[...] was about vampires. After all, there have been SO many teen vampire romances lately, they’re their own trend. My Boyfriend Is a Monster [...]

It is a tough choice to have to choose between what’s popular and selling, and other material that may not appeal to the majority. Still, it’s sad to see an entire section give way to progress. From what I see coming, though, there may have to be genre bookstores devoted only to teen paranormal. :0p

As for comics, I forgot to mention that my Barnes & Noble is finally selling comics again, and a very large selection, however, they overlap considerably, so that you have to flip through them as if you’re shuffling a deck of cards to see the titles! Frustrating, and not too good for the books themselves.

I can understand your frustration with the art books… frankly, too many of them were made for coffee tables, and not actual reading, and yes, people abused the heck out of them. To my store’s credit, a large Van Gogh book was abused thoroughly, and the store manager offered to sell it to me for 40% off the cover price. I could never have afforded the full price, but that kind of discount on such a beautiful book really made my day.

And a sale. :0)

Like other magazines, the hot titles are faced out on the front row where the entire cover can be seen. Bluewater’s Conan O’Brien bio was one such title, as was the Disney*Pixar Incredibles magazine.

Not much DC, but I expect that’s because of the New 52. I saw Flashpoint #5 and Swamp Thing #1 as the only “New 52″ titles, plus the “final” issues of earlier series, like Secret Six and Wonder Woman.

It’s been like this since June.

The toys and other stuff… there’s a set square footage. That footage has to be exploited. So B&N reduces stuff that’s not selling (like expensive art books) and replaces it with toys and educational material and nook. Accentuate the positive…

Oh, and art books? I hated them when I was in charge of that department. We’d have a display copy, and some … person would want to unwrap a sealed copy just to be sure it was perfect. Plus they get damaged easily, are costly, are difficult to shelve and display…

Oh, and if you think that’s crazy, check out the website. We’re now selling electronics and housewares and Halloween costumes and …

Our toy section now covers nearly a third of the top floor, making me wonder how much longer they’ll be calling themselves book sellers. :0p

The times they are most certainly a changing.

What bothers me is that all the comics they have are weeks OLD! They have for example still Ultimate Fallout #5 and Punisher #1 and they don’t have ANY of the new DC titles. It does not make sense to carry monthly books if you then have only oldies!

From the titles I can make out clearly, probably because they want to make sure they don’t get complaints from parents when little Johnny gets his hands on Deadpool, Wolverine, or Ultimate Captain America.

Kind of like why Borders always used to keep High Times and Heavy Metal up on the top shelf (when there was a Borders). And it looks like there might be some Star Wars and Simpsons titles on the second shelf where kids can grab them.