Barnes & Noble recently lost less money than analysts expected. While this may sound like a strange kind of victory, the main reason why Barnes & Noble made money was through its growing Nook e-book reader and the main reason they lost money was through declining sales through their retail outlets.
If it wasn’t for e-books and their Nook reader, Barnes & Noble’s profits would have looked just as pitiful as Borders Bookstores. The trend is clear. E-books are not only growing in popularity but their ease of distribution makes them far more profitable than any printed book could ever be that requires shipping and storage, not to mention the cost of retail space and the limitations of retail space that’s unable to provide every available book or make it easy to find any one particular book.
E-books are clearly the future and printed books in retail stores are not. Barnes & Noble is surviving mostly through their links with college bookstores, but take away those stores and their regular retail outlets are suffering. E-books are the new MP3 files of the book industry. As time goes on, expect Barnes & Noble to shut down their less profitable retail stores and focus more on e-books and the Nook.