Certainly, the book biz is undergoing rapid changes these days, with publishers and book merchandisers grappling with the rise of e-books. Still, it’s hard to understand the thinking behind THIS:
Barnes & Noble has confirmed what it is calling "a small number of organizational changes this week" that the retailer said were "designed to better align our resources with our business." The changes appear to be mostly in the buying group. B&N wouldn’t confirm the number or names of people let go, but PW has learned that Bob Wietrak, the well-known v-p of merchandising, and Marcella Smith, director of small press and vendor relations, have left along with a number of buyers, including cookbook buyer Lee Stern. Reports say about 45 to 50 positions in the buying group were eliminated.
How's that again? The nation's largest bookstore chain feels that axing 50 experienced book buyers and publisher liaisons helps it better align to its business?
It was just a few weeks ago that the Borders book chain told major publishers that it would have to delay payments to them, but hey, at least Borders is still talking to publishers. Barnes & Noble seems to be sending the message that they don't even want to talk.
The sudden move sent shock waves through the publishing industry. The same Publishers Weekly article notes that "larger publishers [are] wondering who would oversee merchandising, while smaller presses questioned who would be looking out for their interests."
Book industry newsletter Shelf Awareness had this to say:
The gutting of the buying department with the loss of many longtime, respected buyers who were key parts of the growth of B&N in the past 20 years, seems a drastic and short-sighted move.
Althhough Barnes and Noble has mostly kept mum about the firings, word from publishers indicate that, along with VP of Merchandising Wietrak and Small Press specialist Smith, buyers for cookbooks, mysteries, reference and parenting books have been axed, along with a lot of regional specialists. Publishers Weekly reported that publishers "were waiting last week to hear from B&N about how the duties of those let go—reports said about 50 jobs were eliminated—will be divided up."
The problem is, of course, that years of book experience and dozens of nurtured publishing house contacts cannot simply be 'divided up' and given to others. That's like saying you're firing your nanny, and will be dividing up the childcare duties between the pool boy and the cleaning woman.
The firing of Marcella Smith in particular is sending shudders through small publishing houses. Ms. Smith has been in the book business since the 1970s, and with Barnes & Noble for close to two decades, most of that time as the company's Small Press specialist. The blog Small Press World called her "a strong advocate for integrating great titles from small presses into Barnes & Noble’s catalog." Johnny Temple, president of Akashic Press, said "Marcella has been a fantastic ally for indie presses and it's very sad that she won't be there for us anymore...." W Paul Coates, of Black Classic Press, wrote in a comment to the Publishers weekly article:
Thank you for all the years and all the extra effort you gave to help independent publishers like Black Classic Press and literally thousands more. Thank you for being a friend of small publishers when they had no voice and no one to turn to. and yes thank you for being one of the best representatives B&N ever had.
Florrie Kichler, President of the Independent Book Publishers Association, was even stronger::
Marcella has personally helped thousands of IBPA members and other small presses add their books to Barnes and Noble shelves and her advice, counsel and advocacy will be sorely missed, as will she.
Marcella was more than just a small press advocate-she was a symbol of Barnes and Noble's commitment to the independent publishing community. I'm sure many of you are wondering what the impact of her departure, and the departure of so many Barnes and Noble buyers, means to your community-and your business.
Kichler also told Publishers weekly that Smith had been an "educational resource" for small publishers, offering advice in everything from editorial content to cover design.
This is not an easy time for the publishing and book-selling industries, with the move to digital books growing rapidly while demand for 'dead tree' books stalls. The quick collapse in the number of music stores and video rental stores after those industries began the move to digital must be incredibly unnerving to a book-selling company with some 700 brick-and-mortar stores to maintain. Barnes and Noble seems to have done a creditable job in grabbing a growing portion of the e-book market and in creating an e-reader to rival Amazon's Kindle, but is their focus on the digital causing them to undermine their leadership in the still considerable market for physical books?
Even in these rapidly changing times, it is mystifying that a company would throw away the accumulated experience and connections represented by these several dozen buyers. Indeed, it seems as if Barnes & Noble is throwing away its very competitive advantage.
Perhaps Barnes & Noble feels that the move to digital makes experienced buyers and their personal connections irrelevant. If a publishing house publishes 100 physical book titles in a year, you need someone to review the catalog and make judicious decisions as to which books are worth the cost of warehousing and of shipping out to stores. But hey, if the books are available as digital files, well hell, there's no cost to offering all 100 titles. Then, some computer algorithm can crunch the sales figures and decide which titles to actully ship out in physical form to stores. Voila! No buyers needed!
Cuts in customer service seem to have already eroded the company's self-professed goal of being "the best specialty retail business in America." Employee angst is clearly evidenced in the LiveJournal group bn_booksellers (yes, there is still LiveJournal!), and customer dissatisfaction can be seen on the "Just Others" comments on Barnes & Noble's Facebook Page wall and the website Customer Service Scoreboard. Decimating its merchandising department can only erode trust on the supply side of the equation.
Corporate America too often sees its employees as the first thing to chop when seeking to cut costs, but I would say that a company that throws away its core expertise is a company that is set for a tumble. Just ask Circuit City.
Unfortunately, Barnes and Noble's actions here have ramifications greater than the personal tragedies of so many talented employees callously thrown to the dogs. In this case, it also affects the entire publishing industry, especially for small presses that will have even more difficulties getting their new talent and alternative voices a place in the marketplace.