Hey Wasp, you made Analog..

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
as much as some 5 star Amazon reviews in these later days, but:

http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

[David DeLaney]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

dear diary:
to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry
Austin appears.

Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.

dave

[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ... because it also appears that their in-store database has NO way
to look up or sort books based on when they were delivered to the store and, in
a feat of accounting I find highly questionable, they also somehow do not
retain any _invoices_ that come with said deliveries anywhere the store folks
can get to them. The command means that new arrivals are now ... sorted in, in
alphabetical order, wherever they happen to go in a section that's three and
a half entire full shelves long. This is EXTREMELY sub-optimal for both finding
books that weren't there last week, and finding books you didn't know were
coming out.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps.

Excellent! I hope you enjoy it!


Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry

Post by David DeLaney
Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.

And I should note that he *requested* that particular demise.

Post by David DeLaney
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ... because it also appears that their in-store database has NO way
to look up or sort books based on when they were delivered to the store and, in
a feat of accounting I find highly questionable, they also somehow do not
retain any _invoices_ that come with said deliveries anywhere the store folks
can get to them. The command means that new arrivals are now ... sorted in, in
alphabetical order, wherever they happen to go in a section that's three and
a half entire full shelves long. This is EXTREMELY sub-optimal for both finding
books that weren't there last week, and finding books you didn't know were
coming out.

[Robert Woodward]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry
Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent in the
Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was chain wide. I
suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed that the new book
sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space per genre and had them
eliminated to give floor space to toys and silly games. Next year's
stroke of "genius," after noticing a big drop in book sales, will be to
cut back on books (which will be as successful as when it was done at
Borders).

My frustration was alleviated by the fact that each month I have been
preparing a list of new books for that month (by way of Locus's lists of
forthcoming titles).

[Kevrob]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry
Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent in the
Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was chain wide. I
suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed that the new book
sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space per genre and had them
eliminated to give floor space to toys and silly games. Next year's
stroke of "genius," after noticing a big drop in book sales, will be to
cut back on books (which will be as successful as when it was done at
Borders).
My frustration was alleviated by the fact that each month I have been
preparing a list of new books for that month (by way of Locus's lists of
forthcoming titles).

Did the stores in question include SF/F titles in end-cap or
table displays nearby, to replace the "new arrivals" section?
Are they sprinkled into a new arrivals area elsewhere in the
store?

Ne items are usually the ones for which there is decent stock,
leading to face-outs (full cover display) in the sections.
If it were me merchandising the section, I'd want to place
"new arrivals" shelf-talkers* under the newly displayed
title, if there were no new arrival shelf in the section.
That takes up no more room.

Kevin R

(Ex-bookseller - 13 years past, now, not counting "relapses!")


* http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/shelf-talker.html

[David DeLaney]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent in the
Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was chain wide. I
suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed that the new book
sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space per genre and had them
eliminated to give floor space to toys and silly games. Next year's
stroke of "genius," after noticing a big drop in book sales, will be to
cut back on books (which will be as successful as when it was done at
Borders).
My frustration was alleviated by the fact that each month I have been
preparing a list of new books for that month (by way of Locus's lists of
forthcoming titles).

Did the stores in question include SF/F titles in end-cap or
table displays nearby, to replace the "new arrivals" section?
Are they sprinkled into a new arrivals area elsewhere in the
store?

A couple, and a couple, and for the former they're long since not "new", they
just have one theme per endcap.

The table displays for New Arrivals (Hardback) and Bestsellers and New Arrivals
(Trade Paperback) serve _the entire bookstore's worth_ of genres and categories
- they don't have ROOM up there for tables with an SF/F specilization plus a
romance one plus a mystery one plus a science one plus a biography one plus a
"general fiction that's not any actual genre" one plus a literature one plus...

So you get maybe one, maybe three F/SF books that have come out in the last
month or two there. This is not what is needed at all.

Similarly, the one (1) carousel that carries new paperbacks (and those
abominations, new Very Small Trade Paperbacks), and the one carousel that
carries thrillers-and-series-&c., serve romance and westerns and thrillers and
horror and ... The former usually has several F/SF entries -- from the last
month or two. The latter may have an entire small subsection of Diana Paxson's
Outlander series, and one Kevin Hearne book, not necessarily the latest, and a
few Star Wars-universe novels, for example; I look at it only because
occasionally it DOES have a lone new paperback.

