Borders Books, Dead At 40

theodp writes "There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday (store closing map). The Ann Arbor, MI-based chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to sell off its assets after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. Hang on to those Borders Midnight Magic Party memories, kids!"

Comments

Took Down Angus and Robertson Too

[Anonymous Coward]

Local bookseller Angus and Robertson, here in Australia has gone broke too. A & R has been operating in Australia for over 100 years. They bought the local Borders in an act of corporate hubris. Then the accumulated debts of Borders took down the whole thing. Very sad.

Re:Took Down Angus and Robertson Too

[jonwil]

I thought my local Borders (in Perth CBD) was great as a place to buy computer books if they had the one you wanted on the shelf. Bought a couple of books from them (including a book on QT and a couple of Java books)

Re:Took Down Angus and Robertson Too

[Dogtanian]

Angus and Robertson bought the [Australian] Borders in an act of corporate hubris. Then the accumulated debts of Borders took down the whole thing.

The UK Borders operation- which had also been sold off by the parent company- went bankrupt too, about 18 months ago.

BTW, I was pretty soured on Borders when I learned that the (original US parent) company had been actively involved in union busting and the like, and always felt slightly dirty when I went in to one of their shops.

This was before the UK operation was sold off; actually, I didn't realise they'd been sold off in 2007 until they went bankrupt. They had a local store where I'm living currently, but it was in a retail park *just* far enough away from the main city centre- and less friendly for those of us on foot- that I'd never been there. I finally visited that park when visiting another shop doing Christmas shopping, figured I should check out their closing down sale, and found out it had closed less than a week previously!

Re:Took Down Angus and Robertson Too

[FirephoxRising]

But the huge problem for Australian bookstores is that the prices they (have?) to charge are way more than overseas, a book might be $7.99 in the US and $19.95 or $25.95 here. Come on, our dollar is worth ~US1.07, and we're closer to China than most places, so the extra cost is not shipping, it is a smaller market, but it's still ~21 million people, not small. I will not pay a 300-400% markup on books and software even with freight, and now you can download it, so that's gone. I feel sorry for the local shops, but they'll have to realise that it is a global economy and that they'll have to compete.

Re:Took Down Angus and Robertson Too

[mjwx]

Local bookseller Angus and Robertson, here in Australia has gone broke too. A & R has been operating in Australia for over 100 years. They bought the local Borders in an act of corporate hubris. Then the accumulated debts of Borders took down the whole thing. Very sad.

Actually, it was sites like the Book Depository (UK) that shipped a new book directly to your door for less then half of what it cost to buy one from A&R, Borders or Dymocks in Oz that killed them. I haven't been inside a brick and mortar book store in over a year and I'm buying more books whilst spending less on books in general.

All this because the Paper and Logging industries decided to block importing of books as well as publishers (as per god damned usual) setting high licensing prices for printing locally.

Not that A&R/borders are innocent in this, buying Ebooks still costs twice what it does from US/UK sites and last time I ordered an Ebook from them they couldn't deliver a book they advertised and refused to refund the entire amount (how the hell do you have a restocking fee for an Ebook).

So, as an Australian I'm glad I've typed "anus and robertson" into Google for the last time.

It's their own fault.

[Lumpy]

Honestly they were overpriced on everything. I have not set foot in a borders or a Barnes and Noble for 3 years now because of their price gouging. No I'm not a trendy yuppie who wants a $4.00 coffee while I browse your store trying to look trendy. Honestly they went for "upscale" instead of a model that would have survived..

If they would have stuck as a "mom and pop" ish look and had a big old book or used book section they would still be thriving today. Instead they took the "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck" direction instead.....

Re:It's their own fault.

[ScentCone]

Your complaint, your characterizaiton of them and their customers, your odd notion of what is and what isn't "gouging" and everything else about the tone of your comment suggests that you need to get out more and meet more people. Possibly even some that wear turtlenecks. And it wouldn't hurt for you to spend some time running a retail store, so that your sense of "overpriced on everything" can get connected back to the reality of what it costs to rent, insure, maintain, staff, and market a walk-up book store in the age of Kindles and iPads.

The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc). Barnes and Noble survives because they squeeked by with the Nook just in time to not get completely eaten by Amazon.

Re:It's their own fault.

[RazzleFrog]

How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher. You want used books - go to the Strand.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Zouden]

In their defence, the "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck" direction is usually quite profitable.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher. You want used books - go to the Strand.

Actually, that's not true at all. Borders frequently charges MORE than MSRP for things (they call their own made-up price the "list price"). Simply go to borders.com and search on various items. Look at their "list price", then compare that to the actual MSRP from the publisher's own product page. For many newly-released books, they usually do charge MSRP. But for older books or for nearly any media (CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays), their "list price" will often be about 10% more than MSRP.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Totenglocke]

Their books weren't overpriced but their cd's / dvd's / blu-ray's were obscene. When you see Border's charging $40 for a new movie and you can walk into Best Buy down the street and buy the same exact thing for $20, there's no reason to buy non-book items from Border's.

Re:It's their own fault.

[arglebargle_xiv]

Honestly they were overpriced on everything.

Too true. I live outside the US, and can get books air-freighted in from Amazon in the US for significantly less (half the price, sometimes a quarter of the price) of the shelf price at the local Borders. That's a pretty severe sign of price-gouging.

Re:It's their own fault.

[sh00z]

Not sure when they *had* a "mom and pop" look? By the time I got to Ann Arbor in 1982, they were already "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck." But, in their defense, it was also the only place in town that stocked The Curse of Lono.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Hydian]

Selling at MSRP is hardly "overpriced" and they regularly gave out coupons for large discounts and had sales.

Outside of technical books, I generally prefer going to a brick and mortar for books over a site like Amazon even if it does cost me 20% more. It is much easier to search through a topic or genre for a book that interests me when there is a huge shelf full of actual books then trying to do searches on the internet. I tend to buy books for pleasure reading on impulse, so again, the internet model does not fit my buying habits very well.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Xest]

The UK Borders chain closed down about a year or two ago. It's a bit of a shame because we really have nothing else comparative nationwide, perhaps the closests is Waterstones but most their stores only sell the latest romance novel or Jordan autobiography and shite like that rather than a useful range of maths/science/computing books. Short of going to a handful of cities like Cambridge which still have good book stores, there's really nothing- pretty much the whole of the North of England seems devoid of good bookstores.

I agree it was their own fault, they were overpriced, I did tend to go in to have a look because it was great for that, but do I buy the OpenGL SuperBible for £40 there or do I buy it for £25 from Amazon? Bit of a no brainer really.

But I found it wasn't just their prices, they relied heavily on misleading promotions- a series of identical kids books was 3 for 2, so we figured we'd get 3 for my neices birthday and despite them all being on that shelf when we got to the checkout it turns out that only random books in the series were 3 for 2, and they didn't tell you this and merely hope you wouldn't check your receipt to see that you'd in fact been charged for 3, and then when we go back into the store to ask why we'd been charged we get some pissy clerk try and pretend it's our fault as if we're meant to be able to magically guess which books on that shelf are part of the promotion and which aren't.

So I do miss them, and I love the likes of Chapters when I go to Canada (particularly in Ottawa where you can't travel for 5 minutes without bumping into another chapters store!), but when they ran their business like that, there's really little one can say, they were truly their own worst enemy. I wouldn't expect Amazon prices as I recognise running a store is costly, but charging £40 vs. £25 is really just greed, and there's no way they were going to get my business doing that.

Re:It's their own fault.

[crawling_chaos]

the tone of your comment suggests that you need to get out more and meet more people.

This is Slashdot. That goes without saying.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Lumpy]

No it's not. Not when they typically adopt the latest change... I.E. buying online and the Ebook.

The turtleneck crowd adopted the Kindle fast. guess what that leaves... only the poor people to buy books in a book store.. and the poor people are turned off by the prices. Honestly, their prices on all non books were downright obscene in their markup often 2X of what best buy had them at.

When you target the rich demographic, you have to change what you offer to match what they are after... and Borders was so poorly run they ended up as a "huh what? oh we should do that too.." tail end of the crowd.

Re:It's their own fault.

[CRCulver]

Selling at MSRP is hardly "overpriced"

It is. When you're a large, nationwide chain, you can negotiate with the publisher for lower prices and leave your unorganized competitors stuck with the MSRP. Amazon did with great success, but Borders didn't.

It is much easier to search through a topic or genre for a book that interests me when there is a huge shelf full of actual books then trying to do searches on the internet.

Some of the pirated books communities are making it as easy to browse through a subject as going through a bookshelf, and you can do it all from your home and for free. It's nice that you like the trip to the store and the physical artifact, but not everyone shares that love.

Re:It's their own fault.

[damnbunni]

While an e-book reader with always-on 3G doesn't really make browsing any easier, it certainly makes impulse buys of books dead simple.

Re:It's their own fault.

[DrgnDancer]

It is simply very difficult to shop for books online unless you already know what you want. For technical books and books from an author I know and like, Amazon is fine. For random "Hmm, I feel like reading something new" times, it's much nicer to wander around inside a store. I'll pay the extra 20% to be able to have shelves. real books that you can flip through a read a few lines, and a friendly person that you can ask about what's new and what they're read recently. Yes, of course they're trying to sell you something, but I went in to buy something... I'd just as it be something that another human being actually liked.

What I like about my Nook is that I can treat Barnes and Noble as a showroom. Go in, wander about, flip through books, talk to people, then buy on the Nook and keep everything in a small package. (I just hope that they keep track of where I bought the book, I'd hate to have my "showroom" close becasue no one buys books there anymore.)

Re:It's their own fault.

[AmiMoJo]

I wouldn't say Borders was particularly expensive, or that Amazon is particularly cheap. Where Amazon dominates is reviews. When I am looking at any product, book or otherwise, I always go and read the reviews on Amazon. Other web sites are cottoning on to this now - people want to know if something is any good and value uncensored reviews from other consumers. If people are coming to your site to read the review then there is also a chance they will buy from you.

Brick and mortar shops can't replicate that. When it comes to books you can tell something by standing there reading a few pages in the shop, but that still tends to be less useful than a review from someone who has spent considerable time with it. Personally I like buying things in shops, even if it means I pay a few pounds more, but if I am spending £40 on a book I want to know it is a good one.

The other big problem with shops is the limited range. Japanese shops will stock everything. Not just a particular widget, but the entire range of said widget in every colour available. UK shops all tend to stock the same crap and you are lucky if they have what you want in store. I think they assume consumers will look at it as "I have a need for , this fulfils that need so I will buy it", but for me at least it doesn't work like that. I don't just want any old drain unblocker, I want the one I read about on a DIY forum which is supposed to be the best. It would help if every chain didn't stock the same stuff, and if shops still dared to specialise. These days they have all diversified to the point of being generic and not specialist enough to bother visiting. I can't count the number of times I have been disappointed on the high street because I couldn't find some seemingly common item for sale. Now unless I know a shop stocks it I just go online and order. Might take a day or two to arrive but I have to wait till the weekend to go to the shops anyway.

Re:It's their own fault.

[DuckDodgers]

Borders and Barnes & Noble employ cashiers, people to stock shelves, and janitors and have thousands of retail outlets which require running water, air conditioning, heating, and local taxes in addition to the cost of running a website and distribution warehouses. Amazon only has the website and distribution warehouses, their business costs per book sold were dramatically lower. Borders probably did have special pricing deals with the publishing companies, but they needed to net 40% or more profit per book to cover their operating expenses. Amazon only needs 10% per book to cover their operating expenses.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Gideon Wells]

I don't know where your "here" is. I live in a rural area in the middle of the rust belt. Maybe the culture in your area will keep your Mom and Pa stores alive. It comes down to the culture of an area for M&P style businesses. Not so where I live, however.

Every bookstore that does new books within an hour of where I live has gone out except for Waldens (linked to Borders, so I don't know if they are going to survive or if they are sinking too) and two Barnes and Nobles.* Not for lack of trying. A store would start up, exist, then flounder.

There are two used bookstores, but they keep getting forced to move to more and more remote locations in their perspective towns. A new used book store opened up where a Waldens went out in a neighboring city 40 minutes away. The two existing used bookstores have niche demographics. One is located in a college town and cultivated a "We're the Hipster alternative to B&N" vibe. The other has catered to used romance novels and tea parties taking up 2/3rds of the store.

A tad off topic, but relevant to culture, my town has to choose between Wal-Mart and 7-11 style stores if you want groceries. I don't think a culture that can even keep a M&P grocery store going is going to take kindly to bookstores.

*Not counting Wal-Mart or text book stores that happen to have other books to fill out their shelves.

Re:It's their own fault.

[DudeTheMath]

But of course, there was only the one Borders at that time. And I remember it was considered quite a coup to get a job there: you had to take a test on a broad range of literary knowledge. I believe they lost it when they embraced the "big box" concept and lost the really intense staff.

Re:It's their own fault.

[hal2814]

My "here" is Ft Worth. We have a chain of bookstores called Half-Price Books. They sell used books (and to a much smaller extent CDs and DVDs). No coffee shop. No gallery. No meeting places inside. Just used books. And last I checked they were still expanding. Maybe the problem isn't the business model. Maybe the problem is where you live?

Re:It's their own fault.

[Chaos Incarnate]

If you want to help them keep track, then make use of their "read in store" feature on the Nook. :)

Re:It's their own fault.

[TheRaven64]

I always thought Borders was the shop for pseudo-intellectuals who were terrified of books. I couldn't think of any other explanation of why they had a much lower ratio of books to floor space than any other book store I've ever been in. I went in a few branches around the world, and never bought anything.

Here's a hint for anyone wanting to run a book store: it helps if you stock a wide range of books, on big shelves, not just a few tables with some artistically arranged on them.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Waffle Iron]

How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher.

Just about any amount stamped on a product by a manufacturer is by definition overpriced. Those numbers exist mainly so that retailers can show how much of a "discount" they're offering.

If you're a captive in a place like an airport gift shop, then you're usually stuck paying the full stamped overpriced amount. However, if a retailer tries charging those prices to non-captive customers, then they'll likely eventually find themselves in the same boat as Borders.

Re:It's their own fault.

[DrgnDancer]

I'm assuming that they keep track based on the fact that I use their wifi to buy the books. The Nook seems to know that it's in a B&N and the wifi seems to know you're using a Nook. I don't think I've ever used the "read in store option", simply becasue it's easier to flip through the physical books while I'm there. I should probably ask someone at the store, they probably know.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Schnapple]

First, you're comparing a used book store to a new book store.

Second, HPB has higher margins because they run their bookstore like a college bookstore - buy back the textbooks for a fraction of what you're going to resell them for. And you're not worried about clearing out space for new books because your inventory is always changing.

I love HPB but there's two rules of HPB:

1. Don't ever come in looking for something specific. You won't find it. Unless it's something like a Dan Brown novel where there's a trillion copies in print, you probably won't find it.

2. If you do see something you want, get it right then and there because it won't be there next time you come in.

Consequently they attract a completely different clientele than Borders or B&N.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Anne_Nonymous]

Yes, yes, but apart from price, selection, reviews, free shipping, no sales tax, improved credit card "rewards", downloadable product manuals before you buy, easy returns, and a lack of snobby sales staff... apart from all that, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Re:It's their own fault.

[hal2814]

The original assertion was: "If they would have stuck as a "mom and pop" ish look and had a big old book or used book section they would still be thriving today."
The response was: "The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc)."

Yes, I did compare a used bookstore to a new bookstore but only to show that the original assertion was likely correct. You don't need to sell non-books to keep a new bookstore in business. Selling used books is a viable alternative.

Re:It's their own fault.

[timeOday]

If you live in Fort Worth, you must realize it grew by approximately 40% in the last 10 years. It is your city that is the outlier. It would be pretty hard for an established local chain not to grow under those circumstances, while it lasts.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Rob the Bold]

Your complaint, . . . your odd notion of what is and what isn't "gouging" and everything else about the tone of your comment suggests that you need to get out more and meet more people . . . And it wouldn't hurt for you to spend some time running a retail store, so that your sense of "overpriced on everything" can get connected back to the reality of what it costs to rent, insure, maintain, staff, and market a walk-up book store . . .

But this isn't the customer's responsibility. What price to ask, where to locate a store, negotiation of a lease, finding insurance and all that is the seller's problem. The buyer's problem is to find a product at a price he's willing to pay given that he also has to pay rent, buy food and gas, keep up a wardrobe suitable for his job, etc. And those things are likewise not the seller's problem.

If the buyer and seller can find a price that both can live with, then we've got a commercial transaction. The seller isn't a charity, the buyer doesn't need to concern himself with its profitability. They buyer isn't a charity, the seller doesn't need to feel sorry for him and give him a book for free. They're both in it to get the best deal they can for themselves.

Re:It's their own fault.

[hal2814]

While it is based in Dallas, there are stores in many parts of the country. Plenty of those stores are in areas where there is little to no growth: list of stores
Besides, plenty of businesses have failed under exactly those circumstances. The Half Price Books I frequent is in the Lincoln Square shopping center in Arlington, TX. Long before Half-Price came to town, there was a local chain called Taylor's Bookstore in that same shopping center. They managed to die during Arlington's massive boom in population.

Re:It's their own fault.

[parens]

Your experiences at Borders were a lot different than mine. Barnes & Noble was always the snobby bookstore in my area, Borders was normal and laid-back. Some of that may have been location, but it was also reflected in their pricing differences and general employee demeanor. Half-Price Books fills the used book niche pretty well. Books-A-Million fills the "here's some books, maybe there's something decent in the pile" niche. I'm going to miss having a normal book store around.

Re:It's their own fault.

[MrNJ]

Selling at MSRP is hardly "overpriced" and they regularly gave out coupons for large discounts and had sales.

Outside of technical books, I generally prefer going to a brick and mortar for books over a site like Amazon even if it does cost me 20% more. It is much easier to search through a topic or genre for a book that interests me when there is a huge shelf full of actual books then trying to do searches on the internet. I tend to buy books for pleasure reading on impulse, so again, the internet model does not fit my buying habits very well.

Library

is where you can browse and read on impulse. With the added benefit of not having to pay for it. I don't remember the last time I bought a book which was not a textbook or children book (for my children that is)

Re:It's their own fault.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Selling used books is a viable alternative.

For now. I do like my local used book store, but it's a 20 minute drive each way for me, and their selection is necessarily limited, largely towards best-sellers and self-help books (high turnover types, I imagine). They sell for half of the list price, and split that 50/50 with the consigner.

By contrast, Amazon can offer me any used book, usually for much less, and have it mailed to me for $4. The reviews are better than browsing in almost every case.

If I needed to open a used book store today, I'd focus on children's books, where exploration and browsing are actually essential.

Re:It's their own fault.

[_|()|\|]

Honestly they were overpriced on everything.

I've been shopping at Borders for fifteen years or so. The stores have gone bland over the years, and the selection less varied, to say nothing of the incredible shrinking music section. They launched a half-decent web store fairly late in the game, shuttered it to partner with Amazon, then re-launched a half-decent web store of their own.

The thing that has made me shop almost exclusively at Borders the last few years is the constant stream of coupons. It started out as a trickle, with 20% - 33% off once every week or two. Lately, Borders has been carpet bombing the Internet with coupons. With a free Borders Rewards account, you could get 33% - 50% off once or twice a week, with very few restrictions. Upgrade to Borders Rewards Plus for $20, and you got free shipping and an additional 10% off.

