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Barnes & Noble took to the wires this morning to announced its 2012 first quarter sales and earnings. It’s mostly good news with sales in the first quarter hitting $1.4 billion, an

increase of 2% over last year. Online sales increased 37% to $198 million while brick and mortar sales decreased 3% to $1 billion. The big news, however, is B&N’s Nook business increased

a whooping 140% to reach $277 million, on a comparable sales basis. > Our NOOK eReaders and applications continue to be cited as the > finest digital reading products on the market, 

with the new NOOK > Simple Touch Reader recently rated as the best eReader,” says CEO > William Lynch. “The company is encouraged by the progress achieved > against our strategy and

 believes in our plan to continue to > appropriately invest in the massive digital opportunity, while > delivering strong EBITDA growth this year. The large uptick now means the Nook

is accounts for more sales than B&N’s entire online storefront. Over the last quarter B&N launched the awesome Nook Simple Touch Reader and continued to support the hacker-friendly

Nook Color Android tablet. Despite the upcoming Amazon assault, B&N expects big things from the Nook division and stated that the year over year sales should double and reach $1.8

billion this year versus last year’s record of $880 million. The company’s earnings improved 24% this last quarter from a loss of $30.7 million to $23.6 million. This accounts for a

consolidated net loss of $57 million, or $0.99 a share. The company expects the full year losses per share to be in a range of $0.10 to $0.50 no doubt thanks to the upcoming holiday spending

spree and the Nook’s explosive growth. The street clearly likes this news as Barnes & Noble’s stock shot up and is currently at a 2 week high.