The Bookseller 150 is sponsored by Mosaic Executive Search
James Daunt Waterstones/Barnes & Noble Managing director/C.e.o.
Green Ever
This side of Jeff Bezos, there is probably no one with a bigger role in global books retailing than our
Bookseller 151st, James Daunt. He, of course, has led the UK’s premier bricks-and-mortar books chain, and now will be spending much of his time in the US, attempting to reverse the fortunes of ailing Barnes & Noble. Daunt also becomes the first person to win our de facto Person of the Year award twice, after being given the honour early in his Waterstones tenure. The American task is, of course,
monumental. B&N has a massive footprint, with sales of $3.7bn in 2018. But that is an eye-watering 20% drop (-$1bn) on where the retailer was just four years previ- ously. B&N’s troubles are complex, long-gestating and have been much-discussed across the pond, but they can perhaps be summed up by having had various leadership regimes who have scratched their head for the past 20 years, wonder- ing what to do with Amazon—and who, when they decided on a strategic shift, acted a couple of years too late. Daunt has said his initial
approach would be similar to when he took over at Waterstones, telling The Bookseller earlier this year that the plan was to invest in the bookshops and “manage through the people already there”. He added: “There were very good people within Waterstones when I arrived, and I would expect there to be people of similar capabilities within Barnes & Noble. My job will be to empower them and set them on the right route.” He laid out some of his strategy
for his plans in a keynote at the FutureBook Live conference a couple of weeks ago, saying that the retailer must avoid being “boring” and apply a “bookseller’s mind” to data if B&N wanted to survive in an era dominated by Amazon. He added: “I now arrive at Barnes & Noble, where they’ve had a loyalty programme forever and a day. And yet, if you walk into any of the Barnes & Noble bookstores, they are the most crucifyingly boring stores. Which is odd, because they know what people want, they have all this data
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and yet they can’t interpret it and they’ve been unable to manipulate that knowledge to in any way deliver decent bookstores to people.” Daunt’s greatest achievement
for both Waterstones and B&N may be convincing Elliott Advisors—the retailers’ private equity owner is not exactly famed for patience with investments—of the soundness in backing bricks-and-mortar booksell- ing. Or, at the very least, Elliott’s UK boss Paul Best may have simply been convinced by the handling of Waterstones that B&N would be a decent horse to back with Daunt in the saddle.
Going stateside There will be many in the UK who will wish B&N very well, but are far more concerned that Waterstones’ will continue to thrive—and that having a distracted boss might take away from its performance. But, as Daunt has pointed out, a lot of his time had been taken up with working with Elliott on the B&N buy, and he passed a lot of his duties over to his talented second-in- command, chief operating officer Kate Skipper. There have been difficulties
over the course of this year, not least a staff revolt over low pay and subsequent run of bad publicity, which Daunt was able to quell. But 2019 has also shown once again how powerful the retailer can be. Take the massive, out-of nowhere hit that is Charlie Macksey’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Ebury). Waterstones took ownership of the title, promoted it heavily from its publication, with sales skyrocketing when it was made Waterstones Book of the Year. In its first week of sales after its win, it shifted 54,000 units,
and it has just surpassed 200,000 copies sold since publication. Ebury m.d. Joel Rickett praised
Waterstones’ handling of the title to The Bookseller earlier this week, flagging up the retailer’s commit- ment long before it won the award. He said: “The moment it really went big was when Waterstones said it would do a signed special edition. We said we would do about 2,000, and then Waterstones sold out in two hours, so we did another 5,000.”
Daunt’s greatest achievement may be convincing Elliott Advisors of the soundness in backing bricks-and-mortar bookselling
This is Daunt’s Waterstones—
and perhaps future B&N—in a nutshell. Having the ability—and cojones—to take a punt on a less- than-obvious book, to take owner- ship of it. The cumulative effect is that the shopping experience of a chain bookseller can seem more like that of a local independent. The Daunt Waterstones
resurgence has not been perfect or without hiccups—indie store owners’ ire at the chain’s “unbranded” shops comes quickly to mind—but it has been essential to the UK trade. And it’s certainly not been boring.
Text Tom Tivnan
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