Put all together, these are no substitute for several shelf-sections' worth
of "these have come in over the last few weeks or a month" that the New
Arrivals section specific to a given genre was.

For example: one Ryk Spoor's latest trade paperback, new out this week and I
didn't know it was coming? NOT up front anywhere at all. Filed, in I think one
copy, under the 'Sp' position in the F/SF section.

Thus my comment about having to take the time to look at -EVERY SINGLE
FUCKING you should excuse the expression Dorothy BOOK THERE- on Sunday. It's
the ONLY way now to catch whatever has come out since the last time I was there
and been filed in alphabetically. I don't mind doing this for Humor / Comic
Strips And Cartoons subsection, cuz that fits all on one shelf section; I am
very miffed that I'm being forced to do all the extra work in F/SF that B&N
had been providing as a service this past decade or so.

Post by Kevrob
Ne items are usually the ones for which there is decent stock,

Heh. No, that's new ones _by popular authors_ and _in best-selling series_ and
_being promoted specifically by the publisher this week_. I have a -reason- I
visit every week for books: because it's poissible to miss a book entirely if
I wait much longer, if there were only one or two and it doesn't get reordered.

Post by Kevrob
That takes up no more room.

This last is a really important point in this: dissolving New Arrivals doesn't
_save_ shelf space in any way. The books still have to go somewhere. And it
still takes employee time and effort to put them wherever they are to go.

Dave, i have not expressed my disappointment to my brother, who with his wife
runs Rediscovered Books in Boise, but i feel he would be in violent agreement

[Kevrob]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Kevrob

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in the upper
management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that the Knoxville store, at
least, was henceforth Not Allowed to have New Arrivals subsections in any of
the genre sections, including the one I care about and frequent every week.
This has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the store
greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent in the
Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was chain wide. I
suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed that the new book
sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space per genre and had them
eliminated to give floor space to toys and silly games. Next year's
stroke of "genius," after noticing a big drop in book sales, will be to
cut back on books (which will be as successful as when it was done at
Borders).
My frustration was alleviated by the fact that each month I have been
preparing a list of new books for that month (by way of Locus's lists of
forthcoming titles).

Did the stores in question include SF/F titles in end-cap or
table displays nearby, to replace the "new arrivals" section?
Are they sprinkled into a new arrivals area elsewhere in the
store?

A couple, and a couple, and for the former they're long since not "new", they
just have one theme per endcap.
The table displays for New Arrivals (Hardback) and Bestsellers and New Arrivals
(Trade Paperback) serve _the entire bookstore's worth_ of genres and categories
- they don't have ROOM up there for tables with an SF/F specilization plus a
romance one plus a mystery one plus a science one plus a biography one plus a
"general fiction that's not any actual genre" one plus a literature one plus...
So you get maybe one, maybe three F/SF books that have come out in the last
month or two there. This is not what is needed at all.
Similarly, the one (1) carousel that carries new paperbacks (and those
abominations, new Very Small Trade Paperbacks), and the one carousel that
carries thrillers-and-series-&c., serve romance and westerns and thrillers and
horror and ... The former usually has several F/SF entries -- from the last
month or two. The latter may have an entire small subsection of Diana Paxson's
Outlander series, and one Kevin Hearne book, not necessarily the latest, and a
few Star Wars-universe novels, for example; I look at it only because
occasionally it DOES have a lone new paperback.
Put all together, these are no substitute for several shelf-sections' worth
of "these have come in over the last few weeks or a month" that the New
Arrivals section specific to a given genre was.
For example: one Ryk Spoor's latest trade paperback, new out this week and I
didn't know it was coming? NOT up front anywhere at all. Filed, in I think one
copy, under the 'Sp' position in the F/SF section.
Thus my comment about having to take the time to look at -EVERY SINGLE
FUCKING you should excuse the expression Dorothy BOOK THERE- on Sunday. It's
the ONLY way now to catch whatever has come out since the last time I was there
and been filed in alphabetically. I don't mind doing this for Humor / Comic
Strips And Cartoons subsection, cuz that fits all on one shelf section; I am
very miffed that I'm being forced to do all the extra work in F/SF that B&N
had been providing as a service this past decade or so.

