Barnes & Noble reported a $13.2 million profit in the quarter ending October 26th, despite sales that were down 8% overall.  The profitability improvement came from reduced costs and improved margin. 

Drilling down into the sales in stores, B&N reported core same store bookstore sales, which exclude Nook sales, down 3.7% for the quarter, driven primarily by the tough comparisons to the Fifty Shades of Grey hit a year ago.  Online sales and Nook sales were down more than the core bookstore sales, and there were some net store closures. 

Digital book sales were down 21,2% (also affected by 50 Shades of Grey, but also by overall digital trends, see "Ebooks Falling"), and digital device sales were down 41.3%. 

Sales in the toys and games category performed better than books, the company said.   

The $13.2 million in profits for the quarter was a significant improvement over the year-ago quarter, when the company  made $500,000, and over the previous quarter, when the company lost $87 million (see "B&N Reverses Course, Will Continue with Nook").