OT - End of an era Borders Closes

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Big B
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OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Big B »

Just wanted to say - it's sad to hear Borders Book stores are all closing. Many warm memories going to Borders to look through and buy our favorite books (and music).

End of an era...
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by ilovestrategy »

That's a crying shame. I'm not kidding either.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by jazman »

I won't shed a tear. They and B&N killed all the local bookstores, I think of Oxford Books in Atlanta.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by JeffroK »

2nds to jazman, now the era of the local bookstore will return, except that the internet & ebooks is taking some of the business.

Its a pity that Borders forgot they were there to SELL BOOKS, not coffee and provide places to read their books and not buy.

I remember going to Borders in Kansas City and drooling over the ACRES of books, especially those only available or distributed inthe USA.
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Shellshock
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Shellshock »

I'm sad to see them go, but Borders did zero innovation. Ignored threats such as Amazon and e-books. Then tried to buy their way out rather than change the business model. Bankruptcy is how bad management is eliminated. If it does not happen fast enough, then employees also suffer.

Happily, there are still quite a few vendors still going strong in used books. That's where I go to pick up most military titles anyway. I imagine they'll be picking up some of the stock.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by AW1Steve »

Having worked for Borders, I'm not at all surprised at their demise. They started as a college book store, and corporate always seemed to think that like a college bookstore , customers HAD to buy from them. Their main competitor, Barnes and Noble , never forgot that they were in business to SELL books. [:(]
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by crsutton »

I don't care one way or another. It is just evolution. Borders was a prime mover in the demise of local book stores and although I liked browsing at borders, I just hate the idea that I have to drive further and further just to find a bigger store to buy my ___________ (insert any item here). The big box store is a way station to the internet which is where I do most of my buying these days. Any business model based on forcing people to drive more is doomed to fail as the population becomes more inclined to drive less.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Nikademus »

The used book store remains a favorite haunt of mine. Circumstances however forced me to join the digital age and now i have a Kindle and download most of my books electronically. I miss the feel of actual books but in the end the ultra convenience of having all your (newer) books at your fingertips is just too much to resist.

Funny....i've been thinking the same thoughts about video stores. With Netflix and the ever expanding streaming media technology, when/will? the DVD store become a thing of the past. Was sad to see most of the local mom and pop video stores close up shop. Between the previously mentioned and Blockbuster, how can they compete? (then again, the bulk of local BB stores have also closed)
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: JeffK

2nds to jazman, now the era of the local bookstore will return, except that the internet & ebooks is taking some of the business.

Its a pity that Borders forgot they were there to SELL BOOKS, not coffee and provide places to read their books and not buy.

I remember going to Borders in Kansas City and drooling over the ACRES of books, especially those only available or distributed inthe USA.

In the USA the local bookstore will not return. The forces which gave rise to Borders and its ilk will be extended to the online world and e-books. The consignmnet economics of paper&ink books is unsustainable. Local bookstores take those economics and add local rents, labor, taxes, and dis-economies of scale. They aren't coming back over here.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Schanilec »

Oh I don't know about that. We just had a local bookstore open up here about a year ago and are doing well. They now have two stores. Barnes & Noble went bye-bye. As did Waldon and B. Dalton's.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Schanilec

Oh I don't know about that. We just had a local bookstore open up here about a year ago and are doing well. They now have two stores. Barnes & Noble went bye-bye. As did Waldon and B. Dalton's.

That's because you North Daks still use smoke signals instead of the Internet. [:)]

I don't doubt they'll be there in five years. I wouldn't put money on ten. Places like ND will be the last to go though. Isolated, expensive logistics for WiFi, not the most forward-leaning techie population. B&M bookseling is based on 19th C. consignment supply chains. The stores don't own their inventory, mostly. Most of it gets shipped out, and then back unsold. Expensive fuel, trees, labor. The industry is notorious for mis-forecasting demand, in both directions.

On our recent trip to MT we went across ND. Wife had a borrowed iPad. Got bored with my driving, acessed a WiFi spot in a McDs in Bismark, had a book in two minutes, read it by the time we got to Bozeman, adjustable fonts and all. Plus, as it was public domain, it was free. That iPad has Thucydides' "The History of the Peloponnesian War" sitting on it waiting for me to have time. It was also free. I paid $7.99 for a paperback in my ancient history course 35 years ago.

The novel I wrote is about $30 in paper, and $.99 (plus 90 seconds) in e-book. Same words, same ideas.

