Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Bookstore Guy on July 21, 2011, 06:57:02 PM
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Larry Correia posted a write-up on his impression of the whole fiasco, and he quotes some of my thoughts at the end of it. Go check it out and weigh in here and there on what you think of Borders' complete mindset of idiocy.
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/on-borders-closing/
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Here is another note from a guy who used to work there.
http://www.quora.com/Borders-Books/Why-is-Barnes-and-Noble-performing-well-as-a-business-while-Borders-has-filed-for-bankruptcy-it-has-somthing-to-do-with-net
Borders is also expensive. They don't discount their hardcover books. I can get a book for $18 at Barnes and Noble. The same book is $30 at Borders. I could also go to B&N website and it will tell me if a store has a book in, if I used the Borders website it would say "yeah probably".
I remember when Circuit City was going down. I read in the paper that they fired all of their best sales people. Circuit City paid for performance. These guys made the money. So they got fired.
Is Barnes and Noble the last chain book store? Or at least the last national chain? I read an article today wondering if B&N can survive. They have large stores, which means high rent. Yet, the store is loaded with people just browsing, buying 1 cup of coffee, and/or using free internet. They may need to find a way to get people to spend money there other than just buying books. Maybe expand their cafe so people go there for lunch.
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Added my one pound four. Article was right in line with everything that I've seen from Borders. Too bad really, but good riddance, I say.
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There are smaller chains such as Books-A-Million that have stronger presence in some regions. But B&N is the last big chain.
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Something else Joshua Bilmes mentioned in his blog a few months ago is reorder time. B&N reorders and restocks books very quickly. Borders didn't, by corporate policy.
However, there are some authors who had plenty of success at Borders but B&N wouldn't carry their books at all. That's what happens when you have a national buyer for a chain--if he doesn't think your book will sell because that's what his personal tastes say, he won't order it even if it's selling fine at other stores.
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If you look at my bookshelf, and go down the line of books, a good 80% of them came from Borders. Never really had good luck with Barnes and Noble. From what I've heard from articles on the internet and such, I might be the only one to say this, but Borders is going to be sorely missed.
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We need a bricks-n-mortar that is a destination. A cross tween a Hastings and a CC's Coffee.
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I've never had a good experience with borders and am not surprised. All of this has me wondering if companies like Borders and B&N were to go out, might it help out the indie stores? I could see the brick and mortar local stores being able to provide hardcover and limited editions and older paperbacks. While this would shift a lot of the business to ebooks (which seems to be the trend anyway), it would allow readers to purchase hardcovers if they wanted and allow the indies to thrive. I don't know that B&N are going anywhere, but it would be interesting to see what develops.
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Larry's comments were absolutely right. I wasn't surprised at all when I heard about their closure. It's been a long time coming. While I'm sad to see any bookstore close, I'm not going to shed a tear over Border's passing since it means more business for Indies like the one I work at. Now if we can just get publishers to realize that selling directly to Indies is a great idea, then everything will be golden!