Borders to Declare Bankruptcy

Wife has a Kindle, but I much prefer books. I order some online, but mostly get them from the library. The demise of bookstores is sad mainly as another symptom of living life less face-to-face

 

I'd imagine B&N's partnership with college bookstores will help them out for a while too.

 

They don't own those in-house Seattle's best shops? No wonder they are going out of business!

As for Waldens (Border's Express), in the five-six malls I'm most likely to visit, there isn't a single Border's Express, Walden's or whatever left. One has the Borders outside of it, a couple have a BN/Borders adjacent in a differerent shopping center or in the parking lot and the others just don't have books, period.

I haven't seen one of those in a long time.

 

Seattle's Best is a subsidiary of Starbucks. Obviously Borders would make some money from leasing that space, but probably not as much as if they had their own coffee shop in there.


And yea, I know of only one Borders Express in my area. Don't think I've been in it in ages since there's a Borders and B&N not far.

 

I haven't read the thread, but I'm amazed any of the big book stores stay in business. Everything is cheaper online. The selection is better online. The only positive that a bookstore offers is if you need something immediately and can't wait 2-3 days.

 

I disagree. There's been countless times I've wondered into a section of the bookstore I didn't intend to go in when I walked in and found something interesting. It's much harder to replicate that experience online.

 

There are plenty of times where I've gone in there, found something interesting and then ordered it off amazon for a third of the price.

 

I go to the Borders near my house all the time -- as often as twice a week in some stretches. I hope it has helped and that my store will not be one of the ones closing.

There's also another Borders about 10 miles away that I frequent periodically. Suffice to say that I am a fan of the place, although I do sometimes order online as well.

 

What Bubbler is saying, is that it is much harder to find something interesting online by just browsing online.

 

A bigger question is what will it mean for authors. In the same way media people wonder if online will be able pay for writers to do the type of reporting that's been around for awhile, will writers be able to make any kind of living in a world without big bookstores and with e-books? my wife's in the industry and is the most optimistic person I know and she does believe the future will be okay for writers, agents, editors, etc. But still, it's already hard enough for authors to make any kind of living writing. Losing the bookstores that buy - and sell - so many books is going to make things tough.

I went to Strand two weeks ago. Spent three hours there, which isn't always the easiest thing to do because you're standing, or perhaps crouching, most of the time. Came away with a Mike Royko biography, and old books about the history of the Village Voice, and one about "The end of the New Yorker," which came out when Wallace Shawn got ousted as editor. Never even knew those two books existed, just saw them while browsing. I suppose you could search online for "media" books and you could stumble upon books like that, but it's not the same.

Again, though, I'm ancient in many ways. I still use my VCR five times a week to tape shows.

 

Of the other bookstore chains I know of, BN owns its little coffee shop and has some sort of distribution deals with Starkbucks and Cheesecake Factory to sell products. Books-a-Million owns the Joe Muggs brand. Reading a little bit on Borders' issues, they seem to have the weakest business history of the book store chains.

I tended to end up dating book store types (nerds?) back in the day (I married one, although for her it was just a part-time job as she prepared for a career in health care) and they talked about the importance of the cafe and the whole deal with browsing-customers-as-likely-cafe-customers and all that. Given that, to me leasing the cafe space makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, not unless they were receiving a percentage of sales as part of their deal.

 

Count me in as one of those who like to go in and browse. I typically ended up in the magazine rack, getting something I normally wouldn't i.e. The Economist, or CJR or something like that.