Overview of Better in Person with James Daunt
This bonus episode of Better in Person features Stephen Dubner talking with James Daunt, the bookseller who founded Daunt Books in London and later helped turn around Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & Noble in the U.S. The conversation explores how Daunt built successful bookstores by rejecting conventional retail wisdom: he favors long-term quality over short-term gains, local autonomy over central control, and curation over mass marketing. The episode argues that bookstores still matter not just as businesses, but as community spaces and cultural institutions.
Key Takeaways
-
Daunt’s success came from patience, not a grand plan.
- Daunt opened his first bookstore out of naivety more than confidence.
- It took years for the shop to become viable, and the early period was difficult.
-
His central business philosophy is simple and old-fashioned:
- Prioritize quality.
- Don’t sacrifice the long term for the short term.
- Work hard, stay disciplined, and let good work compound over time.
-
He believes many failing retailers hurt themselves by over-centralizing.
- At Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, he decentralized decision-making.
- Individual stores were given more freedom to shape their own identity and assortment.
- He argues that uniformity makes bookstores boring and demoralizing.
-
He rejects the “Amazon killed bookstores” narrative.
- Daunt calls that story lazy.
- He believes physical bookstores offer something Amazon cannot: discovery, atmosphere, and emotional attachment.
-
Bookstores are more than retail spaces.
- He describes them as “third places” that serve communities.
- They are especially important for kids, teens, older people, and caregivers.
- They function as social, educational, and even civilizing spaces.
Daunt’s Approach to Bookselling
Local autonomy over corporate control
Daunt says the previous leadership at major chains was not incompetent, but focused too much on centrally dictating store operations. His approach was to trust booksellers on the ground, allowing stores to reflect their communities rather than forcing every branch to look and act the same.
No marketing budget
One of the most striking details is that Daunt claims Barnes & Noble and Waterstones operate with essentially zero marketing budget. Instead of paid advertising, he relies on:
- store quality,
- word of mouth,
- store experience,
- and organic cultural momentum.
BookTok and social discovery
He welcomes BookTok and similar social-media-driven recommendation culture, saying individual stores can participate freely as long as they use common sense. He sees it as another form of enthusiasm and discovery rather than a threat.
Barnes & Noble and the Physical Book
Why physical bookstores still work
Daunt argues that people don’t just buy a book—they buy the experience of:
- browsing,
- selecting,
- holding,
- and leaving with a physical object.
He also notes that physical books tend to aid memory and retention better than digital reading, especially for literary and nonfiction titles.
Books as cultural objects
He emphasizes that books are:
- readable,
- collectible,
- decorative,
- and emotionally meaningful.
That makes them different from disposable or purely digital forms of entertainment.
Expansion into other physical media
Barnes & Noble’s investment in:
- vinyl,
- DVDs,
- and even CDs is part of the same logic: curated physical products still have an audience, even if that market is smaller than it once was.
Notable Insights
- On bankruptcy culture: Daunt contrasts the U.S. and UK, saying America’s lower stigma around bankruptcy helps economic dynamism, while the UK’s harsh stigma makes recovery harder.
- On bestseller lists: He says the industry had become stale, with the same names dominating for years, and that Barnes & Noble can now help “make a hit again.”
- On mistakes: He gives a memorable example of replacing all the large pine display tables in stores, only to realize later that they were useful and worth bringing back. His point: retail improvement is a zigzag, not a straight line.
- On bookstore staff: He sees bookselling as a vocation requiring intelligence, social skill, and hard work—not just a retail job.
Bottom Line
James Daunt’s success comes from treating bookstores as living communities rather than standardized retail machines. His philosophy is a sharp rebuttal to the idea that modern business must always optimize for scale, speed, and short-term efficiency. In his view, good bookstores survive by being distinctive, local, and deeply human—and that same formula may be what saved Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.