Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free
nytimes.com
Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free
The inspiration for the book shop I found myself in is Morioka Shoten, “a single room with a single book” store, in Tokyo. It sells only one book. More precisely, it sells multiple copies of one title that changes weekly, with a small book-inspired art exhibition. It has spawned a network of similar book stores all around the world.
The turnaround has delivered remarkable results. Barnes & Noble opened 16 new bookstores in 2022, and now will double that pace of openings in 2023. In a year of collapsing digital platforms, this 136-year-old purveyor of print media is enjoying boom times.
Ted Gioia • What Can We Learn From Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?
Daunt refused to play this game. He wanted to put the best books in the window. He wanted to display the most exciting books by the front door. Even more amazing, he let the people working in the stores make these decisions.
This is James Daunt’s super power: He loves books.
Ted Gioia • What Can We Learn From Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?
Daunt also refused to dumb-down the store offerings. The key challenge, he claimed was to “create an environment that’s intellectually satisfying—and not in a snobbish way, but in the sense of feeding your mind.”