If $74.99 sounds too expensive for the latest volume of Knuth, how does $34.74 (55% off) sound? Borders had some of the best deals around, and I will miss them. I hope they find a way to maintain an online presence, because I do not want to give my business to Amazon.

Re:It's their own fault.

[lymond01]

Instead they took the "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck" direction instead.....

I've been to the dusty old "this piece belongs in a museum" used book stores, searching for something out of the ordinary while dodging horn-rimmed elderly folk and globes of the ancient world. I'll tell you that story is neverending.

Re:It's their own fault.

[MagikSlinger]

The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell ...

The mom & pops were dying out because Borders undercut them on best sellers and the more popular specialized books. They would come to town, hoover (vacuum, for our American friends) up the customer base with "20% off all best sellers!" and also offering a wider selection of specialized books in knitting, cooking, history, science, etc. Very often, a best selling computer book would suddenly get "30% off!".

But I noticed once their competition disappeared, the discounts disappeared too. The prices on their non best sellers went up, and even best sellers, you needed a Chapters membership card (which you pay for) to get the 20% discount.

Here in Vancouver, our local Big Box book retailer, Chapters, eviscerated Duthie's Books, Black Bond books and several other home grown chains. Once they were gone, the stores became crap. I could never find any GOOD books there:

"Oh, we only had one copy of that and it sold out. Don't know when we'll get more."
"Can you check?"
"Tcha..." *shrugs shoulders* and walks off

So, with poetic justice, Amazon beat Borders et al. at their own game, but at least I find Amazon better to deal with.

For the record, I shopped at Duthie's, Black Bond etc. whenever I could. They left me. :'(

Re:It's their own fault.

[daenris]

Gee, you think MSRP is overpriced, and then start talking about pirating books instead. Color me surprised.

Re:It's their own fault.

[CRCulver]

Well, from other posts here, it seems that even those who don't pirate, who only buy, believe that Amazon is a better option than Borders.

Re:It's their own fault.

[ScentCone]

I'm not suggesting that it's the customer's responsibility. I'm saying it's the GP's responsibility to reconsider his juvenile characterization of the stores, their customers, and how pricing actually works in a walk-up retail evironment. He sounds like the classic, clueless person who has no idea what it costs to run lemonade stand, let alone a store that employees dozens of people and which will be sued for millions if one of them slips on their own piss in the restroom that's been made available to them.

Re:It's their own fault.

[LWATCDR]

I do think Borders is was over priced. Even when they where on shutting down the local store the 30% discounted books where still more expensive than Amazon. Even over priced I still went there a lot. My wife and I would go to kill time and I bought a lot of magazines there. I would even try and buy books there but I would go and see a series that interested me and they wouldn't have book 1! or I would be three books into the series and they wouldn't have book four but would have book five. I would ask them and they would simply say, "We can order it for you and it will be here in a week." Today that isn't really good enough since I can order it on my phone from Amazon and have it delivered to my house in three days for 35% cheaper.
I am willing to the extra just to browse and see what interests me. I subscribe to the magazines I really like but sometimes I might want to buy that old British motorcycle magazine or I might see something that interests me. I probably dropped $40 a week at Borders and or B&N. I still go to B&N to browse and buy. But really they must drive down the costs and increase the selection a bit. I don't expect Amazons low prices but at the same time you can not expect me to order a book in the store anymore. If you don't have it in stock I will get it faster and cheaper from Amazon.
 

Re:It's their own fault.

[tophermeyer]

At least in the US, Price Gouging is only considered criminal if it is anticipation of a national emergency or affects critical goods (food, water, medicine, etc).

Borders $30 DVD's might meet a more relaxed slashdot definition of gouging, but there is certainly nothing forcing you to buy them.

Re:It's their own fault.

[daenris]

I only prefer Amazon if I already know exactly what book I'm purchasing and if it's cheaper. Many times I want to just browse what is available at a bookstore, and I prefer Borders over Barnes and Noble. Also, signing up for Borders Rewards (free) with an email address meant that over the past several years there has almost never been a week when I didn't get a coupon for 30-50% off any book, which generally made it cheaper than Amazon, and I didn't have to wait for shipping.

Re:It's their own fault.

[phrackwulf]

Unless you are talking about Mississippi State.. I'm going to assume your "alma mater" is Michigan State. And I miss Moe at the Archives Bookstore. He was a total sweetheart of a tabby cat. Curious Books is still around of course and there is a lot to like about that location. I vaguely remember the Borders being near there also. I think Barnes and Noble moved to the Okemos Mall. And yes, this post is totally useless if you are talking about Mississippi State...

Re:It's their own fault.

[colinrichardday]

And what other brick and mortar store had Plato's Ghost?

Re:It's their own fault.

[ScentCone]

the 30% discounted books where still more expensive than Amazon

So? Could Amazon deliver it to you in ten minutes? Could they do so at no charge for shipping, unless you paid for their Prime service? Could you touch the book in advance, and decide if, say, a particular paperback version was going to be as satisfying as a hard-bound version? A retail store charges for the convenience of given you a place you can walk into, and a physical object you can walk out with. That they have to charge you for that service isn't actually a surprise to you, is it?

Re:It's their own fault.

[Brett Buck]

I would have to disagree. The advantage of online retailers is that you can find what you want easily by searching. Instead of going to a store, poking around for hours looking through random stacks, and either not finding it because it isn't stocked at that particular store, or because it isn't in the right section, or because they didn't stock it at all in the entire chain. Not there? Then drag yourself to another bookstore, and repeat.

       

Re:It's their own fault.

[demonbug]

Their books weren't overpriced but their cd's / dvd's / blu-ray's were obscene. When you see Border's charging $40 for a new movie and you can walk into Best Buy down the street and buy the same exact thing for $20, there's no reason to buy non-book items from Border's.

Their stance on cd's/dvd's was/is really strange. They charge obscene prices for them, as you say, so the only times I ever bought these items from them were when they were on clearance (very rare) or when I got some especially good deal mailed to me - like the time they sent out a coupon for 60% off any boxed set (which I used to buy Flying Circus on DVD). I don't know anyone who regularly bought movies or music from them. And yet, a couple of years ago they went through and completely redid the interior of the store and actually significantly increased the space devoted to music and movies while reducing the selection of books. Instead of having the best selection in town for most genres of books, they went to having basically the same selection as the much smaller book stores around. Which, of course, means that the last five or six times I've been in there looking for a specific book they haven't had it - leading me to Amazon, and not even bothering to check in the future (note to brick-and-mortar stores: don't even bother offering to order something for me; if it isn't in your store, Amazon will get it to me faster and cheaper than you will).

It really seems like they sacrificed the thing they were good at, selling books, for something they really sucked at - selling digital media. They were astonishingly bad with blu-rays; for some reason they charged literally 3-4 times as much as other retailers, and kept them in locked cases so you couldn't even really browse them (I asked why they did this once, and was told that it was because lots of people were stealing them because they were so valuable; apparently the only people who thought Borders' prices were realistic were thieves). When you are offering something for $45 that I can get down the street for $25 or online for $15, you are just wasting valuable (expensive) retail space.

Re:It's their own fault.

[IICV]

How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher. You want used books - go to the Strand.

A little example:

When the Borders near me was going out of business, they had progressive sales (as those places do). Book prices dropped by 10%, 15%, and eventually 30-40% (though the 40% was pretty much for one item in the store which someone else had already bought, honestly)

At the 30% price range, I went in and bought a copy of Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks, and I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett. See the Amazon links there? At Amazon, the books are always at least 30% off. If you're not on Amazon Prime, you can still get free shipping if you buy at least $25 worth of stuff (which ends up being two hardcovers or three or four paperbacks).

That's how Borders was overpriced; their books weren't significantly more expensive than brick and mortar stores, but they weren't competing with brick and mortar stores - they were competing with Amazon. And compared to their competition, they were overpriced.

The only place they won was on time to delivery, but honestly people who buy books tend to be the patient sort.

Re:It's their own fault.

[ColdWetDog]

Here's a hint for anyone wanting to run a book store: it helps if you stock a wide range of books, on big shelves, not just a few tables with some artistically arranged on them.

Wait. Where am I supposed to put my MacBook then? You think I should be crowded onto a long bench with the other peons^Hcustomers?

Re:It's their own fault.

[moortak]

The same chain he references Half Price books does well in Cleveland as well. Cleveland has just dipped below its1900 population level.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Binary Ninja]

I live in the US, and I can sometimes buy new (but advertised as used) technical books from Amazon out of places like India for less than I can buy them here. Because they're priced at what the Indian market will bear, even with the freight charge, they're still cheaper than here. Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum sells for Rs. 450.00 over there for example.

Re:It's their own fault.

[tjhart85]

There've been a few times that a book I wanted had a Borders sticker on it that covered up the MSRP. If you peeled the sticker back, you'd see the Borders price was a buck higher. Not always, but even to make me only buy clearance books from them.

Re:It's their own fault.

[treeves]

Ah, but this is Slashdot. Nothing goes without being said.

Re:It's their own fault.

[shmlco]

"Selling used books is a viable alternative."

Assumption. My take on a store that would try to sell a large inventory of new and used books would be increased costs due to store size and staffing, while reduced income because many people would first try to buy all of their bestsellers and other books used.

Regardless, the internet killed Borders, not ebooks. Electronic book sales were simply the final straw in the camel's back.

Border's didn't just sell books. They sold magazines. They sold CDs. They sold DVDs.

In essence, they had a huge business model based on selling things that people have simply stopped buying. My take on it is that they should have seen the writing on the wall sooner. Dropped media, and focused on books.

Re:It's their own fault.

[treeves]

This is all totally offtopic, but usually the people who drive waaaay over the speed limit are males. I don't think I've ever seen a story about someone going 120 mph down I-5 and it turned out to be a woman.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Grishnakh]

Could Amazon deliver it to you in ten minutes? ... A retail store charges for the convenience of given you a place you can walk into, and a physical object you can walk out with.

Two problems with that:
1) It takes me longer than 10 minutes to get dressed, get in my car, drive to the bookstore, park, and walk inside. Don't forget the ride home. With Amazon, I can sit naked at my computer and order something in a minute.
2) Unless you're buying a vampire romance novel or similar, chances are your local retail store does NOT have a physical object you can walk out with that you're interested in. Instead, they'll tell you "we can order that for you and have it here in a week", so you'll have to make TWO trips for the item, AND pay full retail price. Where's the convenience?

Re:It's their own fault.

[Grishnakh]

Borders probably did have special pricing deals with the publishing companies, but they needed to net 40% or more profit per book to cover their operating expenses.

But somehow, their small, independent mom-n-pop competitors could sell books at the same MSRP even though they didn't have these special pricing deals or economies of scale?

Sorry, they were gouging, plain and simple.

Re:It's their own fault.

[shmlco]

"Here's a hint for anyone wanting to run a book store: it helps if you stock a wide range of books..."

Paradoxically, this is what killed them. Border's didn't just sell books. They sold magazines. They sold CDs. They sold DVDs. In essence, they had a huge business model based on selling things other than books that people have simply stopped buying

Re:It's their own fault.

[dhavleak]

Honestly they were overpriced on everything. I have not set foot in a borders or a Barnes and Noble for 3 years now because of their price gouging.

It might look that way but its just a case of their costs being higher. If you compare with Amazon, Borders has to transport books to stores, maintain a perpetual inventory of perhaps 1 million books at each store, still have a lower selection that whats available online, pay rent on the stores, payroll costs, etc. Their business model got outmoded by online booksellers and they got priced out of the market.

No I'm not a trendy yuppie who wants a $4.00 coffee while I browse your store trying to look trendy.

And that's alright.. you don't have to buy coffee, or look trendy.. you were always welcome to settle down in a chair and read as long as you wanted to or browse as long as you wanted to, and dress however you wanted to. The warmth and serenity in a bookstore is a wonderful thing.

Honestly they went for "upscale" instead of a model that would have survived..

At some point, changing your model means changing who or what you are. See the cost factor I mentioned above. The only way to get on par with Amazon's costs would have been to become like Amazon. That would transform them from a bookstore chain to a technology + logistics / fulfillment company.

If they would have stuck as a "mom and pop" ish look and had a big old book or used book section they would still be thriving today.

You don't seem to know anything about Borders. Borders Group Inc. has the large format Borders stores, the much smaller Waldenbooks stores that you see in malls / airports etc., and they sell online (relatively recent), they sell used books, etc. They were the second largest boostore chain in the US (perhaps in the world) with a presence in multiple countries (Australia, Singapore, UK etc.). You can't do that, and be a mom and pop store. You haven't run any numbers and don't seem to know anything about the book business -- on what basis do you think they would have survived if they emulated a mom and pop model / look?

Instead they took the "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck" direction instead.....

This is just some silly preconceived notion you have about it.

Re:It's their own fault.

[dhavleak]

The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell ...

The mom & pops were dying out because Borders undercut them on best sellers and the more popular specialized books. They would come to town, hoover (vacuum, for our American friends) up the customer base with "20% off all best sellers!" and also offering a wider selection of specialized books in knitting, cooking, history, science, etc. Very often, a best selling computer book would suddenly get "30% off!".

True enough -- and its the natural order of things. GP was dancing on their grave, and that's not cool. There was a time when groceries were always done at a local store -- supermarkets killed most local grocers. Once companies figure out how to sell groceries online, supermarkets will be in jeopardy as well. Technology and economies of scale constantly bring about the death of one model and replace it with another. We mourned the passing of mom & pop stores (quite rightly) and there's no need to celebrate Borders' demise. Whatever you choose to do, his point is correct that GP was talking out of ass when saying that Borders could have survived as a mon & pop.

Re:It's their own fault.

[ScentCone]

I buy from Amazon every week, at least. I gleefully use their Prime shipping scheme, and the UPS guy knows my dogs by name. But I also walk out of the book store with physical objects several times a month. And not a single vampire romance, ever.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Fritzed]

Here in the Seattle area, we have a great small chain called "Third Place Books". It is basically like a half-price books that fills the holes in it's shelves with new books. You can always go in and browse for used books, but if you need something specific they will usually at least have a new copy.

Re:It's their own fault.

[TheRaven64]

They didn't seem to have much of anything in the branches that I went into. Mostly they had empty space. Where they had shelves, they were small enough that I could see over them, but most of their displays were tables with only a few dozen items on each one. Their competitors easily had ten times as many items in the same amount of shop space. Here, there is (or, probably now, was) an out-of-town Borders, which is quite large, but still manages to have a smaller range than a couple of book stores in the middle of town with half the store area. Why would I go out of the way to go to a shop with a smaller range?

Re:It's their own fault.

[LWATCDR]

1. Yes even with shipping it was cheaper.
2. Did you not read the rest where I mentioned that they often didn't have the books in stock I wanted?
Simple logic. You can not make me wait longer and pay more for a book than Amazon.
You must have it in stock for me buy it.

I shopped there a lot and never did the scan and check UNTIL they where going out of business. But often I would get a book and then really want the next book in the series and they wouldn't have it. Guess what? Amazon it.
That was their fail. I miss them because it was nice to go there and buy a few magazines while my wife was shopping in the mall or go and get a snack before a movie and maybe buy a book.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Dogtanian]

So, with poetic justice, Amazon beat Borders et al. at their own game, but at least I find Amazon better to deal with.

This reminds me of what happened when the British Woolworths chain (originally a part of the famous American parent until the 1980s) went bankrupt a couple of years back.

Everyone got nostalgic about it, and waxed about its 100-year history and place in British culture. But fewer noted that its original early success was as a "big" chain discount retailer that many claimed drove small local merchants out of business (does this sound familiar? It's not new!)

To some extent (IMHO) Woolies was driven out of business by larger out-of-town stores that were able to out-compete it at its own "sell everything" game and at cheaper prices. In other words, it was partly made irrelevant and driven out of business by the same ruthless forces that had led to its original success.

Well, that and crappy management, like selling off their stores, then leasing them back (something that cost them in the end.) But... live by the sword, die by the sword.

Re:It's their own fault.

[geekoid]

Can you tell hardly anyone cares? Books re a commodity by and large all the paperbacks are the same quality, as are all the hardbacks.
Amazon delivers it's books to me in under 60 seconds. I can return it if I choose to.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Dogtanian]

[Most] Waterstones [..] only sell the latest romance novel or Jordan autobiography and shite like that rather than a useful range of maths/science/computing books.

I wouldn't say my local one is quite that bad, but they *are* almost worthless for computing and IT books. The selection is generally scant and to be honest if I needed a computer book, I wouldn't even bother taking the 5 minutes I need to walk there from my work, because it's very unlikely they'd have anything approaching what I needed, even when I was happy to pay the full RRP (which one can assume they will charge).

To be honest, I think it's a combination of computer books going out of date quite quickly, that the people who buy such books are more likely to do so online and that computer books in general don't (AFAIK) sell as well these days. They seemed to just throw in the towel and only have a token selection there (used to have a decent selection in that area about 10 years back)

Re:It's their own fault.

[timotten]

Ah, but this is Slashdot. Nothing goes without being said.

For example, cheese-whiz.

Re:It's their own fault.

[Xest]

"To be honest, I think it's a combination of computer books going out of date quite quickly, that the people who buy such books are more likely to do so online and that computer books in general don't (AFAIK) sell as well these days."

I don't think this is a problem for them, because they're precisely the type of books they do tend to stock- those that are replaced with a new version every 6 to 12 months. Things like "Learn Flash 9 in 5 minutes" or whatever - stuff that really could be replaced by a quick Google for a tutorial covering the exact same thing for free.

Particularly with some of the classic computer science books like those by Knuth, things like SICP, you just don't see them stocked, but I have a strong interest in math and it's the same there- many Waterstones simply outright do not even have a math section beyond GCSE/A-Level maths exam guides and that really does stink!

I can understand it's because the level of book I am seeking is probably classed as niche now, but it's a bit of a sad reflection of society if anything beyond A-Level is classed as niche- certainly they never stock any graduate level computing, maths or science books, let alone postgraduate!

Re:It's their own fault.

[camazotz]

I think you misread the article. We're talking about Borders, not Barnes & Noble. Borders was the store that for years now refused to make me pay for the privilege of getting discounts, regularly sent me 30 and 40% off coupons and offered a relaxed environment that might feel pompous if you just rolled in from the stix but was otherwise as neutral and pleasant an environment as one could get without going straight to the local business brick and mortar shops.

Re:It's their own fault.

[sesshomaru]

"I went in a few branches around the world, and never bought anything. "

Oh, you missed out! They had this great milkshake made out of coffee and vanilla ice cream...

Re:It's their own fault.

[jep305]

B & N and Borders killed mom and pop, and now Borders gets killed by Amazon -- and maybe even a little by mom and pop via E-Bay. Not a whole lot to cry over here.

Looks like....

[wjousts]

...my local Half Price Books is going to be getting some new stock!

Re:Looks like....

[Svartalf]

That depends on how well they discount the liquidation, really.

Re:What a shame...

[modmans2ndcoming]

boarders did not sell the Nook... Barnes and Noble sell the nook.

Re:What a shame...

[Attila Dimedici]

Barnes & Noble is still in business and it is not yet clear that they will suffer the same fate as Borders. I would not give up on the Nook just yet.

No great surprise.

[RsG]

They're competing with Amazon. The one thing they could've relied upon, namely the fact that there are a lot of older people who like books and don't understand the internet or computers, is a lot less true now than it was even five years ago. Hell, my mom gets most of her new book purchases online, from Amazon or elsewhere.

Take note: businesses can die in this day and age even when piracy is removed from the equation. Legitimate online purchases will probably do more to kill bookstores, movie rental and music stores than bittorrent in the long run.