Post by Kevrob
New items are usually the ones for which there is decent stock,

Heh. No, that's new ones _by popular authors_ and _in best-selling series_ and
_being promoted specifically by the publisher this week_. I have a -reason- I
visit every week for books: because it's poissible to miss a book entirely if
I wait much longer, if there were only one or two and it doesn't get reordered.

Post by Kevrob
That takes up no more room.

This last is a really important point in this: dissolving New Arrivals doesn't
_save_ shelf space in any way. The books still have to go somewhere. And it
still takes employee time and effort to put them wherever they are to go.

I never worked for B&N, but I did spend 7 years with B Dalton,
prior to their absorption by Riggio's outfit. It used to drive me
nuts when corporate would order plenty of stock for new titles that
sold, but lay in the 90% area of a Sturgeon's Law Venn diagram.
You'd want to "face out" the good stuff, but like as not, there
wasn't enough to justify anything but a spine-out display. The
carrels usually had a shelf or two set up for oversize books, and
this in a period (Late 70s to mid-80s) when almost all the SF/F
stocked was MMPB. BDB ordering new hardcovers and/or trade paperbacks
was an event in that section.

I had a better time displaying for an independent I worked with
for the following 18years, but I spent most of that time doing
off-floor duties, such as special orders, wholesaler reorders
and various other inventory duties. That gave me a little leeway
in reordering sold-out titles, but they had to turn, or I'd
catch hell. The owner and some of his assistants did the front-list
and back-list buying from the publishers. The owner didn't read nor
understand SF or fantasy, unless it came labeled "Borges" or "Atwood."
A competing independent did a much better job, but they went under
years before we did, so it was hard to argue for more stock. "It
doesn't sell," he'd say. "It's Say's Law," I'd retort. "Nobody
comes here to buy it, because they've gone away empty-handed too
many times!"

I imagine that store manager is stuck with what is known as a "Planogram."*
The Dalton General office in Minneapolis distributed a display chart weekly.
It designated display areas in the store the manager had to use for various titles, where the publisher-supplied displays had to go, and the company-
supplied signs. There was very little deviation from The Plan.

These days they get that info sent digitally, rather than sent on
paper via snailmail or an express service.

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, i have not expressed my disappointment to my brother, who with his wife
runs Rediscovered Books in Boise, but i feel he would be in violent agreement
--

You'd be better off checking for "new arrivals" by calling up titles
on your phone or tablet and asking someone at the special order
desk if they are in stock!

Kevin R

[David DeLaney]

Post by Kevrob
You'd be better off checking for "new arrivals" by calling up titles
on your phone or tablet and asking someone at the special order
desk if they are in stock!

Which doesn't help if I don't know a book is coming out, or if I don't even
know it, or its author, exist.

Dave, and yes they have a website. It has a Fatal Flaw, alas.

[Kevrob]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Kevrob
You'd be better off checking for "new arrivals" by calling up titles
on your phone or tablet and asking someone at the special order
desk if they are in stock!

Which doesn't help if I don't know a book is coming out, or if I don't even
know it, or its author, exist.
Dave, and yes they have a website. It has a Fatal Flaw, alas.

I was thinking more along the lines of calling up
Amazon's sf new arrivals page.

This is the opposite of what some shoppers did when Amazon
was fairly new; browse a brick and mortar store making records
of ISBNs, then order everything not discounted from the online
source at the better price.

Kevin R

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's
worth as much as some 5 star Amazon reviews in these later
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-libra
ry/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book
in the F/SF section [*] and came away with two books, one of
which was Challenges of the Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but
I have gotten to the point where Terry Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in
the upper management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that
the Knoxville store, at least, was henceforth Not Allowed to
have New Arrivals subsections in any of the genre sections,
including the one I care about and frequent every week. This
has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the
store greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent
in the Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was
chain wide. I suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed
that the new book sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space
per genre and had them eliminated to give floor space to toys
and silly games. Next year's stroke of "genius," after noticing
a big drop in book sales, will be to cut back on books (which
will be as successful as when it was done at Borders).

Book sales are *already* way off, compared to their glory days.
That's why they're transition to Barnes & Noble Everything But
Books Store.

I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.