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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Schanilec »

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58



That's because you North Daks still use smoke signals instead of the Internet. [:)]

I don't doubt they'll be there in five years. I wouldn't put money on ten. Places like ND will be the last to go though. Isolated, expensive logistics for WiFi, not the most forward-leaning techie population. B&M bookseling is based on 19th C. consignment supply chains. The stores don't own their inventory, mostly. Most of it gets shipped out, and then back unsold. Expensive fuel, trees, labor. The industry is notorious for mis-forecasting demand, in both directions.

On our recent trip to MT we went across ND. Wife had a borrowed iPad. Got bored with my driving, acessed a WiFi spot in a McDs in Bismark, had a book in two minutes, read it by the time we got to Bozeman, adjustable fonts and all. Plus, as it was public domain, it was free. That iPad has Thucydides' "The History of the Peloponnesian War" sitting on it waiting for me to have time. It was also free. I paid $7.99 for a paperback in my ancient history course 35 years ago.

The novel I wrote is about $30 in paper, and $.99 (plus 90 seconds) in e-book. Same words, same ideas.

The times they are a changing.
This is one Czech that doesn't bounce.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by darbycmcd »

I think local bookstores have a profitable niche if they are responsive and well-managed (but that is basically true of most business). I also think there is a future in print-on-demand local bookstores as that technology improves/becomes more affordable. Not maintaining stock but having access to all the electronic books, including all the crazy small print runs and foreign language, could be a big money maker, especially to combine with some social space (ok, I am from Seattle so am dependant on coffeeshop culture...). There was a used-book store in Prague that also had coffee shop and pub aspects, with lots of readings, meetings, etc. It was a great space and if they could do POD for books I think it would have done well. The contractual issues haven't been worked out for the industry, but they are sort of scrambling to understand the entire electronic book thing at this point so it will take some time.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: darbymcd

I think local bookstores have a profitable niche if they are responsive and well-managed (but that is basically true of most business). I also think there is a future in print-on-demand local bookstores as that technology improves/becomes more affordable. Not maintaining stock but having access to all the electronic books, including all the crazy small print runs and foreign language, could be a big money maker, especially to combine with some social space (ok, I am from Seattle so am dependant on coffeeshop culture...). There was a used-book store in Prague that also had coffee shop and pub aspects, with lots of readings, meetings, etc. It was a great space and if they could do POD for books I think it would have done well. The contractual issues haven't been worked out for the industry, but they are sort of scrambling to understand the entire electronic book thing at this point so it will take some time.

Having a local brick store staffed all the time to provide POD books is the worst of both ideas IMO. POD is inherently much more expensive per copy than a large offset run. Marginal costs for the offset book are pennies--all the labor is in the set-up. POD books don't have large materials investments (all that pulp sent out to stores and then back again unsold), but have very large per copy labor costs. It takes 100% of the labor of at least one individual to find the file, snd it to a high-speed B&W printer, wait, collate&cut, then get a graphics file from the server, send it to a different color printer, cut to size, laminate with plastic sheeting, then fit into a jig and glue the binding, wait for glue to dry (consuming workspace), do QA checks, then enter the volume into an inventory/accounting system before presenting it to the consumer for payment processing. Large POD outfits like Xlibris and iUniverse do all of this in an industrial environment, not behind the counter of a retail store, and even then their per unit costs are massively higher than a large offset print run. The main appeal of POD is not in cost or retail price, but in the fact that books need never go out of print. My $30 retail novel is POD in paper. It's been in print for over a decade, but has sold at $30 in numbers which would never have justified an offset run at that price. Ironically, it's that price which led to the low sales numbers--the snake eats its own tail.

E-books, once one gets past the sensory hurdles, eat paper books' lunch. POD from on-line still requires several day's shipping, and as I said the cost is prohibitive. Doing production at the shop level saves FedEx and some time, maybe, but the retailer still has big production scheduling and lay-out challenges. (How long will a walk-up customer wait if there are 30 POD books ahead of his in the store's production queue?) POD does save a huge amount of cost on the back end, but the retail customer, at least so far, doesn't see those savings in his price. Part of the problem to date with e-books is that large publishers are valiantly trying to continue to price them at paper prices, with few of the paper costs, hoping e-book readers are stupid. (Well, that's the best I've got. Anybody else have a better explanation?)

E-books are part of an overall disassociation of processes which has been occurring in publishing since at least the late 1980s. There are discrete tasks which must be accomplished to move a book from an author's mind to a reader's mind. Currently these processes are being untangled from each other, and this terrifies the big houses. They have financial models which rely on their hammerlock on many of these steps, but technology is eroding their control in a very systematic way. Many authors are business neophytes, but some are getting smarter. JKR's recent launch of her Harry Potter Web site is a huge shot across the bow of the NYC/London cabal. Major authors don't need big houses. They can buy their own freelance editing services, and have the brand names already. They can freelance promo tours without help. And they can e-distribute their creative works for next to nothing. Their gross margins go from 15-20% of retail, to something over 80%, just by hiring smart techie types to set them up. Remove the blockbuster authors from the big publishing houses and the whole financial house of cards comes down. It's happening before our eyes.

