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Tag: barnes and noble

  • $7 Million Shoplifting: One Family Went Wild In Multiple Stores Over Several Years

    It is hard to imagine how one family could go on a $7 million shoplifting spree without being caught first, but somehow the Bogdanov family was able to do it. The family was finally arrested earlier this week at their Northbrook home, a suburb of Chicago.

    The shoplifting by the Bodanov family lasted for over a decade, and they were finally caught after multiple stores including Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us made contact with the secret service with a complaint that described a “huge loss of merchandise.”

    Branko Bogdanov, 58, Lela Bogdanov, 52, and their 34-year-old daughter, Julia Bogdanov, are charged with one count each of interstate transportation of stolen property. They made their initial appearances in court on Wednesday in Chicago, but did not enter pleas. They will remain in detention at least until their hearing next week, which will determine who much time they will each serve.

    Lela Bogdanov was able to conceal many of the items that she stole in her clothes, and she would often wear and long skirt with an inner lining that could hide several items.

    After leaving from their home in Chicago, the three hit business around the country that included Maryland, Tennessee, and Florida. Their big loot is said to have contained a variety of items including toys, dolls, cosmetics, and other valuables.

    During the $7 million shoplifting spree, the family would collect all sorts of items that they did not plan to use themselves, and took them to eBay to sell the merchandise for cash. On their own, the Bogdanov family sold more than $690,000 in merchandise through eBay.

    In addition to their sales on eBay, they had help from another unnamed cooperating witness, who bought items from them at their home. Years later, authorities traced stolen items to the online trading account of the cooperating witnesses, who, in turn, agreed to help in the investigation of the Bogdanovs.

    A conviction of interstate transportation of stolen property, the crime that the Bogdanov family has been charged with, can carry a sentence of up to 10 years. How did they keep it going for such a long time before getting caught?

    Image via Youtube

  • Lexington, Kentucky Has the Most Kindle Readers

    Amazon, who commands 55 to 60% of the e-book market, has been in the news as of late concerning its potential involvement behind a Justice Department lawsuit against other e-book suppliers, like Apple and Penguin, for price gouging. If all goes as planned, Amazon will be back to selling new e-book releases for $9.99 without any hassle, which leads to another interesting figure – Lexington, Kentucky has been named the most e-literate city in the United States, according to The Atlantic.

    A survey analyzed data from Priceonomics, regarding how many Amazon Kindles and Barnes and Noble Nooks (which essentially make up the e-book market in its entirety) were sold across the nation – and the results were surprising, in that the largest metropolitan areas of the country didn’t make up the top on the list. Coming in at #1 is Lexington, with a population of roughly 296,000.

    amazon kindle sales

    Chicago was fairly low on the list, and it would appear than there aren’t many people reading in Fresno. The study also showed that cities with a better climate had less readers, and that level of education didn’t seem to play much of a role in e-book readership.

    The data is interesting, as one might wonder when there could be time for all of the e-bookery in Lexington – the city recently lost its collective mind as the University of Kentucky Wildcats were getting close to winning NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship this year. One has to be from Lexington to truly understand the true depth of March Madness in the area. National headlines were made with overturned cars being torched, trees “being broke,” people being shot, etc. Besides the amount of e-books being read, the majority of cities in the U.S. also likely don’t have so many horses running through their neighborhoods:

    lexington, kentucky

    Ah, Lexington. What did Mel Gibson’s William Wallace mention in Braveheart? Something about warrior poets?

    Or, Lexington is a college town. The stats make sense, and Ann Arbor and Madison are also high on the list.

  • Amazon Moves Towards E-Book Non-Exclusivity

    James Atlas will be selling a series of short (25,000-40,000 words long) biographies for Amazon called “Amazon Lives.” He will buy and edit at least 12 of them. Aside from the Kindle Store, these books will be sold through eTail “[…] in all formats.”

    In addition to working for Amazon, James manages Atlas & Co., an independent publishing company, but he will no longer publish new titles there.

    The New York Times reports that the first title will be published in June 2013.

    Amazon’s move to e-book non-exclusivity might change Barnes & Noble’s decision not to carry print versions of Amazon Publishing titles.

    E-books are becoming more popular and available. Many libraries and colleges are lending e-readers and building their e-books collections. Kindle Owners’ Lending Library now offers more than 100,000 titles and anyone who owns a Kindle and an Amazon Plus membership can download one book a month for free.

    Joe Lansdale, author of the “Hap and Leonard” stories discussed how he believed e-books would impact the prevalence of real books in an exclusive Q&A with WebProNews writer Chris Crum. In a recent Facebook update, Lansdale said, “I think there will always be real books, but they are going to be a smaller, and probably more collector type of market. Some publishers are even considering moving that way more and more, so this could be good for small presses, as far as real books go.” Lansdale also said that some of the growth of e-books can be attributed to people’s lack of desire to have books laying around in their homes, collecting dust and taking up space.

    Despite e-book innovation, many people believe that real books will always have their place in the world.

  • New Nook Tablet Set For February 22nd Launch?