Re:No great surprise.

[b0bby]

They're competing with Amazon.

That's only half the problem. What really killed them is bad management, taking out loans for expansion too fast. B&N is still going strong, because they have been well run.

Re:No great surprise.

[Chris Mattern]

B&N is still going strong

Well, still going. Sales are growing (mostly online; per store sales are falling), but it's running at a growing loss. It's currently facing a takeover bid from Liberty Media. Stay tuned.

Re:No great surprise.

[RsG]

No, I'm the same way. I never once mentioned ebooks in my post.

But brick and mortar sellers of real books have to compete with web based sellers of real books. It wasn't the kindle or anything like it that killed them, it was the ability to browse online, find the paperback you want and have it shipped to your doorstep. Hell, I've probably bought more books (real ones, dead trees and all) from Amazon than I would have from stores, simply for the convenience, or because the book I wanted wasn't available otherwise.

Re:No great surprise.

[Yunzil]

They turned a profit in 2010. It looks like '09 was their only bad year recently. So where's this "growing loss"?

Re:No great surprise.

[Chris Mattern]

Losses in both third quarter 2010 and fourth quarter 2010. Fourth quarter loss was bigger.

Re:No great surprise.

[CrashNBrn]

Borders website was better for used books than Amazon. Borders had content indexed from Used Book Stores all over the US. Shipping was cheaper than Amazon. And the search feature easily allowed you to search for more books from the same seller/Bookstore - and once you had 2+ books, shipping was reduced to $1-$2 per book. When many of the books were only a couple bucks --- I've gotten 4+ books at a time for ~$12.
Amazon's shipping for books is $3.99 unless you are a prime-member - and even if you are a prime-member MOST of Amazon's used books are sold via resellers that don't support prime.

Used books on Amazon were usually at least twice as expensive and could be as much as 3 or 4 times as expensive as getting the same books from the Borders Marketplace online.

Re:Sad

[taxman_10m]

Borders would routinely email out 40% coupons on any one item if you signed up for their free "Border's card." It made the books essentially the same price as Amazon.

Fahrenheit

[improfane]

Who needs to burn books and things that last when you have technology to do it for you?

I hate to say it but technology both gives you freedom and inherently takes other freedom away.

Books will slowly become the domain of the academic and public service, so they will gradually fade from prominence. With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.

Don't let that stop you buying ebooks though, I try own a physical version for important books. I see an ebook as a modern day convenience most certainly not an equivalent replacement.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.

Dude, if you get to the point where availability of electricity is preventing you from reading, you're going to be using your paper books for firewood or toilet paper. Either that, or somebody else will be stealing them from you for those purposes.

Re:Fahrenheit

[osu-neko]

Yes. Buy a car, and you're at the mercy of oil companies, government licensing agencies and public infrastructure. But you'll get further faster than you did on foot nonetheless...

Re:Fahrenheit

[arcite]

Books will become antiques and collectors items. If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it. Once all current books are scanned and fully digitized, any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them. This is a powerful tool that is not fully realized. e-book technology is till in its infancy. You're also fooling yourself if you assume that a paper book is automatically superior to a digital version. A paper book only has one copy, is probably printed on cheap paper, supportable to moisture, mold, insect, natural disaster, fire... you name it. Books are perishable goods and none too portable. Digital information is forever and can be backed up infinitely.

Re:Fahrenheit

[improfane]

You are absolutely correct.

A company would never remove books on your device, would they?

Books will never be re-written to remove dangerous paragraphs will they?

Your Ebook reader will never be designed for obsolescence will it they?

The online services of your ebook will never go down?

If your ebook provider goes bust, they will obviously have thought of that and leave behind the books behind for you to download, right? If they don't go bust they will never phase out the service, ever?

Your Kindle would never be stolen would it?*

Your books will always work on other eReaders?

* This point depends on my assumption that people are more likely to steal an Ebook than a regular book.(Do people honestly steal books?)
 

Re:Fahrenheit

[improfane]

Forgot to preview that one. That should say people are more likely to steal an ebook rindle (like a Kindle) than they are your soppy romantic novel.

Re:Fahrenheit

[smooth wombat]

If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it.

Congratulations on tossing aside thousands of years of human history. The written word is necessary in a society where not everyone has the ability to purchase a digital device which may or make not work depending on the whim of the manufacturer and the ability of electricity.

any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them.

Congratulations again. You've just excluded at least one third of the world's population, most likely closer to half, who don't have a net connection and will probably not have one in the foreseeable future for various reasons. Cost and infrastructure being the two biggest culprits.

A physical book is what reminds us that not everything has to be available at an instant, that we can take our time to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the worry of glare off a screen, our batteries running out or spilling our Dew on the device and shorting it.

While books may be perishable, they are far more durable than any electronic device. Excluding fire and lack of light, a book is available at any time and any place. Not so with an e-book. In addition to spilling a liquid on it, one can crack the device if misplaced in a bag, scratch or otherwise damage the screen, lose power, bake it in the sun, and a whole host of other issues, including mold.

People have always looked back when something we took for granted was replaced by something which was supposed to be "new and better". To quote Barney Stinson, "New is always better." To which Ted asked, "So those new Star Wars movies, are they better than the old ones?"

Ted then asks Wendy what their newest Scotch is, to which the answer is, Jimbo Jim's Grape Scotch. Oh, and don't let it touch your skin.

New is not always better. If you feel the need to rush through your day, go for it. But don't tell others they won't be able to sit down and take their time to read a physical book because you think they are a waste. There's a reason the few copies of the Guttenberg Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Darwin's works are so valuable. They are the physical manifestation of the author writ for all humanity. If a book is sufficient for Jean Luc Picard, it is sufficient for everyone.

The same cannot be said for a bunch of electrons.

Re:Fahrenheit

[mlts]

I will be a devil's advocate here, even though I use e-books all the time (mainly because it is a lot easier to carry a Kindle with an IBM Redbook and the O'Reilly UNIX admin books on it than to have the physical volumes.)

We are giving a lot of power to the people who sell the eBook readers. It might be that in the future that the next Catcher in the Rye may not be subject to book burnings and bannings -- it may just silently vanish due to a kill command issued to our readers.

eBooks are still in the infancy, but so are the DRM setups. It is only a matter of time before the threat of losing access to purchased material by an account banning cows the masses into accepting any DRM scheme copied to a device.

Re:Fahrenheit

[John Bresnahan]

Dude, if you get to the point where availability of electricity is preventing you from reading

Funny, but my mother just complained about just this. She lives in an area with frequent power outages, and the last time the power went out, she realized that her Kindle needed recharging, so she wasn't able to read any of her recently-purchased books while waiting for her TV and computer to start working again.

I may have to get her some kind of USB recharging dongle, but I doubt that she will keep that charged up either.

Re:Fahrenheit

[John Bresnahan]

Digital information is forever and can be backed up infinitely.

The information is "forever" only so long as the media lasts, and only so long as you can still read the media.

I have various backup media, which were the primary form of media since I've been a programmer, which would require custom-built hardware to be readable today. Not only is the hardware no longer commonly available, the hardware wouldn't be able to interface with any modern computer.

I have books, however, which were printed a century or more ago which I can read just fine.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Baloroth]

No, but if you're watching a borrowed movie, the MPAA might try. Or at least file suit against the sun for aiding infringement.

Re:Fahrenheit

[jburroug]

When hurricane Ike made landfall in Houston in 2008 most of the city was without electricity for a good two weeks. I spent several hours a night reading paper books by the light of oil lamps. No one was burning books for fuel or looting homes for paper books to wipe their asses with.

Believe it or not even in the USA it's possible to loose electrical service long enough to drain the batteries in all your toys for reasons other than the zombie apocalypse.

Re:Fahrenheit

[DogDude]

Good luck when the power goes out.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

Most readers with e-ink display could handle two weeks without a recharge fairly easily.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

Stop and think - what circumstances would result in a complete loss of electrical power for an extended period of time? About the only thing I can think of would be a complete collapse of civilization - ie another round of dark ages. How common do you think books were during the dark ages?

I'm not saying that it is impossible to create a book without electricity. I'm saying that if a society didn't have the ability to create electricity, I doubt that preserving books is going to be high on their list of priorities. A society capable of printing books is probably capable of generating electricity - it just happens in the past that they lacked the knowledge to do so, but that is clearly no longer the case.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

Good thing that e-book readers can go a month or two between chargers. Oh, and they do make these things called batteries that are portable. :)

The only way electricity is going to cause you to permanently lose your ebooks is the downfall of civilization.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

Well, I guess the point would be to leave it on a charger when not using it. Especially since they can go a month or two without a recharge...

Re:Fahrenheit

[Svartalf]

And, if power's the concern, solar panels and wind gensets typically do a decent enough job providing sufficient juice for most e-readers and even Android/iOS tablets. The DRM's going to be a concern- but fortunately for me, most of my e-Book fixes seem to be from Baen, and they don't do DRM. :-D

Re:Fahrenheit

[steelfood]

Books last centuries. We're able to read Da Vinci's journal and Fermat's copy of Mathematica where he wrote down his famous last theorem. How long will an e-book last? Will notes and remarks remain for the life of the e-book?

Your assetion that digital is forever, which is the entire basis of your statement, is simply and completely false. Digital data has not and will not withstand the test of time. Most sites from the early 90's, just two decades ago no longer exist, even if you're only looking at contents and not layout or design. Even the Wayback Machine doesn't have every page of every site, not to mention that there are sites that existed before the Wayback Machine. Even if a site was archived, the chances of the Wayback Machine and archive.org no longer being present within the next 100 years is much greater than the chances of all copies of any book degrading to the point of illegibility in the same timespan. The only information stored digitally that has even a chance of being perpetually propogated for more than a few years are the things that remain popular throughout. Historically, the only thing that remotely qualifies are religious and philosophical texts. And even then, most of those texts are often passed down to modernity having gone through translation, modification, and pieces have been outright lost.

You need to snap out of the "technology is humanity's savior" and "newer is always better" attitude. Technology is an enabler. That's all it is. It doesn't replace what exists already, it makes certain trade-offs to enable other things and open up other doors.

Books can be read with no electrical infrastructure, no equipment except your eyes, and can survive any environment. Your e-book reader needs a power source and the maintenance thereof, and can only operate under normal conditions. The contents of a damaged book can be partially recovered, in particular, the parts that aren't damaged. The contents of a damanged e-reader may not be recoverable at all. And I'm not even talking about DRM, which makes it even worse. Books can be buried underground for ages during times of turmoil. Your e-book reader's battery will be unable to hold charge after a few decades. Books are relatively easy to print and copy, difficult to retroactively modify, and impossible to completely remove from the face of the planet, short of burning every last copy. Electronic books, especially on a DRM'ed medium, can not only be removed from your perpetually-connected reader without your consent, but the contents can be subtly or otherwise changed en mass. Books cost $7-$10 for a mass market paperback, $20-$30 for a hardcover. E-books cost the same, plus the cost of the reader and the electricity the reader uses.

Besides which, I'd like to see you try to recover your e-book reader after you've dropped it into your pool or the ocean or even the toilet (in fact, you might not care to recover your book while you'll probably be more motivated to recover your reader, which is a huge plus for books right there).

There's a reason why certain aspects of life have remained the same for centuries, and it's not necessarily because people are incapable of or resistant to change. Some things have already met the ideal or are so close to them that any further attempts at improvement will require more time and effort than the improvement is worth. Books are one of them.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Frosty Piss]

Books will become antiques and collectors items. If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it. Once all current books are scanned and fully digitized, any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them.

How about those without Internet connections? Either those that just don't want them, or those in places that don't have them?

Not everyone (not even the majority) are connected 24/7 like many Big City Dwellers.

Some people just don't feel the need to be tethered.

And - believe it or not - *MANY* people *like* books.

Re:Fahrenheit

[evil_aaronm]

Could yours be a "corner case"? I have plenty of PDF books on both my iPod and iPad (GoodReader) and I have no issues with either. I prefer the iPad, naturally, because of the bigger screen, but I regularly read a PDF book on my iPod during lunch.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Anonymous Coward]

I am reminded of the novel "Lucifer's Hammer", in which a character retrieves his copy of "How Things Work" after a catastrophe. Would be a bummer to have the batteries run out on an e-book you were using to rebuild civilization.

Re:Fahrenheit

[ffflala]

Books will become antiques and collectors items. If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it. Once all current books are scanned and fully digitized, any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them. This is a powerful tool that is not fully realized. e-book technology is till in its infancy. You're also fooling yourself if you assume that a paper book is automatically superior to a digital version. A paper book only has one copy, is probably printed on cheap paper, supportable to moisture, mold, insect, natural disaster, fire... you name it. Books are perishable goods and none too portable. Digital information is forever and can be backed up infinitely.

=What your perspective overlooks is how advanced the technology of books has become. Paper, ink, printing, and binding are a self-evidently open design that has been refined over the course of dozens of centuries. The technology is relatively advanced and mature. OTOH, the equipment you appear to rely on is far more vulnerable to moisture, mold, insect, natural disasters, fire, EMPs, etc.

I agree that it's possible that books might eventually become obsolete antiques, but within 100 years will is much too soon. Digital technology needs several centuries to just begin to catch up with paper, ink, and glue.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Rich0]

Hence the reason I mentioned an e-book reader, and not an android phone...

An e-book reader (that uses an e-ink display - not the fancy "color" ones) is going to go weeks without a charge.

In any case, buy all the paper you want, but don't be surprised when brick and mortar stores can't afford to stock it. I love buying enthusiast motherboards and cello strings every few years, but I know I'll never find a brick and mortar store within 50 miles that will stock a good supply of either. If blockbuster can't stay in business, then bookstores are doomed...

Re:Fahrenheit

[n7ytd]

Books last centuries. We're able to read Da Vinci's journal and Fermat's copy of Mathematica where he wrote down his famous last theorem. How long will an e-book last? Will notes and remarks remain for the life of the e-book?

But we're talking about Border's here. They couldn't give a rat's ass less if they were preserving a slice of human history; it's all about moving mass market books. They are a retail shop, after all, not the library of congress.

Re:Fahrenheit

[fafaforza]

Wasn't one of the points of that book that the physical book wasn't of importance, but the information itself? And that information could be stored anywhere, on the "wall screens" or in your head. And with our move to all things digital, ebooks are the natural next step. Publishers will try to protect the stuff, but it all can be broken down into plain old text, which will be readable for centuries. So no reason to get all up in arms about the lessening importance of physical books.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Renevith]

You're really reaching here, like someone who claims the warm hum and crackle of LPs makes them better. You can certainly claim that the objectively-worse aspects of books make them subjectively better for you, but you shouldn't expect anyone else to be convinced!

A physical book is what reminds us that not everything has to be available at an instant, that we can take our time to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the worry of glare off a screen, our batteries running out or spilling our Dew on the device and shorting it.

While books may be perishable, they are far more durable than any electronic device.

Whether a book is electronic has nothing to do with taking our time to enjoy it. You can sit down, take your time and read all the classic works of literature you want, at whatever pace you want, on an eReader. Modern eReaders do not have screen glare and have batteries that last for months. If you spill your Dew on a physical book you might have to throw away the actual book, whereas if you spill your dew on an eReader, the book itself is in perfect condition and always will be, safe on your hard drive and Amazon's backup servers. Just replace the device (not so expensive nowadays) and your entire library is restored for free.

Congratulations again. You've just excluded at least one third of the world's population, most likely closer to half, who don't have a net connection and will probably not have one in the foreseeable future for various reasons. Cost and infrastructure being the two biggest culprits.

If their conditions are that bad, do you think they're spending their money on libraries and textbooks? They're not going to have access to many books, electronic or not.

Most countries at least have cellular phone networks even if their other infrastructure is lacking, or they have one satellite internet access point. A few eReaders with cellular internet (or occasional access to satellite net) and months-long battery lives could be more valuable than an entire library, and wouldn't cost nearly as much to transport.

Re:Fahrenheit

[John Bresnahan]

Well, I guess the point would be to leave it on a charger when not using it.

If you can get my mother to remember and follow this advice, you're a better man than I.

Re:Fahrenheit

[hawguy]

With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.

Depends where you buy them - just like back when most commercial music was locked down with DRM restrictions, many books (mostly from small independent authors) are available without DRM. I've bought a lot of books through http://www.smashwords.com/ . They have books in various formats for various devices and they have no DRM restrictions. No DRM means that the books will be readable as long as there are computers (and, as you said, electricity, but if there's no electricity, my book collection (aside from my old Army survival guide which I have in paper) will be the least of my worries)

Prices are great (most seem to be in the $1 to $3 range) and most authors let you download a generous sample of the book before buying.

Out of over 3 dozen books I've read on my Kindle, only 2 of them were purchased through Amazon, the rest were from Smashwords or Project Gutenberg.

Re:Fahrenheit

[sycorob]

Where in the world do you have access to either a well-stocked library, or some way to purchase books, but don't have any way to access the Internet? For a Kindle (current technology) you either need brief wifi access from a coffee shop or McDonalds or someplace, or you pay a little bit more to get ubiquitous 3G data access. I live in Chicago, but I've bought and downloaded books in Europe while on vacation without issue. You don't need to be "tethered" to anything to enjoy your digital books. And that's current technology, which will get replaced by devices and services we haven't dreamed of yet.

If you enjoy carrying around heavy, fragile paper versions of books, then more power to you, but you're on the wrong side of history. Before you know it you'll have to dig around in flea markets to find old paper books. Did you notice how fast VHS tapes disappeared? They technically still work, but they've been so completely replaced by DVDs and BluRay disks that you only see them at yard sales anymore. Paper books are up next.

Re:Fahrenheit

[PoolOfThought]

Imagine that same individual so confident in their car handcuffs themselves to the steering wheel b/c it was so much better than walking. Ain't getting so far on foot now are we?

Re:Fahrenheit

[Prosthetic_Lips]

Sorry, but my wife loves her Kindle, and much prefers it over "dead tree" format. Lighter, easier to carry around, don't have to worry about losing your bookmark. I prefer dead-tree-format books, but I've read some on her Kindle. But, I also like to swap books (PaperBackSwap.com) to make it cheaper to feed my habit.

In fact, on her side of the family, they have 4 Kindles that get well-used (her, both parents, and sister). If you read a lot of new books, it is much cheaper than even paperbacks, and the Kindle versions are coming out with the hardbacks, so you don't have that 6 month to 1 year wait for the paperback version. They are great for people that would like to read (airplane, car ride) but can't stand to cart around books. Me, I like having a paperback -- many of the fast food places recognize me, and ask me when they DON'T see me with a book.

PS: I don't care if you like Harry Potter / Rowling or Twilight / Meyers, but you have to love them if they can get non-readers to read books! I almost wish they had not made the movies, to get more people to read.

Re:Fahrenheit

[geekoid]

so.. what? you walk everywhere? You're complaint applies to ALL other transportation.

Re:Fahrenheit

[Dogtanian]

Did you notice how fast VHS tapes disappeared? They technically still work, but they've been so completely replaced by DVDs and BluRay disks that you only see them at yard sales anymore.

They hung on longer for actually recording material. Sure, part of the reason they died is that more convenient and/or higher-quality technologies came along, but one other obvious reason is that there are virtually no video recorders that work with digital TV transmissions. Analogue TV signals have either been switched off in many countries, or are due to be so quite soon.

You *can* get video recorders to work with an external set-top box, but it's a PITA. I didn't record much with my VCR/digibox combo, because it was a hassle to set the two timers separately. Less technical people probably wouldn't even bother with the hassle at all, even if they could figure it out.

