Barnes & Noble chief walks as Nook ereader stumbles

Barnes & Noble chief exec William Lynch is resigning his post as sales at the firm's bookstores continue to plunge and the Nook ebook reader fails to revive B&N's fortunes.

In a flurry of shuffling, the bookstore chain announced that Lynch was leaving the chief's chair after three years. At the same time the firm said that Michael Huseby had been appointed chief of Nook Media and president of B&N and current corporate controller Allen Lindstrom had been promoted to CFO.

“I appreciate the opportunity to serve as CEO of this terrific company over the past three years,” Lynch said.

“There is a great executive team and board in place at Barnes & Noble, and I look forward to the many innovations the company will be bringing to its millions of physical and digital media customers in the future.”

A few days ago, the book firm reported that sales in its digital Nook division had dropped 34 per cent in the recent quarter from a year earlier, while overall losses doubled to $118.6m.

The company said that it plans to try to sort out the Nook business by outsourcing the actual manufacture of the tablet line. B&N said it would keep on developing the ereaders in-house, but someone else would be making the kit – although it has yet to say who this would be. ®