From: Christopher Browne Date: 2002-04-14T10:19:59+09:00 Subject: Re: Barnes & Noble putting on the squeeze Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw when james@rubyxml.com would write: >> A few weeks ago I was in Borders and they had the Pickaxe, Ruby in a >> Nutshell and The Ruby Way. >> >> Of course for those of us fortunate enough to live close to downtown >> Portland, Oregon there's Powell's Technical Books - I was in there last >> week and they had copies of all of the Ruby books forsale. (the >> above list >> + "Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 days" and "Ruby Developer's Guide".) >> >> It seems more like it would have made more sense for the .NET books >> to have eaten into the Java section... >> >> Unfortuneatly, I'm not sure that complaining to a B&N store clerk >> that they have no Ruby books will do any good since they are a >> national chain and decisions like this are probably made in their >> corporate headquarters. > > Well, the B&N down the block from me has a sizable "southwest" section, but > then, I live in Arizona. I suspect they set aside space for various local > interests. Now, whether geeks constitute a significant interest group is > another matter. What gets concentrated on varies a surprising amount; I've seen quite a bit of variance at different B&N locations even within a geographic area. Some have bigger computer book sections; others smaller. Borders always seems better, mind you, as far as computer book selection goes, and it's easier to vote with the feet that way. All being said, the more sensible approach might be to go over the locals' heads. Send a letter _via mail_ to the B&N "central/corporate" location, asking the marketing department why there's not more of "Foo." If they notice that: a) People actually are buying what Ruby books are on the shelves, and b) Various people are asking about Ruby books, that might lead to them thinking about stocking more of it. -- (concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@canada.com") http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/scripting.html Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?