Re:Fahrenheit

[geekoid]

Congratulation, most those people don't have access to paper books either.

"New is better is a strawman." Seriously, no shit new isn't always better. No one is saying new is always better(except for your fiction friends)However eBooks are substantially better then paper books, objectively speaking, of course.

Your last paragraph is nonsense.
Why do you think reading an eBook means rushing? I have spent hours no the hammock enjoying a good book.

If it's sufficient for fictional person it sufficient for everyone? What the Fuck is that? seriously? we can use fictional peopel for reference?

Fine
If print is dead for Egon, it is dead for everyone.

Oh, and good luck making a book without uses electrons.

". Excluding fire and lack of light, a book is available at any time and any place"
Ah yes, one slight advantage for a book. What happens when there is a fire? or it gets droped in the mug? or gets left ona bus?

IN all those cases I still have access to my book.

Think about that:
If my reader gets destroyed, I can still get my books. Of course, I have a cover for it, so getting destroyed isn't likely.

You ignore things like:
Built in dictionary and thesaurus. The ability to send quotes over immediately, the ability to rate book, send my fined a link so they can buy it based on my recommendations.

The only real issue with eBooks for me is that the price doesn't reflect the loss from resale. OTOH, if you don't resell your books it doesn't apply.

However I doubt you resale. You seem to generate too much self worth from those leafs of paper.

Re:Fahrenheit

[geekoid]

And if that feature is ever used wide spread, then it will go away. People won't tolerate it.

That said, it only applies to titles you get from the eReader company.

Re:Fahrenheit

[geekoid]

an ebook will last forever, and in perfect condition. I would love that to apply to DaVinci original works.

"Books are one of them."

Well, I guess the explains why ebooks will never outnumber books, and books stores will never go away.

Or, you know, you are wrong.

"and can survive any environment.
so like fire and water? smoke? sunlighht? acid in the paper? All those things are detrimental to books at different degrees.

" It doesn't replace what exists already, "
yes, it does... pretty dam often. How many of your books where hand written?

"The contents of a damanged e-reader may not be recoverable at all."
ummm, what? If my ereader gets damaged, I can move my whole collection on my next one.

Re:Fahrenheit

[geekoid]

I always wonder about people whon think adding an avenue for new information equals tethered.

How myopic must they be? Sad really.

Re:Fahrenheit

[busybox]

the comment sounded like a speech to me. A campaign... Loved it.

brick and "mortal" stores

[JesusOfNazareth]

Lesson among all brick and mortar stores: your selection will always suck compared to online stores. Figure out a niche for yourself such that your selection doesn't suck so much, or have an online presence that's useful. I've given up a long time ago on blindly driving to a freaking store in the hopes they'd have this one thing I need and lo and behold they don't. So then I drive to another store, and another, etc. And after two hours I'm like, what the hell is wrong with me, I could've ordered this online. More and more of your shoppers will have this thinking, especially as gas prices keep increasing.

Tips for a useful online presence: I can check if something is in stock before I get there? Sweet. Even better, I can actually pay for it now and you'll have it ready to be picked up when I get there? Double sweet. I actually still buy stuff at Best Buy for this reason. Instant gratification by being able to get something right now instead of waiting for UPS is still an enticing thing, so I am sometimes willing to pay some extra markup for that (but not too much, Best Buy can be horrid but catch a sale our have a coupon, and it's not so bad).

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[heptapod]

Agreed. Going to Barnes & Noble, not finding what I want, being told "We can order it for you".
If I wanted to order it, I'd go to Amazon or ABEbooks and I'd have it quicker than having B&N order it for me to their store and for less.

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[Bigbutt]

The B&N stores where I am will call the other "local" B&N stores in the area for the book I'm looking for, _then_ say they can order it for me if they don't have it. If it's in one of the other stores, I'll gladly ride over to get it. But if it's "I'll order it", I decline. I can order it and I don't have to come back to pick it up.

[John]

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[vlm]

Lesson among all brick and mortar stores: your selection will always suck compared to online stores. Figure out a niche for yourself such that your selection doesn't suck so much, or have an online presence that's useful. I've given up a long time ago on blindly driving to a freaking store in the hopes they'd have this one thing I need and lo and behold they don't.

Gifts? My wife likes books about subject X, I'll probably find something she will tolerate at B+N. If she wants book number #X of #Y in series of #Z then hellloooo amazon. Admitted we'd all be better off if I gave her an amazon or itunes GC, but that's not socially acceptable in my culture.

So, for birthdays, no problemo, nice distribution across the year. Calendar holidays are a big problem, I have not retail shopped between thanksgiving and christmas in some years, will not tolerate the behavior of other shoppers and do not like waiting in line. Either shop before thanksgiving or order online before 12/10 or so. So they have a huge staffing problem where perhaps 75% of their sales are immediately before xmas and mothers day... Maybe bookstores will have to go the route of the "haloween stores" and "christmas decoration stores" where they pop up on short term month long lease, sell out of the back of a semi trailer for a couple weeks, and move on. Pity books are so dang dense/heavy compared to haloween costumes.

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[couchslug]

Auto parts stores "get" what you just posted, and often have complementary websites so you can find out what they carry and what's in stock.

They ADAPTED to "I need it now" with same and next day delivery, a mix of online and onsite purchasing, etc.

If they can do it, I'm not impressed with other businesses who can but CHOOSE not to. I don't need brick and mortar book stores. Shopping online is faster and much more convenient.

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[omnichad]

It's especially sad when stores that have electronic inventory, interconnected with all the other stores, and they don't make use of that info for their web site.

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[Osgeld]

heh, last time that happened to me I responded "this isn't 1982, I can order it my self, do you know where I can find a decent book store? maybe one that is not half of a coffee shop and carries books?"

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[s-whs]

heh, last time that happened to me I responded "this isn't 1982, I can order it my self, do you know where I can find a decent book store? maybe one that is not half of a coffee shop and carries books?"

So basically what you are saying is that you are an asshole with no manners whatsoever?

Bookstores always gave the opportunity to order books. That there are more options now doesn't mean bookstores should remove that option, that's just ludicrous, no, inane.

If you don't care about bookstores remaining, and thus also give them a little bit of extra money compared to say Amazon, for book orders, well, your choice. But that probably means you don't care at all about browsing for books, and if enough people are like that there's going to be a point when there are no more bookstores, only virtual book stores.

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[Osgeld]

not being an asshole, but when chain store A is so overfucked with a coffee / stationary shop that they do not have room to keep a popular book its not a book store, its a coffee / stationary shop that happens to have a few books as well

I would rather go to a book store

Re:brick and "mortal" stores

[geekoid]

well then you wouldn't come in and buy a cup of coffee, would you? And as we know, nothing says book store like having someone service bad coffee.

Re:Sad

[g0bshiTe]

The last time we had a Borders shut down here, I took the opportunity to stock my geek shelf with manuals. Got about 9 manuals for under $150.

As an aside the best book I saw when browsing the computer section was a 70 something page book on hacking that told you could be a 31337 hacker by learning how to port scan. I should have bought it just for the lols, but I thought at $3.00 it was overpriced, went for a map of Tokyo instead.

Re:What a shame...

[SJHillman]

I got the Nook Color... even if B&N (which as everyone else has said, is NOT Borders) went out of business tomorrow, it would still be an extremely useful device. Even without rooting it, it's a pretty decent tablet for $250 (I got mine for $180 from Overstock.com). And if you do root it, it's much more powerful than any other tablet I've seen in that price range.

won't be missed

[Ephemeriis]

We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.

It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.

Re:won't be missed

[osu-neko]

We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.

It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.

They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...

Re:won't be missed

[drinkypoo]

EXACTAMUNDO. I come from Santa Cruz and the borders there is the most useless bookstore EVER. If you're a yuppie you can stay basically eternally but the slightly scuzzy are kicked out rapidly, and they make up a big portion of scruz. The selection is shit, mostly just bestsellers as you'd imagine... and just a couple blocks up the street is Logos, one of the best used bookstores (they have a massive new selection as well) that I've ever been to. I won't just not miss it, I'll be glad when it's gone, and there's a chance for something useful to take its space. Every time I visit I'm amazed it's still there; it's never busy enough to justify a downtown location.

Re:won't be missed

[Ephemeriis]

They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...

I'll certainly agree that reading, in general, is less popular these days. And it must be hard to run a business that sells books these days. Especially with a monster like Amazon out there. But I don't think the solution is to become some kind of half-assed media retailer.

Start selling video games, or movies, or music... And now you're competing with folks who've based their entire business on that (EB, FYE), and the commercial giants like Wal-Mart who can genuinely afford to do a little of everything. You aren't shoring up your strengths with diversity - you're venturing into very dangerous waters populated with some very hungry fish.

Our local Barnes & Noble is doing just fine. Yes, they carry some bookmarks and calendars... And they've got a Starbucks in the lobby... But the vast majority of their store is devoted to books. Shelves upon shelves of books. They've got a huge section of very cheap used books... They've got all the current best-sellers... They've got a wide assortment of pretty much everything - fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, all of it... They've got knowledgeable employees who can actually tell me something about the books on the shelves, and help me find what I'm looking for... They've got less popular, more obscure titles that I can't find elsewhere (like at Borders)... They've got comfortable seating right in the midst of all the shelves so that I can actually sit down and read through a chapter or two and see if I want to buy the book... And they are genuinely embracing digital distribution.

In short - where Borders dealt with a changing book market by watering-down its offerings to the point where I had no reason to visit their store; B&N has responded to that same changing market by improving its offerings and becoming my first (and usually only) stop when looking for a book.

Re:won't be missed

[vlm]

In short - where Borders dealt with a changing book market by watering-down its offerings to the point where I had no reason to visit their store

Radio Shack analogy? Went there weekly when I was young and willing to buy 5 resistors for $2, I haven't really been back since the conversion to Cellphone Shack... Now I have weekly deliveries from Mouser, Digikey, Minicircuits, and their competitors...

Re:won't be missed

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, what you're saying is that the secret to a successful bookstore is - to sell books?

Sorry, bub, show me your MBA.

Re:won't be missed

[jellomizer]

Their success wasn't selling books it was proving a good experience to the customer enough to make them feel guilty for staying there and reading their book and buying high revenue coffee or a calendar, and movies, CDs or some other trinket. Sure they made a profit selling books but that wasn't their bread and butter. So they pushed more towards non-book materiel, . They took the books out which was their primary drawing point to make more room for selling the profitable stuff, and removed the factor on keeping people in the store, thus less came in and looked around creating a downward spiral.

We can look back with 20/20 hindsight but at the time it looked like people are not interested in book but the other medias if you looked at the sales. But the truth is people are interested in the books but not to buy them. but it kept them in the stores to buy the impulse items. And there is a very detailed balance to make there.

Re:won't be missed

[delinear]

The staff should be one of the big advantages over the internet, but so few stores take advantage of them. Occasionally at my local Waterstones the staff will put up little cards with brief reviews of books they've read or enjoyed and I always find I buy more books at that time because it's less of a risk. When the cards aren't there I'll only buy from a small group of authors, otherwise I'd rather hit up Amazon and read some reviews. If bricks and mortar stores have one unique selling point the internet doesn't have, they should be falling over themselves to make the most of it, but in most stores you get surly staff who don't care enough to help, or they watch you like a shoplifter or talk over you to their colleague while taking your money and pretty much ignoring you.

Re:won't be missed

[drinkypoo]

Well, you can see how long it's been since I've been back.

I'm sure someone will move in there, the rich still like to shop in Santa Cruz, and they still have money. I miss the drum circles but kicking them of the mall was probably critical to keeping jobs going. Those streetlights are still stupid though.

Re:won't be missed

[greed]

Last time I was in a Borders--near the Walden Galleria outside Buffalo--they were unable to sell me the product I wanted. It was a DVD or CD or something, and it was in one of those "all our customers are shoplifters" plastic cases they have to remove at the register.

They couldn't find who had the gadget to remove the case.

After 5 minutes, I got tired of waiting, made them give me my money back, and left with my friends. There was important lunch to be eaten, Niagara Falls to be looked at, and other more valuable uses of time.

Costco in Canada had the same thing for like $5 more (after exchange), but was actually able to sell it to me. That counts for a whole lot in retail.

Re:won't be missed

[PCM2]

They took the books out which was their primary drawing point to make more room for selling the profitable stuff, and removed the factor on keeping people in the store, thus less came in and looked around creating a downward spiral.

It wasn't just that. Until recently there was a Barnes and Noble in one of the high-tourist-traffic areas of San Francisco. I can say uncategorically that this was The Worst Bookstore I Have Ever Seen. Within a couple minutes of walking through the front door, I thought to myself, "Well, I can see I won't be buying anything here." The store was huge, but it was a ramshackle mess. The books in the front of the store were cheap gift-book crap that nobody would want to buy. The shelves had all been rummaged. Employees lurched around listlessly, as if they didn't have any work to do (when clearly they did). You wouldn't have asked a question of anybody; not expecting a helpful answer, anyway. It was absolutely no surprise to me when this store went out of business.

There were more Borders stores in San Francisco than Barnes and Noble, but I was never particularly impressed by them, either. There's something weird about a bookstore that's setup like a Toys 'R' Us, where it's designed primarily to accommodate as much foot traffic as possible from people who are otherwise shopping at Old Navy. I feel uncomfortable when I walk into a bookstore and the highlighted new releases are the latest childcare book by Jenny McCarthy and a bunch of Star Wars novels. I like seeing magazines at a bookstore, too, but which magazines are highlighted matters -- when the magazine rack looks like the same thing you'd see at Rite Aid, the message I get is that this bookstore is setup mainly to convince men to kill time there while their wives are shopping for shoes. And, as many other posters have mentioned, most of the stock at Borders was not discounted in any way. There's something about grabbing a book from an overcrowded, poorly-organized shelf and bringing it up to a row of cash registers so the clerk can scan the barcode on the sticker on the back that just feels kind of soulless.

I guess, in a nutshell, nothing about the atmosphere of a Borders made it feel like a real bookstore to me. No doubt the big DVD section and the off-brand Starbuck's didn't much help. But the book selection. the pricing, and even the lighting and store layout have always been turn-offs for me.

Re:won't be missed

[geekoid]

No. What they are saying is the secret to a successful books store is GETTING people to buy books.

Re:won't be missed

[Tamran]

They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...

I don't think that's entirely true. I think what the TS is hinting at is the "type" of books they choose to stock. Best sellers sell, but what really get's people into the store (especially a big one) are the obscure books. All the big companies came into small towns and put the smaller places out of business because they had a great selection. Then once the competition dried up, they tried to over-optimize by getting rid of the obscure books and of course for the short term it worked. The car analogy here is to forgo oil changes in order to get more driving in ... in the short term it works, but in the long term your engine seizes up.

The last few times I went into a Borders, or B&N (they are a bit better, but not like they used to be) or a Chapters (in Canada) I go to the science and technology section and all they have are best sellers. I want ACTUAL science books like they used to sell. They have a mathematics department and it's full of books like "the history of sqrt(-1)" and the like ... yet no books on complex variable math. It's no problem for the clerks though, because as they point out I can just go an order the book from their website. Of course, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to see what Amazon has at the same time ... and guess which site is consistently less expensive and has a better selection.

THAT is what killed Borders (and will eventually kill B&N).

Just my opinion of course.

Tamran

Re:Slashdot no longer...

[improfane]

It's more geekier than Reddit or Digg. You don't get long interesting comments on Reddit or Digg. It's a bunch of kids spouting memes.

Re:Thought ths had already happened.

[SJHillman]

The difference between the Kobo and the Nook/Kindle is that Borders partnered with Kobo whereas B&N/Amazon developed their own ereaders. From what I can tell, the Kobo is still going to be alive even if Borders turns to dust. Here's a nifty little article: http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/18/borders-may-be-dead-but-e-reader-kobo-is-still-alive-and-kicking/

Re:Slashdot no longer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, in my highschool only the jocks cared about books.

Re:Slashdot no longer...

[SilentStaid]

How is a story about a bookstore, particularly one as influential as Borders not "news for nerds." Don't get me wrong, I'm all for most of the /. hate when it's warranted but I think that you're incorrectly assuming "nerd" is a synonym for "technophile."

Re:What a shame...

[damagemanual]

Keep in mine, that even if B&N were to fail, the Nook supports a number of different file types, including ePub. Which can be bought from a good number of online stores. So it's not like it goes down with the ship.

Re:What a shame...

[damagemanual]

mind damn it, it's too early still.

WTC Borders

[chelsel]

My favorite Borders was the Borders in the World Trade Center. I was working in the financial district as a programmer and I used to go there on my lunch breaks every few days to buy books on programming and finance. Borders had a better technical book selection than Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks.

Re:WTC Borders

[mooingyak]

Snagged most of my Bujold books there. I remember the sign was still visible in the wreckage afterwards.

Re:WTC Borders

[Captain Fallout]

That Borders was the best place to use as a meeting point for someone that came in on the PATH and wasn't familiar with the area. And like you, I purchased several different technical books there when I worked in the financial district between 98 and 2000.

The Borders inside MSG that's above Penn Station can't go away fast enough though. Horrible location, horrible selection, horrible service.

You've got mail

[paugq]

Does this mean a sequel to You've got mail is coming? "You've got mail - The revenge of sweet blondie"?

Sales Tax

[rhadc]

The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.

Borders is a high profile example of a brick and morter shop that can't compete in an environment where its primary competition has an unnatural advantage. Amazon doesn't pay sales tax. Sure, it had some missteps along the way, like having Amazon run its web sites. But if Borders can't compete, do you think Mom and Pop retailers will? This impacts not or future local retailing environment, but local employment, too. Sure, online stores can be more efficient, but even a local preference for local retail won't compensate for a 5-10% price penalty.

rhadc

Re:Sales Tax

[MichaelSmith]

The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level and pass the revenue to state (and ultimately) local governments.

Re:Sales Tax

[CrimsonAvenger]

The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level and pass the revenue to state (and ultimately) local governments.

Which would raise the price of everything, and do nothing about the online advantage.

Buying from Amazon generally means you'll pay no sales tax. If the Feds were to add a goods and services tax, everyone would pay that AND the sales tax.

Except for online retailers, of course.

Or do you really think the States will do away with their sales taxes just because the Feds hand them some free money?

Re:Sales Tax

[Intron]

The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level and pass the revenue to state (and ultimately) local governments.

Businesses that have offices in multiple states are already used to filing lots of state paperwork. There's no reason to get the fed involved - just charge sales tax for goods shipped to the states that collect it. Its not a very big lookup table. Then the businesses send a form and a check to each state every quarter - that's potentially 200 extra items of work per year. Nothing for Amazon. Software and services to handle this for small businesses would appear overnight if it was to much work to do by hand.

Re:Sales Tax

[geminidomino]

It's not just the tax. Even if they do pass some law that clusterfucks the online retailers with having to deal with every town in Podunk County, West Bumblefuck, they still can't beat the websites' biggest advantage: selection. One website can list the inventory for a ton of warehouses/distribution centers (a la Amazon) whereas the B&Ms are limited to what's there. Which gives the latter the edge when you need your widget right now... assuming, of course, that it's in stock and you don't have to order it online, anyway...

Re:Sales Tax

[khr]

Amazon doesn't pay sales tax

In some places they do... I'm in New York and my Amazon orders certainly do have New York sales tax added. Bummer my Oregon state billing address doesn't override that... But oh well, that's just one of the costs of living in New York City...

