Why everyone in publishing needs a little more BDE, or "Big Daunt Energy"

The guy who saved Barnes & Noble might be a little much in interviews, but the rest of us in book publishing desperately need to pick up the management philosophy he's putting down.

In what I think was a subconscious attempt to avoid the unfathomable horror of the real news this week, I found myself obsessing over two relatively small-potato publishing headlines: the bankruptcy of Tattered Cover, Denver’s storied indie bookstore chain, and the resurgence of Barnes & Noble under James Daunt, the British-born CEO installed by the hedge fund who took over and privatized the chain in 2019.

I think you all should obsess over these stories, too—at least if you work in book publishing. Authors, agents, editors, publishers, salespeople: We all need to understand and internalize what Tattered Cover did wrong and James Daunt’s doing right. Daunt especially has figured out something crucial for all of us hoping to navigate those industry challenges I wrote about the other week. (You know: the ones I think the big 5 are currently handling all wrong.)

No management philosophy solves everything forever, of course; the only thing I’m convinced of is that Daunt’s philosophy on industry navigation is one we all ought to adopt as we meet the challenges of the present. But, like, that’s not nothing.

Before we get to why, though, let me tell you why this tale of two bookstores—Tattered Cover and B&N—drew me in.

The big takeaway from these two stories is easy to remember because it’s so deliciously ironic.