I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's
worth as much as some 5 star Amazon reviews in these later
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-libra
ry/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book
in the F/SF section [*] and came away with two books, one of
which was Challenges of the Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but
I have gotten to the point where Terry Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in
the upper management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that
the Knoxville store, at least, was henceforth Not Allowed to
have New Arrivals subsections in any of the genre sections,
including the one I care about and frequent every week. This
has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with the
store greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent
in the Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it was
chain wide. I suspect that some "genius" in headquarters noticed
that the new book sections were using 30-60 feet of shelf space
per genre and had them eliminated to give floor space to toys
and silly games. Next year's stroke of "genius," after noticing
a big drop in book sales, will be to cut back on books (which
will be as successful as when it was done at Borders).

Book sales are *already* way off, compared to their glory days.
That's why they're transition to Barnes & Noble Everything But
Books Store.
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.

Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

Couldn't do it, at least without devoting vacation time to it, and
had to re-buy my next book from B&N. And then buy my *next* book
from B&N the first time -- and ended up with 3 or 4 epubs in the
nook *somewhere* I didn't want to re-buy when I replaced my kindle
(which I did as soon as I got home).

I ended up having to root the darn thing, run a local shell, copy
the files out with adb or whatever and then grab an sqlite3 file
which I had to put on linux and extract the encryption key with
manual sql commands.

Needless to say, I haven't used the nook since..

[Scott Lurndal]

[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory thereof).

B&N lost my business as well when they removed the download link from
the on-line store.

[James Nicoll]

Post by Scott Lurndal
[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory thereof).
B&N lost my business as well when they removed the download link from
the on-line store.

Kobos are similarly easy to use. The Kobo store, on the other hand, has
the worst search engine I have ever rage-quit more than once.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Scott Lurndal
[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on
your purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did
this at a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+
from Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do
I care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind
spot of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a
hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless
on vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in
local retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I
was going to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from
my laptop as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on
kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory
thereof).

The Nook app for a standard tablet has an import function, that
remembers where the last import was done from (which is in the
Calibre library folder).

Post by Scott Lurndal
B&N lost my business as well when they removed the download link
from the on-line store.

They lost mine when they started playing games with encryption
keys, which was a few weeks after they lost you.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Scott Lurndal
[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory thereof).

I think I couldn't do that from my FreeBSD laptop because they don't
use USB mass-storage + FAT, but instead use one of the digital
camera file transfer protocols. That was my conclusion after a few
hours of hotel-room frustration and google anyway.

Post by Scott Lurndal
B&N lost my business as well when they removed the download link from
the on-line store.

That was dead stupid. You're a distant #2, so make things harder than the
#1 guys do..

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Scott Lurndal
[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory thereof).

I think I couldn't do that from my FreeBSD laptop because they don't
use USB mass-storage + FAT, but instead use one of the digital
camera file transfer protocols. That was my conclusion after a few
hours of hotel-room frustration and google anyway.

The simple-touch presents two mass storage devices on linux - one for the
inbuilt-flash and one for the SD card that I've added.

Bus 001 Device 069: ID 2080:0003 Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch
Device Descriptor:

idVendor 0x2080 Barnes & Noble
idProduct 0x0003 NOOK Simple Touch
bcdDevice 2.16
iManufacturer 1 B&N
iProduct 2 NOOK

Interface Descriptor:

bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI
bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk-Only
iInterface 0
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN

Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Scott Lurndal
[snip]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on your
purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did this at
a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+ from
Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind spot
of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless on
vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in local
retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I was going
to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from my laptop
as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on kindle.

It's easy-peasy on the Nook, as well (at least on both of my
simple touch models). Simply attach your USB cable and copy
epubs to the My\ Files/books/ directory (or a subdirectory thereof).

I think I couldn't do that from my FreeBSD laptop because they don't
use USB mass-storage + FAT, but instead use one of the digital
camera file transfer protocols. That was my conclusion after a few
hours of hotel-room frustration and google anyway.

The simple-touch presents two mass storage devices on linux - one for the
inbuilt-flash and one for the SD card that I've added.
Bus 001 Device 069: ID 2080:0003 Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch
idVendor 0x2080 Barnes & Noble
idProduct 0x0003 NOOK Simple Touch
bcdDevice 2.16
iManufacturer 1 B&N
iProduct 2 NOOK
bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI
bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk-Only
iInterface 0
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT

Mine is the GlowLight Plus which is actually Android underneath.
A quick google now suggests it uses the MTP protocol, which took me
much longer to find out when I didn't know I was looking for it.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that
it's worth as much as some 5 star Amazon reviews in these
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-lib
ra ry/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book
in the F/SF section [*] and came away with two books, one of
which was Challenges of the Deeps. Then I had a work shift,
but I have gotten to the point where Terry Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave
[*] as you know bob, about two months ago some utter IDIOT in
the upper management of Barnes & Noble gave the command that
the Knoxville store, at least, was henceforth Not Allowed to
have New Arrivals subsections in any of the genre sections,
including the one I care about and frequent every week. This
has raised my stress and frustration level in dealing with
the store greatly ...