Re:Sales Tax

[JBMcB]

It isn't sales tax - it's not having to pay property tax, or salespeople, or operating expenses on retail stores scattered all over the country. A few percent sales tax is nothing when Amazon regularly discounts *everything* 10%-20% off MSRP.

Re:Sales Tax

[DrgnDancer]

The tax advantage is rather modest, and usually eaten up by shipping on online purchases (though Amazon has unusually good shipping terms and can avoid this to some extent). The big advantage is logistics and supply chain. Amazon maintains a dozen or so Warehouses, Borders maintains hundreds of stores. Amazon, in total, probably employes fewer people than Borders employs in a particularly large state like New York or Texas. When you go to borders and they don't have you want, you go home and order from Amazon. When you go to Amazon and they what you want is on back order, you think, "oh well, I was already waiting two days, what's another day or two?"

The tax advantage is there, of course, and it helps too; but compared to the logistics, supply chain, and economy of scale advantages, taxes are almost lost in the noise.

Re:Sales Tax

[vlm]

The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.

The only direct online tax advantage is sales tax, possibly the most regressive of all taxes, with the possible exception of certain low-income related sin taxes like tobacco taxes. In a race to the bottom, either the sales tax goes bye bye, or the local retail businesses, employees, and customers, go bye bye. Places that desperately want a sales tax can keep it, if they're willing to adsorb the unemployment, and people who are willing to live in an area with retail ghost towns. More power to them, but I don't personally wanna live there. If we had a free market, it would take care of this problem all by itself... Bye bye sales taxes, won't miss you at all...

A very indirect online tax advantage is property tax arbitrage. I can build a warehouse in a low prop tax area, and sell to the suckers in high prop tax areas without having to pay the high prop tax either directly or thru rent that local retailers have to tolerate. Its possible that rural people will have retail bookstores for decades after the last retail bookstore is pushed off Manhattan island.

Also, lets just face it, driving somewhere to buy stuff might be recreational for a tiny fraction of the population, but for most of us, its about as appealing as having to drive to a travel agent office to get airline tickets, or having to wait in line at a bank teller window for 15 minutes to deposit a check. No matter how much you play with taxes, retail might be doomed, because the overall retail experience sucks and conveniently online sucks less.

Re:Sales Tax

[icebrain]

But sales tax isn't just charged by state. It's often levied at the county or city level as well, and can vary depending on the type of item being purchased (e.g., raw food is sometimes exempt or taxed at a much lower rate, but prepared food isn't). So your lookup table isn't just fifty items, it's thousands if not tens of thousands. Where I grew up, there was a 4% state tax, plus 2% county tax, plus an additional 1% SPLOST (basically, a special-purpose, limited-time sales tax approved by general referendum) for city-level projects. Then add state-wide sales tax holidays on specific items, and you've created a real big mess.

You need a database by ZIP code (maybe even ZIP+4), product classification for every item, and date ranges to account for tax holidays. And you need to keep that constantly updated as every little town and county changes its tax rates.

That's not to say I think Amazon shouldn't pay sales taxes--they should. I just want to point out that it's a little more complicated than adding sales by state and sending 50 checks once a quarter.

Re:Sales Tax

[couchslug]

That doesn't address the travel advantage. I don't care to PAY to TRAVEL to LOOK at BOOKS when I can browse and buy online. That's more than a few percent price penalty. If I have to ORDER a book in person then I must TRAVEL to pick it up.

I don't care about store ambiance when I can chill in my recliner at home and shop naked while surfing /.

Re:Sales Tax

[vlm]

.... shop naked while surfing /.

And Mr. Couchslug is why /. does not implement something like google+'s hangout feature...

Re:Sales Tax

[DogDude]

No matter how much you play with taxes, retail might be doomed, because the overall retail experience sucks and conveniently online sucks less.

That's your opinion. Personally, I find that going into actual stores enriches my life significantly more than sitting my butt on my couch. But, to each his own.

Re:Sales Tax

[Chris Mattern]

The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level

Well, actually, no, they can't. At least not without a Constitutional amendment. By the US Constitution, the federal government may not lay direct taxes except in proportion to the population of the states (in other words, a poll tax). The income tax is an exception to this because the 16th Amendment authorizes it; before the 16th Amendment, the Supreme Court struck down the income tax as unconstitutional.

Re:Sales Tax

[Registered Coward v2]

The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.

While that is an advantage, it's offset by shipping costs to some extent - wether they are charged directly of factored into the cost of the items. Should shipping be deducted form taxes to keep the playing field "fair?"

Borders is a high profile example of a brick and morter shop that can't compete in an environment where its primary competition has an unnatural advantage.

There is no "unnatural advantage" - it is an outgrowth of our tax code; which some B&M stores take advantage of as well. Mos sates even have a use tax residences are supposed to (but generally don't) pay. Amazon's real advantage is the vast selection they offer - unless it was a popular item Borders didn't have it in stock and often quoted a week or more to get something - when Amazon would deliver it in a day or two. Borders bender figured out the online model and is suffering for it.

Amazon doesn't pay sales tax. Sure, it had some missteps along the way, like having Amazon run its web sites. But if Borders can't compete, do you think Mom and Pop retailers will? This impacts not or future local retailing environment, but local employment, too. Sure, online stores can be more efficient, but even a local preference for local retail won't compensate for a 5-10% price penalty.

As a friend of mine in sales said "There's no loyalty 5 cents off a case can't overcome." If people wanted to keep mom and pop shops in business they'd buy there even if it is more expensive. I do that for stores that actually have (gasp) service. But I don't want to have to pay a hidden "tax" to keep inefficient operations in business - I'd rather have that extra money to spend elsewhere.

What's next - a tax on free software because it hurts small mom and pop computer stores who are trying to sell commercial software?

Re:Sales Tax

[Cimexus]

God that sounds like a crazy system. Australia has roughly the same Federal/State system as the US, and generally has the same division between State rights and Federal legislative powers, but did manage replace a bunch of random old taxes with a single Federal GST back in 2001. A flat rate of tax applied to most goods and services, nationwide (some things are exempt, such as most food and essential grocery items). It works well and solved the 'online advantage' problem (at least domestically ... orders from overseas websites still have that advantage and this has actually been a recent issue in the news, with Australian businesses complaining they cannot compete against foreign websites).

Of course, Federal law and the US Constitution currently do not allow for a similar system in America (The Federal Govt. can't impose a taxes except in proportion to the population of the states, or the Federal income tax under the 16th Amendment). But hey, Federal law can be changed. Even the Constitution can be changed (all those Amendments weren't there originally). But there's simply no political will to make large-scale changes in the current climate I think, and the American government has much, much more important issues to deal with right now (economic, mostly).

Re:Sales Tax

[Cimexus]

The VAT model cannot work under the current law, that is true. But law (even the Consitution) can be amended. It just requires the political will to do so.

Australia has a very similar Constitution to the US, and very similar division of power between States and the Federal Govt. It has a flat nationwide GST. So it ~can~ work ... it just requires some changes to the law and a new Constitutional Amendment. (Haha, yeah I know, "just" an amendment, as if that's a minor thing ... but it has been done before and can be done again, theoretically).

Re:Sales Tax

[shutdown -p now]

You assume that the problem is paying the tax. It's not. I live in a state where Amazon is collecting sales tax, so they don't get that benefit - and yet 90% of my purchases are made on Amazon (and not just books and other digital items). Why? Because it's just much more convenient!

Re:Sales Tax

[Binary Ninja]

I've been into Powells Technical book store about 5 times in the last year. And all 5 times, a book that the catalog indicated as (possibly) being on the shelf and in stock, wasn't.

Just about anywhere you go, the sales person will typically mumble something like "We can order that for you." Why reward a store that doesn't keep books in stock? I can order it myself on Amazon, and reward them (or the associate store actually selling the book) for keeping copies in stock.

After a while, it just gets easier to look to Amazon first.

Re:Sales Tax

[Grishnakh]

People aren't going to bookshops to save sales tax, they're not going because they have a very limited selection. ... If you go looking for a specific title, if it's not a best selling blockbuster, chances are B&N and Co won't have it. Repeat a few times and people simply give up and use online resources instead.

It's more complex than that. I'd say sales taxes are a very, very minor part of the equation, it's really two main things: 1) selection, and 2) price. There's also 3) convenience.

Amazon has much, much better prices than B&N/Borders, even discounting the sales tax. On top of that, they have everything available, no "we'll order that for you and you can take time out of your schedule to come pick it up from us next week, and pay full price plus tax for the privilege". B&N/Borders, have the convenience of being able to just go there and pick up your book today, as long as you're only interested in a vampire romance novel.

Re:Sales Tax

[Roachie]

NO, and kindly never broach this subject again, for the love of humanity. If they institute a federal sales tax the feds will gradually keep more and more of it( because, hell, they got it ) the local governments will return to collecting local taxes again( because they can ). You'll end getting saddled with both.

Don't give the weasels any fucking ideas.

data peddler never was a good biz model

[bzipitidoo]

Technology caught up with their distribution system.

But I don't think much of the long term prospects of the likes of Apple's music business and Amazon either, at least not in its current form. Sure, they're relatively hot and new now. But fundamentally, they're still all about charging customers on a per copy basis. We won't settle for less than the best forever. And I don't think the Netflix model is it either.

I think the future is the digital public library.

Re:data peddler never was a good biz model

[bzipitidoo]

How? Not by entering deals that require them to give up the bulk of the profit to unnecessary, controlling, and greedy middlemen! We will pay them directly. Exactly how is debatable. I think a much improved system of patronage is in our future. More diverse, more informed, and far larger and faster than the 18th century system that brought us orchestral music. But there may be other workable ways.

So many people are really stuck on the idea that "no copyright = starving artists" Not true! Copyright is just a means, and one that is looking worse and worse as technology advances and entrenched interests push it to the breaking point in their overreaching, unethical, and illegal moves to wring every last penny out of it.

Shuttering

[GrBear]

The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday

Seriously, what's with the recent rise in usage of the word 'shuttering'. I mean, I'm gay and all.. but I'm not THAT gay to use the word shuttering.

Re:Shuttering

[Rob the Bold]

The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday

Seriously, what's with the recent rise in usage of the word 'shuttering'. I mean, I'm gay and all.. but I'm not THAT gay to use the word shuttering.

In a bad economy, it's only natural that the supply of synonyms for "closing" would be getting low.

They did it to themselves

[michaelmalak]

They sold too many web development books in the 90's to Amazon employees.

Re:They did it to themselves

[TheMCP]

They outright contracted out their online sales to amazon for a long while, so if you wanted to buy from borders online you were actually doing it through amazon, so with every transaction Borders was giving money directly to their competitor. The general consensus about this practice was "they're either high or just plain insane."

Re:They did it to themselves

[PingPongBoy]

They sold too many web development books in the 90's to Amazon employees.

Well put. Definitely a good point. Books have enabled and empowered us all since Gutenberg. And now we turn the page, perhaps, with a possibility to revise the way the media market operates.

The demise of a bookstore is not pleasant. Speculate if you will about technology overpowering print. There is still a long way to go before all books are available digitally. Also, a digital copy anchors you to an Internet account and/or to a fragile device, while not always letting you read on a large screen.

It isn't all about how great digital books are and how cheap it is to buy online. It's about the economy and the applicability of knowledge. When you want to solve a problem, you don't read up from a set of books, you Google.

On the downside is the desire of authors to write. We all need to agree to a system that compensates authors to the point they do not complain about digital copies floating all over the place, basically implying they are being rewarded while consumers are not forced to pay exorbitantly in order to fill a hard disk. A book case is quickly filled with physical books, which deters acquisition, but people are voracious if it comes to filling a little gadget that is even smaller than a book yet can hold a library. Setting up social and political mechanisms, aka culture and legislation, for the economics of media will have profound impacts on the economy in general.

I suggest that the real-time consumption of media be tracked or monitored (anonymously). Authors and artists would be compensated from tax base, with a proportional relationship between payment and popularity. That would take care of the icky problems of copyright, pricing, and incentives to create new works. All at once, people would be free to acquire, though it is their interest in specific items that is used to compute the distribution of funds. This should boost the economy, as people will develop interests and have the knowledge to start initiatives, thus taking care of the tax issue. It's a positive feedback loop, which should be a lot more effective than the negative feedback loops messing up the world.

Re:They did it to themselves

[dwye]

Given that I first discovered them because the then-local Border's had a great computer books section, you may be right.

Re:Help me gauge my happiness/sadness/outrage

[taxman_10m]

My impression was that Borders focused more on non-books than B&N. They usually had a music section, dvd section, probably other stuff. I didn't wander much past the books. Never understood who would by a DVD set at Borders when usually there was an adjacent store like Best Buy where you could get it for a little less (not to mention Amazon for a lot less).

Re:Slashdot no longer...

[Dhalka226]

Cool story bro.

(I couldn't resist.)

Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Phoenix666]

After I got out of grad school in the early nineties I discovered that having an advanced degree from one of the top 5 universities in the country didn't count for squat. After 18 months' fruitless search I got a job at a hedge fund fiduciary. 8 awful months later the giant hedge fund Long Term Capital Management blew up and nearly took the US economy with it then & there. People invested in hedge funds freaked, pulled out all their money, and I was without a job again.

I got a temp job in Northern Trust Bank's Private Banking division working up investment plans for rich people. The Private Banking division used Excel, of course. It was slow, and repetitious.

So I spent evenings and weekends sitting in Borders taking notes from their books on Visual Basic and VBA in order to automate the process. I couldn't afford to buy the books, I was so poor, and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL. I taught myself how to program that way (yes, I know it was only Visual Basic), and wound up reducing the turnaround time of the Private Banking division from 2 wks to an hour and a half. The division manager promptly fired me and stole my work, but I had found a new window of opportunity. I did more VB work, then added MS Access, then transitioned to VBScript during the dotcom days.

I switched to LAMPP in 1998 and haven't looked back. But it was those days & nights in Borders that allowed me to chart a course for a relatively stable career, given the turbulence of IT and Internet over the past decade. I dunno if their business model has any future, but for me then it was the right place at the right time.

RIP Borders

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. You'll miss Borders because you used it as a free library because you were too poor (or rather cheap) to pay for the books. You did earn money you know - you should have bought the books.

In fact - why didn't you just use google? I was a much better resource at that in time.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[demonlapin]

Today, you'd just go pirate the books. Much simpler, actually.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[vlm]

After I got out of grad school

one of the top 5 universities in the country

the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL

These three statements don't seem to go together. I attended a big no-name public uni and transferred to a small no-name college (smaller grad class than my high school...) and their libraries were beyond awesome. Especially the big no-name uni which subscribed to apparently every research journal that exists. Unless the school is located in a slum area, the libraries never check for ID or have any security at all, just show up in the evening when the older folks take night classes, carry a backpack and/or laptop, and its all good as long as you act as a gentleman (no loud ipod music, phone on vibrate, bathe more than once a week, no talking, etc). You don't have to attend classes to visit a university library, merely live nearby and act civilized.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Chris Mattern]

Depends on the university. I'm staff at fairly large private university, and the library has carded entrance gates. You don't have a valid University ID, you can't come in.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Rob the Bold]

WOW. Did you ever actually spend money there or just use them as some sort of welfare service?

Don't pretend that Borders had no interest in having people sitting around the store looking studious. They furnished the place with comfy chairs and didn't hassle people hanging out reading books. I'd say they made a calculated decision. If they wanted you to buy your book and get out, then the store would have looked like a mall bookstore -- most of which seem to have disappeared during Borders' rise.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[bill_mcgonigle]

yeah, they died because people went and dog-eared their books without buying them.

I don't approve of his practice, but actually the big booksellers have all their inventory on consignment, so they probably don't care. That's why they were able to crush the local booksellers so easily, who had to purchase their inventory.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[fishbowl]

I was deeply disappointed with the libraries at Stanford. It influenced my decision not to go to work there. That and the $50K salary they were offering.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[pyser]

Today, you'd just go pirate the books. Much simpler, actually.

In your mom's basement, no less.

At least Phoenix666 had a Borders to go to. And therein lies part of the problem. Who hasn't gone to Borders or another bookseller, browsed their selection, found just the right book, then gone home and ordered the same title from Amazon? (Or gotten out their smartphone and ordered it right in the store.)

Have you ever attended a book talk by an author? You know, the actual people who really write all those words? They don't just grow on paper while sitting in a big warehouse somewhere, you know. Amazon could never offer you the opportunity to meet, chat with, listen to, shake hands with, and share thoughts with the people who write the books you love to read, and to get out of the house and enjoy the company of others who also do (see earlier comment about mom's basement).

I view it as another consequence of the Wal-Mart problem. Low price is the driving factor - not customer service, a community environment, knowledgable booksellers (Borders used to test prospective employees on their knowledge of books), fairness to workers, or most importantly, keeping your money in circulation locally and not run through some credit card company on its way to Delaware. We have become conditioned to go to almost any length to save a few cents or dollars, even if it costs more to do so (do you drive several miles out of your way to save three cents a gallon on gas?).

Maybe the upside is that the closing of Borders stores will result in the opening of more locally-owned small booksellers who previously couldn't compete well with a company like Borders. A couple have already opened here recently in the shadow of one of the largest and most popular Borders stores.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Phoenix666]

Google didn't exist then. And I was so poor that the choice was spend $50 on a book at Borders, or buy groceries. I chose food. I have spent a lot of money at Borders since then, but at that time I couldn't. I am grateful they were there when I needed that resource. That's all I'm saying.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Phoenix666]

That works if you live next to your university library. I no longer did, then, and couldn't have gotten in if I had since they check IDs at the door. The same is true of the other university libraries in that area. I did pretend to be a business school student to sneak into the downtown campus of the business school to use their computers, but they didn't have books on VB there either.

You underestimate the difficulty of getting by when you don't "belong," and at that time I didn't "belong" and had no resources to compensate for lack of affiliation. Borders was a real resource for me, and I'm glad they were there. That's all I'm saying.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[demonlapin]

Have you ever attended a book talk by an author?

No, I haven't. I live in a small market; the "authors" who do book talks here are people who self-publish. Amazon actually means that I'm not limited to bestseller-of-the-week when I want to find something to read - and its suggestions and reader reviews are at least as good as (if not better than) serendipity at the average bookstore.

do you drive several miles out of your way to save three cents a gallon on gas?

No, because I'm not an idiot. But if I'm going to be driving past a cheap gas station anyway, I'll wait.

the Wal-Mart problem

Wal-Mart is a godsend for people who live in actual, non-quaint small towns all over the country: it provides goods of surprisingly high quality for very good prices, it's open seven days a week (if not 24 hours a day), and it's generally thought of as a good company to work for by those who actually work there.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[mitchplanck]

I live in Ann Arbor, I used to work for Borders, both in the retail store and then at corporate doing store support. This was back in the mid-90s, when life was good there, but they still paid crap. The Borders brothers had recently sold the company and the Waldenbooks aquisition was in progress, a whole bunch of the Walden employees moved to AA and we had two help desks for a while because the systems were so different.

When I started in the store, I helped open #63, Fairlawn, OH. That store has been closed for a while now. We opened every box and stocked all the shelves, which were all empty. It was a huge store for a mid-90s book store. People came in droves, everyone was trained to work in the coffee shop which was run by regular staff. If we didn't have a book the customer was looking for, which often they didn't even know who wrote it or the title, we had to help them figure it out, we could order it. This was all new. The music section was huge, the staff in there knew a ton about music and if they didn't have it, they could order it. This was probably the widest selection of music around. My section was the computer book section, I stocked the shelves there and learned the field was so much more than I knew about before. We had a Netware network, so I learned about that and took a CNA class at the CompUSA (remember those?) next door. I learned what IP addresses where and how they worked!

