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There will be no more bookstores in the future. Next up: newspapers, DVDs, cable TV, smoking, extra large sodas, acne and halitosis.

The first step of this progression was confirmed on Monday when it was reported that Barnes & Noble, the last of the major U.S. bookstore chains, plans to close up to a third of its retail stores during the next decade. The company protested that nothing about its store closure plans has changed. Indeed, if it only slightly increases the pace of store closures of the past few years the total will drop by a third by 2023.

Is Barnes & Noble doomed to slowly whittle its bricks-and-mortar business down to nothing, at whatever pace? And will the company as a whole follow its retail operations on the road to nowhere? The numbers tell an ambiguous tale.

Through the autumn of last year, the bookstores looked to be shrinking quite slowly. And they were nicely profitable. The company's total retail operations (including the stores on college campuses and physical book sales from B&N's website) generated $450-million (U.S.) in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the 12 months ending in October. The company's current enterprise value is barely twice that.

But then the company reported a weak holiday, with sales dropping by a 10th from the year before. Sales declined for the company's Nook e-reader, as well. So there are now two puzzles about the company's future. It is hard to tell whether the lousy holiday was a blip or the start of an accelerated decline.

And the strategy for the Nook business – which had looked to be a sales growth driver until Christmas, but made $270-million in losses during the past 12 months – remains opaque. Neither B&N nor the outside investors in Nook (Microsoft and Pearson, parent company of the Financial Times) have laid out a detailed plan. Its time to do so; the future is here.

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