How Has Barnes & Noble Survived?

I’m sitting in a Barnes & Noble right now (big day out on the town), and every time I walk into one of these, I feel a little like I’m talking to a ghost. I thought this thing was supposed to be dead by now.

As someone who doesn’t follow the ins and outs of the mass retail bookstore industry, I get most of my mass retail bookstore industry impressions from remembering how dramatically Borders failed. That thing went down in flames. The Hindenburg, but full of DVDs. (DVDs flying everywhere; DVDs raining down upon the New Jersey suburbs; DVDs glinting in the summer sun as they, in flames, gave an ominous hint of the destruction awaiting the world in World War II and/or the social media era.)

A quick Google search reveals that despite being a Fortune 1000 company, Barnes & Noble is not public (did not realize the Fortune 50 and 500 and 1000 weren’t tied to stock markets in any way, I’m learning all sorts of things this afternoon), so we don’t know if it’s making a profit or running a loss. It is, though, slowly expanding, and that seems like the pace of expansion you want. Contract, and you’re circling the wagons. Expand quickly, and you’re pumping hydrogen into a 1930s-era rigid blimp.

Evidently, credit for Barnes & Noble’s recent resurgence is that it’s rededicated itself to selling books, cutting out more things that are not books in exchange for books.* Before that, it sounds like it diversified its approach just well enough (Nook, college bookstores, etc.) and shadowed Amazon just well enough (Nook, its website, etc.) to not get run out of business. Sounds a little like when you hide in Yakutsk in Risk, or when someone triples up when you’re down to the big blind at a poker tournament.

Now? People like bookstores. They’re pleasant. I’m in one right now. I could have gone to Starbucks, or to another coffee shop, but I said, “No, that Starbucks runs its air conditioning too cold for my wee muscles (little muscles, not piss muscles), and if I go back to the other coffee shop from this morning I will be the weird guy doing two stints at the same coffee shop.” Also, what if someone took my spot? It was a good spot. I would have to fight them, and even in the best case outcome there, I’d still probably end up back at Barnes & Noble. The classy thing to do after winning a fight at a coffee shop is to leave. Give them some space to clean up all the Stevia and muffin liners.

So, congratulations to Barnes & Noble for not being dead. I’m going to buy a tea from you now. (I wanted to test the wifi before committing.)

*What is the difference, really, between a magazine and a book? Is it a floppiness thing? Is it about how wide the spine is? I tried to define a book just now and I could not distinguish it from a magazine in my definition. The aliens are going to be confused by this. This is how we win.