I then applied for and got a job in Ann Arbor on the store help desk. The building we started in was some offices in the front of a big warehouse, which was the main warehouse for the stores. The company continued to grow, constantly adding stores. I helped open the Bangor, MA store, beautiful city, nice store, I set up the computer systems there. With more growth we moved to a much bigger office which had once been a medical manufacturing building with a bunch of clean rooms. We didn't need the space to start and those stayed there for a while, along with a huge space next to the help desk area where we would take RC cars and stuff and play around. Borders liked to promote internally, which was nice, but that doesn't always work when you need experts, not low costs.One of our "DB admins" was from the help desk just like me and she didn't know much about being a real DB admin. She wound up deleting a ton of records out of a store's catalog, that had to get rebuilt and shipped out. I worked there when I heard about Amazon, thinking why would anyone want to buy books online (this was about '97 or '98). I left not much after that getting a 30% raise for doing the same work at Domino's corporate. I now make 4x from what I started at Border's corporate with another company and I don't see that stopping.

I used to shop at Borders all the time but started migrating to Amazon and B&N. It seemed like the store atmosphere declined over time, the staff knew less and less, decisions were being made for money only reasons, all signs that it wasn't really well run. I work for a company now which has hired a number of people from Borders during their recent decline but I am worried about some friends I have which still work there. This is just another piece of crappy news for this part of Michigan which has seen so much in the past few years and was just slowly starting to turn around.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[PoolOfThought]

Who hasn't gone to Borders or another bookseller, browsed their selection, found just the right book, then gone home and ordered the same title from Amazon? (Or gotten out their smartphone and ordered it right in the store.)

You know, I try to buy local. But sometimes people just don't want to help you help them. Just the other day I had been scheduled to be playing ball at a nearby gym, but the event got cancelled. There was a Borders right down the street that I used to frequent when I lived in the area so I decided I'd go hang out there and maybe get a couple of books. While I was there I found several books I was interested in, but one in particular. It seems priced kinda high though so I checked the prices online. I found it at several places for $10 less, but Borders online had it for $5 less with free shipping. I asked the manager to match their online price so I could get it that day. They said they could not. I couldn't believe it, but it's their business and they can run it how they want I suppose. I went ahead and bought the other 4 or 5 discounted books I had already grabbed (that one book would have trippled the sale) and checked out. It still surprises me that they passed up that sale for the same price they had online... and it does not surprise me that the store is being shuttered.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[pyser]

For a lot of people, discovering something new that they didn't know about is part of the enjoyment of reading. If you know exactly what you want, you can order it from Amazon. If you don't know exactly which title, but you are looking for something in a certain genre that you enjoy, or by an author you like, a real-live bookseller can help you find something interesting. This works better for fiction than it would for reference or technical books, but the decline of the large-scale bookstores means that this sort of personal advice will become unavailable to large segments of the population. You can't exactly go look at the table full of new non-fiction or trade paperbacks, pick one up and leaf through the pages, and if you like it, use your 30% off coupon and take it home with you today, if you're sitting in front of your Mac logged in to Amazon.(OK, I know Amazon has this great algorithm for predicting what you'll like based on what you and others have purchased, and you can download and read an e-book immediately, but see my comment about mom's basement, again, and there's this thing about actual books versus having to read it on a gadget.)

Wal-Mart is the cause of the decline and fall of small town commerce. Time after time it's been shown that when Wal-Mart builds a store on the outskirts of a small town, business in that town dries up, the jobs at these stores go away (to be replaced by part-time employment at said Wal-Mart), and the money that people would have spent at locally-owned and operated shops goes out of town. All to save a few cents on light bulbs or pickles. (Even big cities are seeing the same thing.) When the town dries up and blows away because there's no way to make a living there anymore, Wal-Mart closes up shop too (another article), and moves on to conquer the next small town. Much has been written about the aggressive tactics that Wal-Mart uses to exact the lowest prices from its suppliers, many of which have had to move US jobs overseas in order to meet these demands, or have even gone out of business because they could not continue to sell goods to Wal-Mart at a loss.

To turn the subject back to books, Wal-Mart happens to also be one of the largest book and music retailers, and they are known to censor what they sell, to the point of requiring publishers to provide expurgated versions of books and CDs. (Maybe it's a good thing we have Amazon, then.)

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[demonlapin]

Ugh. Had a nice long response written to you, Firefox died. Short version: your links are long on opinion and short on fact. In particular, just because 82 stores close in the two years after WM shows up doesn't tell you anything about how many stores were closed in the two years previous to its arrival, and it doesn't take into account the fact that people who save money by shopping at Wally World have more money in their pockets for other things. I suspect, though I cannot know (because none of the studies are actually linked to), that they looked at clothing, grocery, electronics, etc., retailers and ignored the possibility that people who save money might choose to buy categories of goods that would not previously have been affordable to them.

The stores in small towns that die when WM shows up mostly suck. In my city, I can save about 15% on groceries by shopping at Wal-Mart instead of Kroger (which isn't a mom-and-pop operation by any stretch of the imagination). By comparison to small-town grocery stores, it's even better savings combined with a far superior selection. I do not weep for Piggly-Wiggly any more than I do for buggy whip makers.

As for books, you like paper in your hand, right away, and the kind of advice that you can get if you go to, say, City Lights. That's absolutely a better experience than Amazon. But here in flyover country, we don't have the option to meet the authors - they don't come here. The independent bookstores have always had poor selections (and I'm in my late 30s, old enough to remember what buying books was like before the Internet was anything more than an academic curiosity). My choices are to be a solitary reader, convince my wife or one of my friends to read a book so we can talk about it, or go online to find people to talk about it with. And I love-love-love my Kindle. For 95% of my reading, it's better than the paper copy. My wife and I don't even buy paper books anymore if the ebook is available

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Roachie]

Wait, Borders WASN'T a library? I have a Borders library card in my wallet...

Shit, no wonder they going under.

Re:Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career

[Dr. Jest]

Speaking as someone who worked for Borders for several years and continued to have my store be a big part of my life, any good Borders employee would be happy to read your story. We never minded anyone reading stacks of books, even taking notes, as long as they put their own books away. If they'd gone on providing the selection and taking care of the needs of customers like you, they wouldn't be in this situation and costing several of my friends their jobs. Thank you for sharing. Your story actually made me happier today.

Re:Help me gauge my happiness/sadness/outrage

[sh00z]

If you were to blindfold me and place me in the middle of a Barnes and Noble or Borders it would be a 50/50 guess which store I'm in.

Go by the smell. In my experience, after you get past the coffee scent, Borders has some undertones of cardboard, where B&N is more "plastic-y."

Re:Happening to book stores everywhere...

[Edzilla2000]

I was in that bookstore last saturday, it's a great place. The only downside (for me) is that they obviously mostly have books in Dutch, which I don't read.

Re:What a shame...

[DrgnDancer]

Not to mention being extremely hackable and able to run stock Android. As an absolute last resort if B&N fails (probably not likely, but possible) you could just put stock Android on it and grab Nook and Kindle readers. The Nook reader to keep your old stuff (most of it isn't DRMed, and even if it is they'll probably be required to keep the key servers up), and the Kindle reader to buy new stuff. I'd still be sad if B&N died though. That would leave only BAM around here, and I've never like their stores. Local places are long dead here, and we never had a Borders.

Hard to find stuff

[MichaelSmith]

I mainly shopped for DVDs in borders stores but lately they have reorganised and made it really difficult to find stuff. I could never work out their system so I wound up doing alphabetical searches in each small category. It would be easier if they just had a big stack of titles, alphabetically sorted. I assume this was some MBA inspired technique to get me to discover something else to buy in the other categories, or to spend more time in the store. In practice I couldn't find what I wanted so I went to JB.

What did you say?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Speak up kid! Come a bit closer so I can hear you... closer... closer... *whacks arcite over the head with the fully annotated works of Tolkien in hard cover* try that with your kindle. See, the blood and pieces of brain just scrape off while your kindle would have broken as the cheap plastic toy it is.

Whacking whipper snappers, just one of the many reasons books are better.

I got a bible from my great-grandfather that went around the world and survived two world wars on the front lines. Your drm'ed bible is not worthy.

Re:What did you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you jest about digital information.

Books cannot be locked out based on date
Books do not require an internal power source
Books can survive missing a page or two, devices are less resiliant (scratch the screen, for example)
Books allow for easy notation
Books can be passed on without concerns of format compatibility.
Books cannot be remotely edited, and the various editions actually add to the assorted nature of books. (ooh, a first edition, sweet! but the 3rd edition was where they got rid of the translation errors...)
Books cannot be remotely disabled. (I remember a slogan: read a banned book today! These days, if it was banned it would be gone, end of story)

Re:What did you say?

[shutdown -p now]

See, the blood and pieces of brain just scrape off while your kindle would have broken as the cheap plastic toy it is. Whacking whipper snappers, just one of the many reasons books are better.

Ah, I've got a Kindle DX for that - it has a nice huge metal backside, and is pretty heavy to boot - should serve me well in retirement!

Re:What did you say?

[Grishnakh]

Books do not require an internal power source

No, they require an external one, either a lightbulb or the sun if it's daytime. If you have sunlight, you can use a solar panel to recharge your ebook reader's batteries.

Books can survive missing a page or two, devices are less resiliant (scratch the screen, for example)

A scratched screen doesn't render your data unreadable; you just fix the screen or transfer the data to a new device and read it there. Plus, books can't be trivially copied. With ebooks, you can make multiple backup copies, so if your reader is destroyed one day, you can transfer the data to a new reader.

Books allow for easy notation

So do ebook readers.

Books can be passed on without concerns of format compatibility.

So can ebooks that use open standards.

the various editions actually add to the assorted nature of books. (ooh, a first edition, sweet! but the 3rd edition was where they got rid of the translation errors...)

Why would you want a copy with errors if you can get an updated copy without? Better yet, with ebooks, it's trivial to keep both copies, in case you have some interest in having the other editions.

Books cannot be locked out based on date
Books cannot be remotely edited
Books cannot be remotely disabled

Don't buy DRMed ebooks and you won't have these problems.

Re:What did you say?

[geekoid]

Good luck reading your books without a power source of some sort.

Also, one simple fire and all your books are gone, forever.
You talk about banned books, but in fact ebooks are LESS prone to that. Where can you go to buy a banned book? I can get ANY book on the internet. I am not subject to the stocking whims of my local retailers.

Most of your complaints would only apply to me for some of the books I get through Amazons store

Re:What did you say?

[geekoid]

I still don't know why solar panels aren't on the back of the kindle.

Re:What did you say?

[Grishnakh]

Two reasons I'm guessing: 1) cost, and 2) they might not provide enough power to be worth it, given the Kindle's small size. It would be a rather cool feature though: leave your Kindle face-down in the sunlight if you forgot to charge it. It'd be an even handier feature for cellphones, but there the tiny size (easily less than 1/4 the area of the Kindle) would really make it infeasible.

Practically, it's probable more effective to just buy your own fold-up solar panel to recharge any device you want. I wonder if they make any with a USB plug, so you can plug USB devices like the iDevices, most modern phones, etc. into them for recharging.

Australian stores are already closed.

[the_mind_]

The Borders shops in Australia have already closed down in the last few weeks.

I don't know how they lasted for so long. They were 25% more expensive then other book stores, and at least 50% more expensive than online book shops. Not to mention their huge shops in expensive shopping centers. Including American style in-store coffee shop (who wants to walk through a book store to get coffee? stupid people, thats who).

But hey, I got some cheap networking gear, a label printer and some cool comic-style posters for a pathetically low price.

Re:Australian stores are already closed.

[Cimexus]

Yeah it's kinda funny to see how the remaining stock in them has slowly dwindled over the last few weeks as they've been shutting down. There's a pretty large borders in the Canberra Centre mall that I walk past quite often. The other day I peeked in and it was just like a huge void of empty shelves, with the odd book still sitting around but not much else. Oh, and they were selling the shelves too!

Re:What a shame...

[khr]

Why? The Nook is from Barnes and Noble, this story is about Borders.

And that could be part of the problem... The two stores are awfully difficult to distinguish... I certainly have trouble. I know where the locations for a few are, but remembering which is which is hard. Even inside they're mostly pretty similar. If one closes, then I can carry one less loyalty card in my wallet. More convenient for me...

Good Riddance to Bad Business

[SmarterThanMe]

Doesn't surprise me. I worked for a chain bookstore (not Borders) when I was at uni, and they put me in the Motivation and Health section. By the way, let me introduce myself, I'm a teacher who specialises in working with gifted kids, and one of the things that I'm really good at is picking good, relatively advanced books for young kids who are beyond the books that their librarians and teachers use for other children. I read a lot of kids and YA fiction, and textbooks and educational texts, of course, but also scifi, fantasy and historical fiction, as well as non-fiction books in a number of areas. Notice something missing? I don't fucking read Motivation or Health! I can't even take those fucking books seriously, let alone sell them!

This wouldn't have been a problem, if it weren't for the rigidity of the PHB's that ran the place. My role was to stand by a shelf, and only help people who needed help with that section. One of my colleagues' spot was to stand by the self-service information computer behind a shelf, and almost literally jump out at people if they were having trouble with the search functionality (which only googled the bookstore's public website). As much as possible, I wasn't to move, and I had to do things as quickly as possible. One day, I spent 20 minutes upselling ~$150 worth of photo books and Australian kids' books to a tourist and I got a formal warning for walking away from my section and leaving it in the hands of two of my colleagues.

Let's talk about my colleagues, though. There was a guy hired at the same time as me who I was speaking to one day... Me: "So, what books do you read?"; Him: "Oh, I don't."; Me: "You don't... Read books?"; Him: "Yeah, they're boring." Awesome. He was Employee of the Month at some point after I left. I haven't been back there in a while, but I think he's probably still working there.

Their buying policy was brilliant, also. They bought hundreds of copies of things that they thought fit with the Australian psyche, i.e., obsessed with sport. So we were always left with hundreds of copies of the latest ghost written biography of some cricketer that we could literally not give away in the end. These books were always such an albatross around our necks that our PHB's were insisting that we keep them on the shelves, and sending newer, more popular books to storage or to the warehouse. If you wanted one of those newer more interesting books? You have to wait for it to be retrieved (a couple of days, usually), but please take a heavily discounted the 3rd volume of Warwick Smythe's test cricket antics that he paid someone from South Africa to write.

I shouldn't complain too much though. The 50% employee discount was awesome. Most of the long term employees were great people. Some of the supervisors were genuinely cool people. I laugh as I remember back to thinking back over having to help people "find a book, it has like a blue cover and words, I think", or "choose a motivation book for me, I don't know which one to choose."

These book chains are dying because they're trying to do business as if nothing has changed. They're hiring the cheapest, dumbest possible labour when people are only willing to go to a bookstore and pay a bit more than they would at Amazon because they want to talk to someone knowledgeable and well-read about books.

Re:Good Riddance to Bad Business

[vlm]

I'm a teacher who specialises in working with gifted kids

Cool, I enjoyed your type when I was a student, received good advice. Sadly, locally all those positions have been eliminated to save money, hire bilingual teachers, hire guards and truancy officers, etc. So look out for your job..

because they want to talk to someone knowledgeable and well-read about books

Ask yourself honestly, if anyone could afford books if the retailer had to pay your current salary to sales clerks... Also don't take it personally but you missed the biggest problem with your previous management, if I want book buying advice about "motivation and health" I want it from a part time retired psch, or a retired nutritionist, or a retired physical therapist, whos working at the book store to supplement their SS check, not a uni kid who probably doesn't know too much more about the subject than I do... I'd love to sell advice about computer science books in about 20 years, it beats being a walmart people greeter... For example, my local semi-retired coin dealer with well over 40 years of experience in the field recommended a book on roman empire coins to me; it was an excellent book, perfect for my needs, and I was happy to pay a somewhat inflated price to him because his advice about the book was worth it. I don't think the kid at barnes and noble, or borders, would have as much insight on that topic...

Re:Good Riddance to Bad Business

[SmarterThanMe]

Cheers! =) My students are lots of fun also, so it's win-win.

I don't think that you need to go out and hire experts in all fields in order to fill out your staff pool. But putting an education student in the motivation and health section was stupid. I didn't mention it above, but it was similarly stupid putting a nursing student into the biographies section (she didn't read those books either, but spent her break times going through the relationships shelf in my section, which apparently escaped the notice of my PHB's). Their HR approach was to put people into areas according to moment to moment need, and then leave them there. When I was hired, there were two spots open in health & motivation, so that was where I was allocated and where I stayed. It's an approach to HR that's better suited to places like Walmart and McDonald's, and it's lazy.

This is one of the reasons why chain bookstores are dying.

Re:Good Riddance to Bad Business

[frank_adrian314159]

So we were always left with hundreds of copies of the latest ghost written biography of some cricketer that we could literally not give away in the end.

Well, the problem is that they should have stocked ghost written autobiographies of footie players...

Re:Good Riddance to Bad Business

[awtbfb]

These book chains are dying because they're trying to do business as if nothing has changed. They're hiring the cheapest, dumbest possible labour when people are only willing to go to a bookstore and pay a bit more than they would at Amazon because they want to talk to someone knowledgeable and well-read about books.

Actually, the flagship Borders in Ann Arbor was notoriously difficult to get hired at. They had a hard core literature test for prospective employees. I know English majors who failed the test.

Re:Good Riddance to Bad Business

[Roachie]

Really dude, with Borders out of business there goes my plans for 'retirement' /sigh/ I guess there is still a Wal-Mart to fall back on...

Don't know

[SmallFurryCreature]

The one in Utrecht has a large number of cash registers and still you frequently got to cue. Lets not forget that Holland has no Amazon, importing from the US costs a fair amount at the border in taxes, duty and admin costs and bol.com can't escape sales tax like Amazon can in the land of unfair competition.

ABC also moved to a bigger location in the heart of amsterdam (Spui) and has 2 bookstores in spitting distance.

As for the post below, a dutch bookstore selling mostly dutch books... gosh... the SHOCK! Don't ever go to France... they speak FRENCH!

Re:Don't know

[digitig]

Lets not forget that Holland has no Amazon, importing from the US costs a fair amount at the border in taxes, duty and admin costs and bol.com can't escape sales tax like Amazon can in the land of unfair competition.

But importing from the UK (which does have an Amazon) shouldn't have any costs at the border because both are in the EU (and the UK doesn't have the European equivalent of sales tax, VAT, on books). Of course, I'm not sure that the UK or US Amazon is particularly strong on Dutch language books.

Re:Don't know

[markxz]

Amazon offer free delivery from the UK to the Netherlands (under EU rules they may be forced to charge VAT on books sent to other countries [in the UK books are free from VAT])

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200402870#ssd

I would suspect that there is a limited range of books published in Dutch (compared with English) due to the limited number of speakers.

Re:Don't know

[jiriw]

Lets not forget that Holland has no Amazon

Could it possibly be, the Netherlands still have plenty brick and mortar bookshops and no Amazon, because Dutch and Flemmish language books can't be sold for a price below a publisher set, government regulated sales price, unless a book is more than 3 years old or is 'damaged'?
Amazon can't sell those books for bargain prices on the Dutch and Flemmish market because they will be hauled to court and possibly put out of business. Brick and mortar bookshops don't compete on prices (they can compete on service of course) and the only discount shops we know contain titles over 3 years old and those 'damaged' books (which sometimes happens not by accident, if the publisher and author want to sell of part of their stock quickly/cheaply).