The #1 e-fiction author in the USA is a 20-something woman who lives in northern MN. She sells her books herself, without a publisher. She's made over $1 million in four years with virtually no overhead. You've almost certainly never heard of her.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Mynok »


Record labels are facing the same spectre of irrelevance. Indeed, it isn't a spectre but a full blown monster with very sharp teeth and a large appetite for carrion.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by CaptDave »

I'm a book lover and always will be, but I'm not particularly saddened about Borders going away.  While the main reason for their liquidation is their failure to adapt their business model to accommodate electronic publishing, a not-insignificant part is also their model of trying to be the low-price leader in books.  That meant I couldn't find durable, high-quality (physical, not content) non-fiction books.  Their World War II selections, for example, were 97-98% soft cover of some sort, and those just don't hold up over time.

I might be more interested in electronic publications when (1) the readers can accommodate, in a user-friendly manner, multiple simultaneous bookmarks for easy jumping back and forth, and (2) the proprietary formats go away.  Books can be read by any standard-issue eyeball, but those published specifically for Kindle can't be read on Nook and vice versa.  Note to manufcaturers: I don't do "proprietary" anything unless I absolutely have no choice.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Record labels are facing the same spectre of irrelevance. Indeed, it isn't a spectre but a full blown monster with very sharp teeth and a large appetite for carrion.

Yep. Anything which can be shoved down a wire or made electromagnetic doesn't need to move by truck.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Schanilec »

Mr. Moose,
 
Oops on my last post. The telegraph went array.[;)] One good thing on being behind the times...No Olive Garden, amongst others.
 
BTW: What was in Bozeman. I have friends over there. That is usually where I go for vacation. Did you guys manage to go to Chico Hot Springs. We always make it a point to spent a night or two there. It's a great place. No telephones or televisions in any of the rooms. Gets me to thinking that I'm due for another trip out there.
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Bullwinkle58
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: CaptDave

I'm a book lover and always will be, but I'm not particularly saddened about Borders going away.  While the main reason for their liquidation is their failure to adapt their business model to accommodate electronic publishing, a not-insignificant part is also their model of trying to be the low-price leader in books.  That meant I couldn't find durable, high-quality (physical, not content) non-fiction books.  Their World War II selections, for example, were 97-98% soft cover of some sort, and those just don't hold up over time.

I might be more interested in electronic publications when (1) the readers can accommodate, in a user-friendly manner, multiple simultaneous bookmarks for easy jumping back and forth, and (2) the proprietary formats go away.  Books can be read by any standard-issue eyeball, but those published specifically for Kindle can't be read on Nook and vice versa.  Note to manufcaturers: I don't do "proprietary" anything unless I absolutely have no choice.

Trade paperbacks are the decision of the publisher, not the store. Very few non-fiction first-run titles are done in both. The industry has turned to large-format trade paperbacks for cost reasons. I agree with you that their binding quality in particular is often poor. My "Silent Victory" is trade p., and it's a bear to hold open and read.

There are pretty much two leading formats now--Kindle (basically HTML), and E-Pub. (I think I have that one right.) Readers are in a knock-down share fight for dominence. I think multi-use tablets will swing the fight to its conclusion. Having used an iPad I don't care to own a single-use device like a Kindle. I do think size formats in readers will happen as we go too. Large screens for static reading of such materials as large graphic-rich textbooks, magazines, and daily newspapers will appear. I seems as if the "electronic paper" described a decade ago has been stalled out, and tablets are the future unless there's a huge breakthrough in materials and cost for e-paper.
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RE: OT - End of an era Borders Closes

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Schanilec

Mr. Moose,

Oops on my last post. The telegraph went array.[;)] One good thing on being behind the times...No Olive Garden, amongst others.

BTW: What was in Bozeman. I have friends over there. That is usually where I go for vacation. Did you guys manage to go to Chico Hot Springs. We always make it a point to spent a night or two there. It's a great place. No telephones or televisions in any of the rooms. Gets me to thinking that I'm due for another trip out there.

Yeah, but you probably have a Space Aliens. Fine dining!

My dad lives west of Bozeman in a town nobody ever heard of, so I usually say Bozeman. We went to Butte for the day, but mostly hung around the ranchette fixing fences and playing with the animals. Also, eating steak. A . . . lot . . . of . . . steak.
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