Holiday book sales report card

Book sales at Barnes & Noble appear to have done OK over the holidays. Excluding music (which is shifting online to MP3 downloads), same store sales were up just about 1% in Nov-Dec. Online sales were up 11%.

Borders' rebound under new CEO George Jones continues. Same store sales were up 2.4% for Borders, and their Waldenbooks chain posted a 0.2% gain. However, discounting is keeping profits down for the company.

I haven't seen details for Amazon yet, but it was the most visited retail website on Cyber Monday (which follows Black Friday), so one would hope their numbers for the entire holiday period would be strong.