I do buy at Amazon, by the way. But only for English-original titles. Amazon.co.uk no longer includes shipping charges to many parts of Europe, when ordering for 25+ GBP and their prices are altogether reasonable for books and audiovisual media. No import duties and a harmonized VAT system ordering from within Europe by the way.

Re:Sad

[History's Coming To]

And about the same price bookshops pay for it in the first place. Why publishers put up with demands for supply at zero-profit (sometimes negative profit) terms from amazon I don't know, but it's led to a situation where I have a 45 minute drive to visit my nearest bookshop. I don't shop online generally, and refuse to use amazon on principle, so it all suck a bit. If I have to buy books online I tend to use AbeBooks, a collective of independant bookshops. At least that way my money goes to an actual bookshop rather than a huge multinational something-or-other.

Re:Sad

[SailorMeeko]

I don't shop online generally, and refuse to use amazon on principle, so it all suck a bit. If I have to buy books online I tend to use AbeBooks, a collective of independant bookshops.

You do realize that AbeBooks is owned by Amazon.com, don't you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#Acquisitions

Re:Help me gauge my happiness/sadness/outrage

[JBMcB]

It affects me because the one near my house had the best computer book selection I've ever seen. Seriously - they had at least two dozen racks of computer books, divided up into fine-grained categories - algorithms, graphics programming, MS languages, C, Basic, MacOS, Windows, Unix, Embedded, etc...

Another location, not too far away, has an incredible magazine selection. They carry scholarly journals, foreign language magazines, specialty art and architecture magazines, two racks of newspapers from every major city in the US. During it's short publication run it's the only store I've seen that carried Blacklisted! 411 - a very obscure 2600-style hacker mag.

I'll miss 'em.

Re:What a shame...

[Chaos Incarnate]

Nook doesn't need a key server - the DRM is based around a hash of name/CC#, so as long as you still have those you'll be able to unlock your books on any machine with a supporting reader installed.

Re:Fahrenheit 1346

[retroworks]

That's the temperature I calculated a Kindle will melt at.

You've got that completely backwards

[dbIII]

Actually the Australian government's restrictions on parallel imports for books

I looks like another one that missed that a lobby group for bookshop chains including Angus and Robertson set that policy decades ago and have been lobbying to continue it ever since, right up until at least a few months ago. It was nothing but a barrier of entry to small bookshops that were left with little choice but to buy from the big distributors. It was like that in the 1980s (when I worked in a small technical bookshop) and it's been kept in place ever since purely for the benefit of the chains.

Re:You've got that completely backwards

[Lunzo]

The lobbying against parallel imports was from publishers and some Aussie authors. These guys make good profits from having an effective monopoly.

The big bookstores lobbied for parallel imports. They wanted to be able to import cheaper books instead of having to buy expensive, locally published editions.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-24/australians-want-cheaper-books-dymocks/1661020

Re:You've got that completely backwards

[dbIII]

That's just Dymocks. You'll find the vertical integration of the other chains led them to lobby for the restriction in the first place and for it to continue. Look beyond the PR for the reason behind this protectionism.

There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[hellfire]

Books at brick and mortar stores tend to be overpriced compared to those sold online. That's not because Borders is gouging them, but because the publishers demand so much. Retailers' margins are thin. So yes they are expensive but Borders didn't "do it to themselves." Borders and B&N have a quaint, warm, relaxed experience but the most hard core book buyers go online now for better prices.

B&N actually survives because they have a good website in competition with Amazon, and frankly their selection has always been better than borders. B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee. Funny enough, Borders tried to get early in the game of book selling online and who did they contract with?... Amazon. Most people don't realize this fact seriously delayed Borders' web strategy rather than enhancing it. They didn't have the vision to see web commerce coming and Amazon did to them what they did to mom and pop book shops. And they spent no time getting any experience in marketing and selling on the web because they contracted with Amazon in the early days. I'm betting Amazon knew this and went ahead hoping to basically steal sales from Borders original paltry websites. So in a sense, Borders did to it to themselves, it's just it had everything to do with not getting online fast enough.

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[Fnord666]

B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee.

Interesting fact:
Seattle's Best Coffee, which was the coffee featured in and the focus of the coffee shops in Borders, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbucks.

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[andrewd18]

Wait, Pequod's and Queequeg's are owned by the same company? Mind. Blown.

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[syphaxplh]

Coffee Wars!

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[msobkow]

They're not over priced, but they're not discounted. And they do have to pay for staff, rent, heat, A/C, etc. out of their profits.

To be honest, I haven't bought a book period in many years. I used to buy the occasional techie book, probably 2-3/year, but nowadays I find that print copies are woefully out of date compared to resources available on the internet.

I used to read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy when I was younger as well, but I kind of outgrew the habit and find I'd rather work on a pet project that keeps my mind churning than read a book nowadays. My attention span isn't what it used to be, and I no longer have 3-4 hours per evening to just curl up with a good book like I used to.

Some say print is dead; I don't think we're at that point yet. But print has definitely moved online and is slowly moving to electronic copies of books, so print will die. The timing of the deaths of individual stores is just a question of how long they hold on to life, but sooner or later they will die.

Hang on to whatever books you have -- in your lifetime they're going to be collectors editions just because they're on paper.

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[mjwx]

B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee.

Interesting fact:
Seattle's Best Coffee, which was the coffee featured in and the focus of the coffee shops in Borders, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbucks.

If Starbucks is "Seattle's best coffee" I'm sticking to tea if I ever go to Washington state.

Re:There's a kernel of truth in the GP post

[Macgrrl]

My husband and I are currently 'replacing' a lot of our dead tree books with ebooks. The plan had been to donate the paper copies to a church run second-hand bookstore in bulk, but thinking about it last night I was wondering how long the epub format will be around and how long we will have hardware that will read them.

After all, the dead tree editions won't stop functioning just because a few years have passed. I have been thinking I need to identify what books I would hate to lose if the electronic format became unreadable and hang onto those ones on paper.

There's other good reasons to hang onto the paper too; Until they make a waterproof ereader, I probably won't feel safe reading ebooks in the bath. And lots of ebook conversions lose illustrations in the transfer (I've been reading the Agatha Christie back catalog recently, many of which had hand-drawn maps in them).

FFS...all I have left is fsck'ing B&N...

[Galon]

I love books, don't get me wrong, but I love books if they are hardback, paperback, or epub.

I FUCKING LOVE BOOKS!

Sadly, I could go into a local Borders and the people were knowledgeable, kind and generous with their time. They bent over backwards to help my wife find books and get them shipped to the house while she was on the mend after surgery.

I have lost many a day in a Borders, drinking tea and reading and it is a sad day when there is one less place to do this.

Amazon holds almost all the cards

[elrous0]

Speaking for me, where Amazon dominates is in selection and in *used* books (and used videogames, etc.). If I want a book on a particular subject, I can drive to my local Borders and hope they have a decent book on it (usually not the best on the subject) and pay full retail price on it. Or I can go to my library and look at a bunch of books that are usually years out of date and hope that I can find a decent one that isn't checked out. Or I can go online to Amazon, see every book ever published on the subject, read reviews to find the best one, and then buy it used for a small fraction of what it would have cost new. And the same applies to videogames, DVD's, etc.

The only real advantage that brick and mortars enjoy is that I can get a book immediately (but the Kindle is making even that point moot), and that I can browse. But, since my tastes are not exactly mainstream, browsing isn't really much of an advantage to me. I have no desire to browse isle after isle of Harry Potter knockoffs and vampire romances, thank you. And I'm not a big coffee drinker.

Re:Amazon holds almost all the cards

[shmlco]

Or I can go online to Amazon, see every book ever published on the subject, read reviews to find the best one, and then buy it new for a small fraction of what it might have cost at Borders, and have it delivered next day for free (Prime).

Re:Amazon holds almost all the cards

[Maxo-Texas]

This is my problem with real stores.

Availability and Time.

I pop on line, order, and then forget. My time taken about 5 to 10 minutes.

Or.. I can drive for 15 to 20 minutes to the store ($1 buck of gas). Look around for the section. Ask a clerk after a while where it is. Go find the product is in/out of stock. Drive back home another 15 to 20 minutes. I've put 15-20 miles on my car, used most of a gallon of gasoline, and if the product wasn't available then even worse- waste of my time and money.

There is often a discount for purchasing online as well. Sometimes no sales tax- but I wouldn't mind paying sales tax (you have to pay for local government,roads, etc. somehow).

Re:Amazon holds almost all the cards

[Golddess]

Little bit of nit-picking.

Next day shipping with Prime is not free, it's $3.99. Even 2-day shipping isn't really free, since the Prime membership itself costs $79 per year.

Re:Amazon holds almost all the cards

[shmlco]

I buy enough stuff from Amazon that the shipping charges average out to be less than a buck per order.

You've got FAIL

[Thud457]

Kathleen Kelly, thou art avenged!

Re:Sad

[TheRaven64]

Why publishers put up with demands for supply at zero-profit (sometimes negative profit) terms from amazon I don't know

Not sure what you're talking about here. Publishers sell at the net price, which is typically 50% of the cover price. Book stores then sell at the retail price and pocket the difference. When Amazon is selling a book at 45% off the cover price, it means that the publisher is still getting 90% of the sale price. When a book store sells at the cover price, it means that the publisher is getting 50% of the sale price. Authors are typically paid a percentage of net, so we get the same amount irrespective of where you buy the book.

At least, that's how it works with my publisher.

Why libraries are dying too

[elrous0]

and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL

You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless. Their collections are usually laughably out-of-date and small. Back in the day this wasn't so much a problem for them, because the only alternative was the local bookstore. But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping). Now there is really no need to settle for a crappy library book that's way out-of-date when I can *buy* the best book on the subject for next to nothing on Amazon (and no due dates to worry about).

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[old man moss]

Doesn't your library have an inter-library loan system? I started using my local library in the UK a lot a couple of years ago when a friend pointed out that they have a large collection of graphic novels that my kids were just getting into. Those "books" cost about 20 quid each to buy but they are only 50p if you have to order them from another library (and free obviously if the local library has them). OK, you might have to wait a week or so for the book. Since then I've been getting most of my books (of all types) from the library.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[bill_mcgonigle]

and no due dates to worry about

Don't forget about your gasoline expenditure, or your time. In many instances, I find Amazon's used market less expensive than the 'free' local library, plus I've got a handy reference library now (oddly enough, not everything is on the Internet).

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[mortonda]

and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL

You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless.

This problem existed even in the mid 90's before online bookstores arrived... When I studied CS, the library was useless compared to the official course books, and even those were lagging a bit.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[elrous0]

Come on, the NYC library isn't exactly typical.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[elrous0]

Yes, they do. But inter-library loan (at my library anyway) is very slow (we're talking 2 months or more to get anything) and very restrictive (there are all kinds of guidelines on the types of books you can and can't get through loan). You most definitely wouldn't be able to get graphic novels.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[parzival52]

That is unfortunate. I have used inter-library loan at a local public university dozens of times over the past two decades. I have never waited more than 5 or 6 days to receive the book(s), and the average is probably 2-3 days (since most come from other public universities in my state in the U.S.). I have borrowed books whose print runs were only a few hundred and have never been denied because of book type. Generally, the loan periods are 3-4 weeks, but I have never been denied an extension (I've only requested extensions a few times). All in all, the inter-library loan system I use is a godsend since I live in town of about 35,000 and no bookstore worthy of the name. I admit somewhat sheepishly that I often use the loan to preview expensive technical books to help in deciding whether or not to purchase.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[Phoenix666]

O'Reilly's didn't exist at the time. Remember that this was in the very, very early days of the Web. At the time Mosaic was a recent memory and the Netscape/Internet Explorer war was just beginning. AOL and CompuServe were battling to dominate the Internet as gatekeepers, and everyone laughed when Bill Gates announced that MS would defeat them. So saying, "Well why didn't you just Google it?" is a silly statement when the leading search engine at the time was Infoseek. Google didn't exist. Saying, "buy the used copy on Amazon.com" is a silly thing to say because Amazon.com didn't exist. None of those things did. There was a serious dearth of information on coding and what there was you had to pay dearly for. I couldn't pay that kind of money then, so for me to be able to read the books at Borders was a god-send. It's not too much of a stretch to say that being able to educate myself at one of their stores saved my life. So while I realize the world and business models have moved on, I am grateful Borders was there when I needed them.

Re:Why libraries are dying too

[Roachie]

Thats a lot of scratch to pay for decorative items... Dont they sell those fake book box things at Kirklands? Much cheaper.

Glad I could help.

Borders locations?

[VGPowerlord]

I live in the Lansing, MI area, about 60 miles from Ann Arbor. I've never seen a Borders book store.

The booksellers I see here are Barnes & Noble and Schuler Books & Music (based in Grand Rapids, MI, 60 miles in the other direction).

Apparently we DID have some in the area under Borders other name, Waldenbooks, but those were tiny compared to the huge, sprawling stores the other two have... the closest Barnes and Nobles is a two-floor building in the middle of East Lansing, across from the Michigan State University campus.

Re:Borders locations?

[schm0]

There were no Borders located in Lansing, with the closest store to you being Flint or Brighton. Still, this is a sad day for local business here in Michigan, as it means more job losses in our perpetually struggling state.

Re:Borders locations?

[JimTheta]

I don't think there are any in Michigan west of Lansing, either.

I always thought that was weird that an Ann-Arbor-based store neglected a huge part of its own state.

Failed To Receive Bids?

[myyrk]

They were offered 215M for most assets and 220M to cover liabilities, the offer was rejected. They believe they can get more from being liquidated.

I Wouldn't Worry About It

[Greyfox]

It just means more straight people are discovering the joy of shuttering. Pretty soon everyone will be doing it! Sure someone might get hurt, and there will be the usual Congressional hearings. I'm sure some Republican Congressman (He knows who he is) will be caught shuttering like crazy in a men's room of some airport. But you know how it is with any fad, once the initial thrill wears off, everyone will just hose the santorum off the walls and ceiling and move on to whatever the next thing is. Now would be a good time to bring the Rusty Venture back!

Re:I Wouldn't Worry About It

[Chris Mattern]

Every day, I'm shuttering.

Don't Get All Misty-Eyed

[CycleFreak]

Borders and B&N are the same big-box stores that pushed your locally-owned stores out of business. Everyone hated them at one time, so why shed a tear at their demise now?

All hail the long tail!

Now, if there was some way that technology could kill off SBUX ...

Re:Don't Get All Misty-Eyed

[danbuter]

The only book store we had before Borders moved in was a Waldenbooks in the mall.

Dang...closed the wrong Borders

[RogueWarrior65]

*rimshot*

How to drive a book lover to Amazon

[drolli]

a) Focus on the mainstream. The mainstream will carry you forever. The people which swallow any literature shit will be you most loyal customers. No need to keep world literature in the original language in you store.

b) Decorate your windows just according to the newest trend. Try to blend in with the other stores. Dont allow your employees to bring in their own competence.

c) Under no circumstances put chairs in your store.

d) Students are good are good and cheap as personal. And they can read the list of the current mainstream literature.

e) Be picky about the topics presented in the store. Don't present any topic which could disturb somebody, and if, only after it hase been a major topic on TV.

f) Under no circumstances sell ebooks. (Actually i thought at some point I could buy an ebook on an SD card, without registering with my name at a big company. That never happened.)

OT: sig

[mooingyak]

Watashi ha jeri-do-natsu desu.

Du bist ein berliner?

Re:they expanded too quickly during the last boom

[Frankie70]

They shouldn't have bought Waldenbooks.

They didn't buy Waldenbooks.

KMart bought both Borders & Waldenbooks & merged them.

Good Riddance

[lee1]

Borders is the store that pulled copies of an issue of Free Inquiry magazine from its shelves because it contained some cartoons of Mohammed. Now we have more room for real bookstores.

Borders was still open?

[WoodstockJeff]

All but one of the Borders stores in my area had already closed, and the one that remained is inconvenient.

In any case, I used to visit Borders on a regular basis, looking for (gasp!) computer-related books. I liked the ability to browse through the books to see if they actually answered the questions I had on the subject I needed them for, and if they were laid out in a fashion that let me find answers, as well as read for content. But, as their computer section dwindled from hundreds of books on subjects from assembly language to compiler design to communications protocols to ???, to a selection of a dozen of books on how to use MS Office and get the most out of the mail app on your iPhone, I stopped going.

They probably figured out that most of the people who buy computer books do so online, for better prices, so they tossed away what was their ace in the hole against that - check it out before you buy. Oh, well!

Re:Borders was still open?

[Svartalf]

There's some still in business (though apparently not for much longer... :-D) in Texas and Colorado (Nearest bookstore while I was in the Longmont area was the Borders in Longmont. Guess if I'm back up there on a contract, I'll have to drive into Boulder or down into Thornton...)

I will agree with the going to seed part on the tech books. Borders, and to a lesser extent Barnes and Noble, have taken to carrying just the popular stuff with the occasional random exceptions that don't always make sense. They forgot who their customer base was- it's not all the people buying the popular stuff (though you need to carry it all the same...), it's the people that look for the odd book or the serious technical book.

Re:Borders was still open?

[slapout]

Interesting. They reduced the number of computer books and soon went out of business. CompUSA reduced their number of computer books and soon went out of business. Seems like some sort of pattern...

Re:What a shame...

[geminidomino]

I find that I like FBReader a little bit more than the stock Nook reader and FAR more than the Nook app. YMMV.

Not perfect, but we will miss you, Borders

[NikeHerc]

I loved Borders, even though they kept reducing their selection of technical books and moved them farther and farther from the front door. There's a lesson herein. I won't miss their computer books; the selection had devolved into pure crap.

Re:Sad

[Quiet_Desperation]

Guess they're already trying to dumb inventory.

How? More religious and political books? (Yeah, I know, same thing).

I hope someone buys the AA location + the Brand

[davidwr]

It would be way cool if someone LOCAL in Ann Arbor bought the brand name and the flagship store and operated it as an INDEPENDENT COLLEGE-TOWN bookstore, just like 40 years ago.

Even cooler if the buyers were the pre-conglomerate owners or one of the former owners of one of the bookstores Borders bought or took over prior to selling out to Corporate America.

See Wikipedia article as of a few minutes ago and its citations (or sadly, lack thereof) for more on Borders's history.

Rediculously Inaccurate Map

[bradgoodman]

The map is only accurate to within about 50 miles!

Sad day...

[knghtrider]

This is sad indeed for those of us who don't need to buy every electronic gadget that hits the market. Those of us who we spend 8-12 hours every day on our computers for work and to relax, we want to turn pages and actually READ a book. The joy is in the experience---not just in the reading of the printed word. But, the e-book generation doesn't understand that.

However, it's my generation's fault. We've raised you to do more, multitask (though scientists say there is no such thing), have instant lunch and instant oatmeal; fast food, etc. You hire a landscaper to put in plants for you, instead of digging in the dirt yourself. You don't hunt, fish, camp or canoe but you will take that $100,000 boat (that you can't fix) out and go tubing. You can't fix your own car---hell, most of you can't even change a tire. I've stopped along the highway and helped plenty of you (male and female) under thirty change a tire. You were going to call a tow truck..wasteful

In short--we've raised you to depend on everyone else...so no wonder you don't want to turn your own pages in a book.

Re:Sad day...