    Despite making hardware of comparable quality and price for years, Barnes & Noble’s line of Nook readers and tablets has been hard-pressed to compete with Amazon’s Kindle devices. Though the original Nook Tablet launched only 2 days behind the Kindle Fire, it has not been seen as a significant competitor. Part of the reason for this has been the Nook Tablet’s somewhat higher price tag ($249 as opposed to $199).

    Now it looks like Barnes and Noble might be preparing to release a tablet that competes with the Kindle Fire more directly. There were hints last month that a new model of Nook Tablet was in the works. Now The Verge has gotten hold of a document from Walmart detailing the February 22nd launch of a Nook Tablet with half the storage – 8 GB, to match the Kindle Fire. The document (picture below, courtesy of The Verge), provides instructions to Walmart for what to do with the shipments that are apparently already arriving at their stores. The tablet is apparently scheduled to launch at 12:01 on Wednesday, February 22, with shipments apparently reaching stores via truck starting on Saturday the 18th, and running through Tuesday the 21st. There is no pricing information on the Nook Tablet, but given the halved internal storage and the need to compete directly with the Kindle Fire, we can probably expect a drop of at least $50, and probably more.

    Nook Tablet Coming Soon To Walmart?

    With just two days until the (apparent) launch, look for more information to be available very soon. No formal announcement has been made – or even hinted at – by Barnes & Noble, but we should expect one on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

    What do you think? Would you buy a Nook Tablet instead of a Kindle Fire if the price is right? Sound off in the comments.

  • Amazon Preparing To Launch A Retail Store?

    Amazon Preparing To Launch A Retail Store?

    Amazon may be preparing to launch its very own retail store, according to a recent report. The company is apparently planning to launch a single store in Seattle, Washington, where Amazon is headquartered, sometime in the next few months. Amazon would use the store as a test case to determine whether a larger retail chain could be profitable.

    Citing “sources close to the situation” Michael Kozlowski of Good E Reader says that Amazon has contracted the design through a shell company in order to maintain secrecy. The Amazon store would specialize in higher-end items and books published through Amazon’s own recently launched publishing division.

    If it works, Amazon’s entrance into the retail store business could significantly intensify the company’s ongoing rivalry with brick-and-mortar retailers, most notably Barnes & Noble. With the collapse of Borders last year, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million stand as the last nationwide book retail chains. Competition with Amazon has severely impacted the traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore. Even as Barnes and Noble prepares a new Nook device to keep up with Amazon’s Kindle Fire, the company has also announced that it would shun books from Amazon’s publishing arm.

    What do you think? Is a retail store the right direction for Amazon, or should they stick to the online model that has worked so well for them until now? Sound off in the comments.

  • Barnes & Noble Preparing New Nook

    Barnes & Noble Preparing New Nook

    In its bid to stay competitive with Amazon, Barnes and Noble appears to be preparing a new addition to their line of Nook readers and tablets. According to a recent report, the company’s engineers are preparing the new device for a release sometime this spring.

    There are almost no details on the device, which was mentioned in a piece in the New York Times on the company’s bid to keep itself alive as the last nationwide brick-and-mortar book retailer. In all likelihood it is either an update to the Nook Tablet or a new e-ink reader, possibly featuring a color display like the one featured at CES earlier this month.

    The financial collapse of Borders this year left Barnes and Noble standing alone – though not necessarily triumphant – as the last of the great brick-and-mortar bookstores. The company has remained competitive thanks in large part to its entrance into the e-reader market with the Nook line of devices. The original Nook launched a few months after Amazon released their second generation Kindle e-reader. It featured an e-ink book display and a touch screen navigation interface, seen by many as superior to the Kindle’s physical keyboard. Later they beat Amazon into the tablet market by a considerable margin with the launch of the Nook Color and then the Nook Tablet. Despite generally positive reviews and a significant head start, the Nook Tablet has not managed the same level of popularity as Amazon’s own tablet, the Kindle Fire, which released late last year.

    It will be interesting to see what Barnes and Noble has in store with its next Nook device. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

  • Barnes and Noble’s “No Name-Calling Month”

    Barnes and Noble joined with GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, to organize what was formerly referred to as “No Name – Calling Week” (which has been held for one week in January in past years), and upgrading the event to, “No Name – Calling Month”.

    Mary Amicucci, the vice president of Children’s Books for Barnes and Noble, explains, “Bringing awareness to the seriousness and severity of name-calling, teasing, bullying and cyber bullying is very important to Barnes & Noble. We’re pleased to be partnering with Simon & Schuster and GLSEN for such an important effort”.

    Unfortunately, it was only last night when yet another American teen died in a circumstance shrouded by bully- related afflictions. Amanda Cummings of Staten Island is reported to have lost her life by jumping in front of a moving bus in the evening hours earlier last week. The fifteen year old was found with a suicide note in her pocket, and enough evidence exists to suggest that her distress is the result of the relentless torment she received from classmates.

    No Name-Calling Week is yet another effort entwined in the highly publicized Anti – Bullying Movement, that has kept the Nation more aware of the hardships faced by our younger citizens. Barnes and Noble reiterates the importance of these efforts at a time that may come as some comfort to the family of Amanda Cummings and has gracious added on more weeks.