Authors Sign Up to Raise Barnes & Noble’s Black Friday Sales - NYTimes.com

Drawing customers into its physical stores has become an urgent priority for Barnes & Noble. The chain has been battered in recent years by competition from Amazon and by a sluggish book market. It has closed more than 20 stores since summer 2013 and will spin off its money-losing Nook division into a separate company next year. Lisa Scottoline signed 5,000 copies of her new book for sale at Barnes & Noble stores.

Holiday sales at its retail stores and website have declined for the last two seasons. In 2013, sales in the nine-week holiday period fell nearly 7 percent to $1.1 billion compared with the previous year, and in 2012, sales fell nearly 11 percent to $1.2 billion