How Barnes & Noble made a comeback, with CEO James Daunt

About this episode

CEO James Daunt discusses the turnarounds of Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, the impact of AI on bookstores, and the importance of local control.

CEO James Daunt has now rescued two iconic bookstore chains: Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. He joins host Jeff Berman to discuss the turnarounds, plus how bookstores are preparing for an onslaught of AI-written content, his BookTok strategy, and why local control is the key to making great bookstores.  Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

People in this episode

Host: Jeff Berman

Guest: James Daunt

Topics covered

• bookstore turnaround
• AI in publishing
• local control
• BookTok strategy
• Barnes & Noble
• Waterstones

Keywords

• Barnes & Noble
• Waterstones
• James Daunt
• bookstores
• AI-written content
• BookTok
• local control

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, BookTok

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