[BeanThere]

It is human to do it, but I think it is counterproductive to confuse "nostalgic value" with "value".

I really enjoy reading very good books that stimulate my mind, but I am puzzled when people say 'the joy is in the experience' and refer nostalgically to 'turning pages'. When I'm reading a really good book, I couldn't care for the 'experience', it's about what I'm reading. I do find reading text on a screen somehow less "engaging", but I won't go so far as to say 'the joy is in the experience', and frankly if I was a young kid today and my grandpa was trying to encourage me to read because I get to 'turn pages' and 'the joy is in the experience', I expect I would probably find that a rather lame argument and would go back to my e-everything. I think if you want a kid to read a physical book give him an interesting physical book.

For books, true "value" though is in the text, not the medium. Our children will grow up not missing turning pages, but will develop arbitrarily associated deeply nostalgic feelings for the particular look and user interface of the (relatively primitive) e-ink and e-reader standards of today. Then they will grow up and try to explain to their (eyes rolling) children how the joy of reading on these primitive screens is "in the experience", and that their kids are missing something because they only read books through, I don't know, the direct-brain-reader-interface of 2040.

I love pixel-y old low-res video games and side-scrollers because it takes me back to my childhood, but I'm not going to push my children to play them somehow hoping they will get the same "feeling" out of them - they won't. The good news is your children will develop equally deep nostalgic feelings for whatever is the norm their day, so they're not missing anything --- provided you figure out what's actually valuable --- e.g. great books.

Re:Sad day...

[Anonymous Psychopath]

I prefer the convenience of eBooks, I can perform my own car maintenance, and I don't own a boat. I read a lot, and have done so ever since I could. I own hundreds of books. Turning physical pages adds nothing to the experience of reading for me. I'm guessing we're around the same age (40?), but you sound more like my dad than my peers.

Re:Sad day...

[knghtrider]

You're a rare one that can do your own car maintenance. eBooks aren't a convenience-think about everything that goes into making one; the oil used in the plastics; the rare-earth minerals mined by slave labor in china an other countries and manufactured overseas at very low standard of living wages. Now..a book-paper made from trees harvested from the paper mill forest (pine trees usually)..most likely in a US paper plant; where the wages are at least more fair than in China. I'm willing to concede that that ecological effects of both cancel each other out (and in fact, paper *might* be more ecologically damaging) --but the human rights issues do not. I'll buy a book; not just for Nostalgia, but to keep people working at fair wages.

Re:Sad day...

[Anonymous Psychopath]

I suggest you visit China sometime, it might be enlightening. It is far, far from perfect, but it's also far, far better than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. Personal wealth and standard of living is increasing rapidly and exponentially, most especially in urban areas where all these "slave labor" jobs are being created.

Regarding the sustainability of an eBook versus paper, would it not be more accurate to compare the ecological impact of one eBook reader versus 3,500 paper books (the current-model Kindle's capacity)?

I get that you don't like eBooks. I just think it's ridiculous to view them as the downfall of civilization.

Re:Sad day...

[geekoid]

"...we want to turn pages and actually READ a book. "
as opposed toe very one else who likes to PUNCH a book? wtf?

You don't like reading, you like having a book. Different things. No different then 18th century aristocrats who thought you weren't truly experiencing a book if you didn't cut the pages yourself.

Gah, any excuse to bad month something you don't like, eh? Make up for your tiny penis side be talking down to people who enjoy the story?

"However, it's my generation's fault. We've raised you to do more, multitask (though scientists say there is no such thing), have instant lunch and instant oatmeal; fast food, etc. You hire a landscaper to put in plants for you, instead of digging in the dirt yourself. You don't hunt, fish, camp or canoe but you will take that $100,000 boat (that you can't fix) out and go tubing. You can't fix your own car---hell, most of you can't even change a tire. I've stopped along the highway and helped plenty of you (male and female) under thirty change a tire. You were going to call a tow truck..wasteful"

you're a fucking myopic idiot. I know far too many people who do that sort of thing themselves.
But hey, those ar thing you think are 'right' therefore they must be inflicted on the next generation, you small minded twit.

BTW not hunting for are food, and being able to pay others to do tasks for us is WHY we can have progress.

"In short--we've raised you to depend on everyone else"
wrong. they value time. Time is limited, it's precious. PAying other people so you can enjoy more times is a good thing.

But you keep using your resource wasting, extremely limited, rotting paper books that are 1 fire away from you loosing them forever.

Well done, I'm sure the 20th century will weep for you.

Re:Sad day...

[geekoid]

Wow, sinple.. wow.

All my peers could do their own car maintenance. As can their kids. So no, he isn't rare, you are wrong.

Your argument would only be valid if an eReader only replace on book. it doesn't. I have 30 books on mine. So in my cae you need to compare it to 30 books, and more books every week.

Plus I have my books on my computer, and backed up offsite.

It is far more ecologically sound to have an ebook reader. far more ecological.

Oh, don't forget to include the 100s of tons of book that get sent back and destroyed, every day.
And the ink! Talk about nasty poisonous process. holy cow.

your emotional attachment to your preconceived notion of what a 'book' is has wrapped you mind in a comfortable blank it of non-thinking that is suffocating your thought process

Re:Sad day...

[knghtrider]

China still ranked near the top for committing Human Rights violations; and even though 'personal wealth' is increasing; the wages are still no where near what they should be for 'average' blue collar Chinese workers. Plus, the mine workers are mostly slaves---because they are mostly political prisoners; forced to endure working conditions that cause even early coal mining days in the US to pale by comparison. Oh yeah, China is a WONDERFUL country.

In the long term, even 3,500 books are more sustainable---and the inks these days are mostly soy-based; so the toxicity is reduced dramatically.

Sure, 1 kindle can hold 3,500 books---but how many people will upgrade that kindle every time the wind blows? so, we're not talking , we're talking one every 2-3 years, just like Cell/Smart Phones, laptops etc. And the batteries--they're highly toxic; from manufacturing, to use (how often do you have to plug in to recharge) to disposal.

And it is not just e-readers, but *all* of the electronic devices in use, the constant replacement cycle (btw--you are aware that one of the biggest rare-earth metals used---tanatalum--is dwindling in supply) and all of the related activity is causing serious and dramatic increases in the use of fossil fuels thereby driving up the amount of poisons in our air, water, and land. Plus, disposing of these things is typically (by AVERAGE users) a toss in the garbage----so they go in the landfill.

Long Term sustainability means humans need to start ditching these items of 'convenience' and go back to the basics for the most part. I read most of the books for pleasure from the Library. If they don't have it, I scour used bookstores first, then a new Bookstore last. This is a sustainable practice.

Kids' Toys and Location

[bradgoodman]

I love Borders. I find their prices competitive, their service excellent, and their selection very good. I actually go there a lot for kids' toys - as they have all sorts of interesting stuff there - education in nature, and a welcome change from the garbage like Bratz dolls, and kiddie stripper polls, and Spongebobeque branded crap you find everywhere else.

In the end - I find it often comes down to a simple fact: Americans like crap. Barbie dolls will always outsell Erector Sets. McDonalds and Burger King will always outsell (insert big-chain healthy restaurant).

Also - Where I live (Nashua, NH) - They have a Border's store, about a half-mile from a B&N. The B&N is in a fantastic location - intersection of two main streets, right off the highway. To get to the Border's store, you have to drive past the B&N store, through a very highly congested strip with a lot of traffic and traffic lights to an out-of-the-way strip mall. It's often not worth the trip.

Too bad

[danbuter]

I really like my local Borders. It's much better than the B&N. I've probably bought 200 books there over the last 5 years. Not to mention a few hundred coffees. I suspected this was going to happen after the first round of closings a few months back, though. I hope the workers all find good jobs, as they've been great with me when I shopped there.

Re:Too bad

[Svartalf]

Well, I saw this as a possibility when I'd discovered they'd shuttered the 29th Street shops location in Boulder. High profile, anchor store location. Easy to get to, etc. Didn't make much sense to close that location like they did- unless they were hurting quite a bit more than they let on when they filed their 13 filing.

Re:Too bad

[Dreamstalker_wolf]

The closest one to me (which was closed down in the last round) was also a high-profile, high-traffic location and had a HUGE sci-fi section. Most of the employees knew their stuff. The one I've been going to since then always seemed too big and not enough stock bookwise (although a huge computer section with the emphasis on security books, at least it was that way before they started moving stuff around).

I thought there was something odd about the almost-constant coupons and sales they seemed to run as of late...now I know why.

Publishing vs Marketing

[lymond01]

With the exit of physical books, it seems like the idea of having an editor and publisher may be going by the wayside. Originally, these people were around for quality control to make sure only decent books made it to the publishing equipment -- making sure the publishing money was spent well. (Honestly, being a fantasy, sci-fi buff, the bar is set pretty low in these genres.) But if you can self publish with the click of a mouse, the only thing you need to worry about is the marketing and collection of money. Like the RIAA where the physical CD is less important than the original recording, it might be that the market will be flooded by AppStore-priced ebooks (99 cents...) and authors will earn money through peer-review reputation system rather than a marketing company.

Interesting times.

Re:Publishing vs Marketing

[frank_adrian314159]

Originally, these people were around for quality control to make sure only decent books made it to the publishing equipment -- making sure the publishing money was spent well.

Yeah! And good thing we had them there or we would have gotten even more books from Stephan King...

Re: Cafe at Borders

[TaoPhoenix]

I was amazed and annoyed that they didn't even have real sodas! No Coke or Pepsi or Mountain Dew or Sprite or 7 up.

Instead you had to buy strange expensive caffeine free root beer or fruit sodas etc.

Re:Sad

[Machtyn]

Sure, you get net, but when the net price to the publisher is
I tried to sell some different items. Both eBay and Amazon had a huge take in the line of item I was selling (17+%). I couldn't compete with the other sellers as they were offering free shipping and pricing $10 below what I even purchased these items in bulk. (Yep, I was stuck with a lot of product after that little venture.) If I really wanted to dump the items, I'd have to take serious losses. (I ended up holding on to the items, selling them locally, slowly, and only ended up with some loss, not huge loss.)

Re:hard core book buyers & quaint experiences

[TaoPhoenix]

The key to a really good branch of a Borders or a B&N is to have a "top shelf" (pun intended) selection buyer. The times that the buyer of my branch has put A level stuff on the shelves it sold.

I am a different type of buyer than most of the people in this thread. In particular, I am amazed at the chorus of "I like reviews". I have never read a review in my life. Instead, look *at the book*. It's right there.

Look at it with a Reverse Teal Deer (too long didn't read) - instead for me it's "too short - didn't buy". I spent cumulative days at each of several sections. All told my private library is retail over $2000. At different points I knew the gist of practically every book in the entire store for those sections. Only then was that enough context to know what to have them special order.

You've Got Mail

[Anonymous Psychopath]

They are releasing a new director's cut that ends with Tom and Meg in an alleyway, sobbing while they are forced to eat cat food while living in a cardboard box after the Fox Books empire has collapsed.

Re:What a shame...

[rrhal]

I used to refer to them collectively as Borders and Noble - But Borders has been losing ground for a long time.
Your color nook will probably be obsolete by the time Barn & Noble auger in.

Good riddance...

[MaWeiTao]

Having frequented Borders over the past decade or so they deserve to have gone out of business. I don't understand what it is about American retailers that they can't run a successful business and continue making the same old mistakes. And when things go south they blame everyone but their own ineptitude.

Borders, like a lot of retailers, don't play to their strengths over an online store like Amazon. Namely that means having an informed and courteous staff. Instead I routinely ran into listless employees who barely knew anything about the books they carried and always sent customers to the in store kiosks. Far too often it would turn out the book in question was not in stock. So why waste my time? Might as well stay home, go online and find what I want every single time.

Secondly, they were always shifting inventory based around whatever flash-in-the-pan genre came along. Inevitably this meant they constantly cut into established genres. For me the established genre was sci-fi. Ten years ago they had a fairly large. In the intervening years it's given way to teen novels, mysteries and romances so that in the end it's a joke with not much of a selection. But then they waste an entire part of the store on music and movies, another desperate attempt for a little extra revenue. Except that nobody in their right mind would ever consider buying that sort of thing from them given the outrageous markups.

The problem with a physical store is that they can't possibly stock everything customers might want. But if they hired knowledgeable managers and staff then they could make more informed orders. It would enable them to balance inventory between what's popular, new and any recommended standouts. Of course, if they had a streamlined process for acquiring books not available in stores it would give consumers and incentive over shopping online.

There are a million and one things they could have tried. Maybe a more viable model would have been a superstore model, a massive warehouse with nearly every book you can imagine. Fewer actual retail locations, but each one is larger.

The point is that Borders seems to have done everything it could to drive consumers away.

Too bad, good selection

[slapout]

I don't shop at Borders because they don't have any locations in my state. But I did visit one in GA a while back. I was really impressed with the selection of computer books they had compared to the book stores around here. It's really sad to hear this now that my local Barnes & Noble has also closed.

Re: Cafe at Borders

[colinrichardday]

strange expensive caffeine free root beer

What? They don't sell Mug or A&W?

What Would Bastiat Say?

[colinrichardday]

Suing the sun?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlemakers'_petition

The last bookstore in downtown Palo Alto

[Animats]

Borders was the last bookstore in downtown Palo Alto, in Silicon Valley, except for a place that sells "collectables". A decade ago, there were three big bookstores and three small ones. Now there are no bookstores, but five phone stores.

Re:Sad

[shmlco]

So... what in the heck does the fact that you tried to sell something online via Amazon have to do with Borders and B&M stores?

Especially since all you did was attempt to buy someone else's product wholesale, and then resell it through yet another retailer.

Besides. Did you ever try to get Borders or B&N or some other major chain to even CONSIDER selling your products? Good luck with that.

The affiliate problem

[ThatsNotPudding]

Your used books and games from Amazon mostly come via their affiliate network. But because of greedy, desperate states, the network is being chopped away like the Black Night as Az refuses to give into state-based extortion. Until the Supremes rule on this - and given Scalia and his shadow, it won't be good - this used market won't be around for much longer.

Re:The affiliate problem

[Bing Tsher E]

this used market won't be around for much longer.

And that's a good thing, because there are other used book markets, including Abe.com, that I would rather see in the 'drivers seat' of the Used Book market. Bezos can stay out of that biz.

Re:Sad

[Machtyn]

That's what wholesaling is all about... Do you really think that Amazon produces the stuff they sell, do you think they even sell all the items listed on their pages? No, they have a large number of B&M stores and other small businesses pushing their wares through the Amazon store. There is nothing wrong with that (and is actually a decent way, with the right product, to get a small business off the ground.) My little venture failed - as do most little ventures. Did I consider Borders or B&N? Nope, they wouldn't have carried my product. Did I consider other places? Sure did - craigslist turned out to be the best method for my situation.

Old Borders memories

[Bootsy Collins]

I was a graduate student in Ann Arbor at the beginning of the 90s. At the time, the Borders brothers still owned Borders, and there were just two Borders stores: one in (I think) Plainfield (a Detroit suburb), and the original store on State Street. I loved that store like I've never loved a bookstore. The best thing about it was the staff that worked there. To get a job there, you had to pass a written test; and if you showed expertise in a particular subject area, you got to take some responsibility for ordering and stocking that subject area. The result was that if you walked in looking for a book on numerical thermodynamics, or differences in translations of The Inferno, you had a pretty good chance of being able to ask questions of someone who knew about the topic and had ordered the books and could provide you with useful info. Under no circumstances at all were you being helped by a high school kid who didn't know much of anything about the merchandise.

Then the brand got sold (to Waldenbooks/K-Mart, I believe), the State Street store moved into larger quarters (the old Jacobsen's store), they exploded coast-to-coast, and I found myself wandering into Borders in other cities that were certainly big, but didn't have the single biggest thing I liked about Borders: an exceptionally competent staff. Their newer owners had decided to compete purely on price and selection; it was inevitable that an internet vendor was eventually going to be able to beat them on those.

Which leaves me missing what I liked about them in the first place, something no internet vendor (even Amazon) has really replaced.

Libraries carry more than just recent books

[sjbe]

You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless.

Only if you have lots of money to buy books with or actually want to own the books. There are plenty of books out there that I want to read but have no interest in owning. Libraries do a LOT more than just store books. Libraries offer much that Amazon cannot and will not ever offer. Something like 20% of Americans don't even have a bank account or a credit card. Exactly what value is Amazon to these people?

But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame,

You mean I can get actual (not scanned) 300 year old books, subscriptions to obscure peer-reviewed journals, microfiche of old newpapers, access to a Bloomberg terminal, read thousands of magazines without paying a subscription and the library staff to help with research? Can you point me to the URL where Amazon does all of that?

I think you have no idea what actual university libraries do.

But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping)

And the selection at a library is FREE. And if they don't have a book, virtually every library can order it for you from another library. Libraries are changing but they are not remotely obsolete.

Obligatory

[Dogtanian]

Some say print is dead

Oh, that's very fascinating to me... I read a lot myself. Some people think I'm too intellectual, but I think it's a fabulous way to spend your spare time.

I also play racquetball.

This is exactly why I spent my

[geekoid]

borders gift cars last weekend.

Spend'em if you got'em, people.

Re:This is exactly why I spent my

[neminem]

That... is a very good idea. I just discovered I had some Borders gift cards hidden away in a drawer; I figured, eh, I'll use them eventually... nope, clearly I should use them right now. Thanks, slashdot!

Wrong

[dbIII]

What they stocked and sold ended up being irrelevant when they over-extended and couldn't pay their debts. Highly profitable branches closed along with the rest of the business.

Tech books then nothing...

[Douglas Goodall]

After microprocessors arrived and writing software for personal computers became interesting, the Internet hadn't made it bug yet, and book stores were where you went to get books abut programming. Things were still moving slowly, and there was time time write a book about a version of something, get it published, and still have a window of opportunity to sell it before the next great thing arrived. The books were selling for $35 which seemed a little expensive, but if you needed it to work, what the heck. As things sped up, that window of opportunity got much shorter and conventional publishing houses could not get the books out fast enough to address the current technology, always in motion. Hence the rise of Microsoft Publishing. As Microsoft programmers wrote the next version, their publishing arm was readying the books to go with it. Since they were the ones with the content "on-time" they could charge $50, then $75 per book and get away with it. Then they learned some new tricks, like spreading out the material across a number of titles so you had to buy an entire series of books to get critical mass on a version. Eventually, even Microsoft press could not get the books out fast enough to keep up with Microsoft's rush from one version to the next. At that point I didn't even need to buy the books because only the on-line material was up-to date enough, if even that. Now I don't even buy books any more, except books that I once loved that I want to read again, and then from Amazon at $1.99 plus shipping from the closest affiliate.

Not very flexible to changes

[ramyphotography]

It has been envisioned a long time ago that the digital age would eventually catch up with some of the retail stores. It started with the CD music retailers. Borders Books were paying two hefty overhead expenses that online book retailers didn't - rent and real estate tax. Each and every stores they had either paid rent/mortgage and real estate taxes. Since their target market were upscale, their rent were not low either. They had to be in high traffic and high end shopping centers. So, who shall we blame for their demise?

Re: Cafe at Borders

[TaoPhoenix]

"What? They don't sell Mug or A&W?"

Nope! Those would make business sense!

Re: Cafe at Borders

[iordain]

To be fair, most root beer is caffeine free, as it's not really a cola in the traditional sense. Expensive and/or strange? Yes, I'll give you that one. (Full disclosure, I was a Borders Cafe barista through most of my college career and shortly after)