The divergence between Barnes & Noble’s print and digital businesses widened in the holiday season, as core comparable bookstore sales (excluding Nook sales) were essentially flat at down .2%, and sales in the Nook segment collapsed, declining by 60.5%. 

CEO Michael Huseby (see “New B&N CEO Has a Big List of Problems”) pointed to strong increases in sales of games and other non-book categories by the stores as important in producing the results.   

The Nook declines were a combination of a 66.7% drop in device and accessory sales, and a 27% decline in digital content sales.  The company attributed the decline in content sales to lower device sales and lower average selling prices; and the decline in device sales to the fact that there were no new tablet releases in the 2013 holiday, and there were two in 2012.

Investors liked the news despite the plummeting sales on Nook (which most people seem to have written off already), and the stock rose 7.11% on the news.