This also happened in the 2 Barnes and Noble stores I frequent
in the Seattle area, which is good reason to suspect that it
was chain wide. I suspect that some "genius" in headquarters
noticed that the new book sections were using 30-60 feet of
shelf space per genre and had them eliminated to give floor
space to toys and silly games. Next year's stroke of "genius,"
after noticing a big drop in book sales, will be to cut back
on books (which will be as successful as when it was done at
Borders).

Book sales are *already* way off, compared to their glory days.
That's why they're transition to Barnes & Noble Everything But
Books Store.
I stopped doing business with them when they became actively
hostile to their ebook customers (which was the most profitable
category of book sales at the time), making it as impossible as
they could to keep archival copies. The only backup you had on
your purchases was to rely on B&N to stay in business. They did
this at a time, when it was publicly announced that only $100+
from Microsoft had kept their doors open.
I have no idea if they've come to their senses on this, nor do I
care.

I know that as of about a year ago, I left my kindle on a blind
spot of my car while I was loading the trunk getting out of a
hotel.
Naturally, it fell off, somewhere, and I was suddenly bookless
on vacation, practically afwtd. I couldn't find a new kindle in
local retail and picked up a an e-ink Nook at the local B&N. I
was going to use Calibre and copy my strategic book reserve from
my laptop as epubs. Should be easy, right? Easy-peasy on
kindle.
Couldn't do it, at least without devoting vacation time to it,
and had to re-buy my next book from B&N. And then buy my *next*
book from B&N the first time -- and ended up with 3 or 4 epubs
in the nook *somewhere* I didn't want to re-buy when I replaced
my kindle (which I did as soon as I got home).
I ended up having to root the darn thing, run a local shell,
copy the files out with adb or whatever and then grab an sqlite3
file which I had to put on linux and extract the encryption key
with manual sql commands.
Needless to say, I haven't used the nook since..

That's superior to when I abandoned their sorry asses. Removing the
"download" button from the web site account was offensive enough,
but they were reduced to playing games with encryption keys, I
believe with a unique key for each book, and everything they
possibly could think of to hide it. I believe Apprentice Alf could
still deal with it, but only if you could find it.

Meanwhile, Kindle for desktop always downloads to the same
directory, with the key file (I think it is) right beside it, and
Apprentice Alf completely automates the whole process. And Calibre
does an excellent job of conversion to .epub (because I actually
still use the Nook app on my table, being used to the interface).

Screw B&N. They only want to rent books to stupid people.
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's
worth as much as some 5 star Amazon reviews in these later
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library
/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in
the F/SF section [*] and came away with two books, one of which
was Challenges of the Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have
gotten to the point where Terry Austin appears.

The red shirt appearance was a reward from Ryk's Polychrome
Kickstarter, which I backed to a high level because I really wanted
to see the Bob Eggleton cover.

Post by David DeLaney
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.

It wasn't *exactly* what I had envisioned, but I told him that he was
the writer, and to handle it how he saw fit. I wholeheartedly approve
of how Ryk handled it. That is, perhaps, the best money I ever
overspent on a book. :)
--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry
Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave

Impaled on a usenet server cable ?

Slow starvation while making sure that all of the people on the internet are corrected ?
https://xkcd.com/386/

Lynn

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Not that you don't doubtless already know, and not that it's worth
http://www.analogsf.com/current-issue/the-reference-library/

to-day I spent an hour in the bookstore looking at every book in the F/SF
section [*] and came away with two books, one of which was Challenges of the
Deeps. Then I had a work shift, but I have gotten to the point where Terry
Austin appears.
Don't worry, r.a.sf.w - he dies doing what he loves best.
dave

Impaled on a usenet server cable ?
Slow starvation while making sure that all of the people on the internet are corrected ?
https://xkcd.com/386/
Lynn

Not corrected. Misled. Austin is one of the
biggest, by which I mean fattest, mislers that
I have personal communication with.