nowadays.

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I use my Nook Glowlight for traveling mostly. I like to read outside, and the Nook doesn't have the glare problem of the phone or iPad. Plus, where I vacation every year, there's no lights at night, and the Glowlight beats reading with a flashlight. Much much better.

Amadan said:

You can buy non-Kindle ereaders, you know, and read Kindle books on them. (You may have to use some software to convert them, but it's not difficult.)

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I looked at other e-readers before buying the Nook but never found any that seemed as good. And I thought with the B&N backing, the Nook would stay around. (Ha on me.) Are there others you'd recommend?

heza said:

Where will I get to see my (someday) book on a bookshelf?

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Me too.

I have to say, at first I balked at getting an ereader. But then borrowed my sister's Kindle Fire. Now I have my own and have trouble going back to paper books. This from someone who loves bookstores, to browse, touch, skim, the variety of books. But a few things converted me: I can now read at night without a bothersome book light that falls off while I'm reading (or burns out), I can adjust the font and background light, I can take all the books I want anywhere, I can use my library online to borrow ebooks, I can buy books at 2 am and read them at 2:01 am without leaving home.... The list is endless. And of course now when I read a paper book, if I don't know what a word is, I press my finger on the page over the word and nothing happens. (In an ebook, you put your finger on the word and a definition pops up.) I've become lazy.

So...why the problem with Nook? As pony said, could be the move from Windows 8 to Windows 10 isn't feasible for B&N.

Yeah, that stinks. My mother has one, but I got a Kindle.

I love my Kindle. I don't like using it for web browsing (it has its own Silk browser, which is slow and freezes up and overall sucks), but I do love reading e-books on it.

juniper said:

I looked at other e-readers before buying the Nook but never found any that seemed as good. And I thought with the B&N backing, the Nook would stay around. (Ha on me.) Are there others you'd recommend?

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Sony's ereader is pretty good. There is also the Kobo. But really, there is no reason to give up your Nook, since it can read epubs too. It's very unlikely that formats will change so dramatically that ebooks will become unreadable in our lifetime. So even if B&N goes out of business, the Nook will still be usable. (Kindles too, for that matter, though they're a bit more of a hassle.)

slhuang said:

I mean, right now you can buy an EPUB from B&N and read it on a reader that's not a Nook, right?

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I don't know how this affects anyone in the regions where B&N is closing, but I don't think you can download EPUBs of B&N books anymore, no matter where you are.

You used to be able to download an EPUB of any ebook you bought at Barnes and Noble. You just logged in to your account through the website, went to your library, and bam--there was a "Download" button for every book. In September 2014, they removed that feature.

Like, entirely. Completely.

I have a Nook, so I don't know how this affected people who don't own one. I assume this means you can see your B&N books on a Nook or by downloading a Nook app on another device. But by removing the EPUB downloads, did they remove the ability for you to download your library and read it wherever you wanted?

And yes, you can still download EPUBs if you download some of B&N's very old and unmaintained software, some of which has the "Download" feature still built in. But on all their main, public-facing vehicles, they seem to be trying to limit who can read their books and how--which, combined with the fact they're closing their doors everywhere but the US and UK, is just another reason to be concerned.

summontherats said:

You used to be able to download an EPUB of any ebook you bought at Barnes and Noble. You just logged in to your account through the website, went to your library, and bam--there was a "Download" button for every book. In September 2014, they removed that feature.

Like, entirely. Completely.

I have a Nook, so I don't know how this affected people who don't own one. I assume this means you can see your B&N books on a Nook or by downloading a Nook app on another device. But by removing the EPUB downloads, did they remove the ability for you to download your library and read it wherever you wanted?

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Basically.

You can still copy it from your Nook and convert it, but they went the Amazon route, trying to make it harder to read anything but their books on their device.

Amadan said:

Sony's ereader is pretty good. There is also the Kobo.

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I bought a Kobo first, but then went to the Nook after about a year. The Kobo website isn't very friendly, and when I had a question about the Kobo, customer service in USA is pretty much non-existent. No phone or chat function, just email that they may or may not return a few days later.

I prefer the Kobo devices - I think their business model is the reverse of the Nook - they're better in other parts of the world than USA.

This is concerning news. I love my Nook, and I want B&N to be successful because I also like going into bookstores, and it's one of the closest ones to me. As others have said, the stores increasingly have fewer books in stock (Barnes & Toys maybe?), and I often don't find the books I'm looking for, even if they're newer releases. I don't want to have to go online to see if that location has the book in stock before I actually get to the store. If I'm going to do that, I may as well just buy the book online. Which is what I'll likely do for the three books B&N did not have on its shelves when I was there last weekend. Most of what I buy now are ebooks, and I hope I'll be able to continue to use my Nook for many years to come. (I don't use the app.)

Filigree, I had the same problem with a book that B&N showed they had five copies of. They couldn't find those copies anywhere, ordered me one, and when I came to pick it up, they still didn't have any copies on their shelves.

My favourite bookstore is now stocking more hardcovers and trade paperbacks on the shelves, i.e. the expensive ones. I try to avoid buying those. They're also putting more books face-out, which makes everything very eye-catching, but adds up to fewer books in total on the shelves.

*sigh* It used to be, if I needed to kill time in a mall, I just went into the bookstore. There was always enough there to interest me pretty much indefinitely. I think those happy days are passing into history.

Amadan said:

Yeah. I rather like my Nook Glowlight for reading in bed, but frankly I find it easier to read ebooks on my smart phone nowadays. B&N is dying, and will go the way of Borders eventually. The only question is whether sooner or later.

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Depressing, but I can't see much way around it unless they find a new way of doing things and fast. They're just about the last bookstore in my city (aside from a couple of indies that don't impress me overly much), but I haven't been in there for a while. They really don't have much of a book selection anymore (and I have no interest in their calendars, games, chocolates, and children's toys unless it's Christmas and I have to buy a last-minute present for someone).

I have a nook, though I do most of my reading on my ipad now (no idea how people can read on a smart phone--I saute your eyesight). It can read books from any format, so there's really no reason to purchase a special e-reader anymore. I get books from B&N sometimes to try and stop Amazon's inevitable monopoly, but ergh, it just seems hopeless.

I've been less inclined to buy e-books from them lately, since the rumors they're circling the drain. I assume anything I've purchased already will still be on my devices and computers, but when they go under, it won't be possible to re-download one if a file gets corrupted or something. That's the best thing about paper books--you have the thing until it falls apart.

jjdebenedictis said:

*sigh* It used to be, if I needed to kill time in a mall, I just went into the bookstore. There was always enough there to interest me pretty much indefinitely. I think those happy days are passing into history.

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Yes, sadly. Though I can't think of the last time I needed to kill time in a mall. Which, when you think about it, is part of what's driving the decline in chain bookstores.

Roxxsmom said:

Depressing, but I can't see much way around it unless they find a new way of doing things and fast

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I wouldn't hold my breath. A short time ago, I went to purchase a free Nook book from Barnes & Noble, only to find that they'd changed their website. I had to enter my secret credit card code to purchase a free book, in an "improved" process that took three more clicks than the same process on Amazon, not to mention the hassle of digging out my card - all for a purchase where no money actually changed hands. Talk about making things inconvenient for the customer... On top of it, the last time I went in to their brick-and-mortar store to buy a local newspaper, they no longer carried such a thing.

They just don't seem to "get" it, and I see no sign of them wising up, sadly.