Borders to file for bankruptcy

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Irysangel

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Why would closing down even 20% of the market truly affect the CUSTOMERS? If they want books, they will buy books. Taking the stores away isn't going to stop them. Many of these stores are near competitors.

Because it's rare that a customer affects a book that's coming out inasmuch as distribution does. That's why it's going to affect things. Just about everything in publishing is based on how many copies you think stores will order. Lots of books move on sheer volume alone. Reduce that volume and you reduce everything across the board.

And while I agree that e-readers and Amazon/Book Depository/whoever will pick up some of the slack, there's still going to be a dip in print runs, and the according dip in advances. Mass Market is already seeing a hit because Wal-Mart recently decreased their orders by more than half of what they used to order. So now? Print runs are tumbling, which makes all MMPBs more expensive to produce, and publishers are cutting back their MMPB lines to accomodate for this. If you can only promote one book, and the stores only want two of them, what's the point of putting out 5 every month?

It's just going to keep contracting.

I'm not trying to be all gloom and doom, but it's definitely going to affect the industry. Will it kill it? Probably not. But it will change a lot of things, I think.
 

euclid

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The numbers are frightening. The commentary on Publishers Lunch is scathing in their assessment of Borders management plan to recover. The latest I read was that Borders applied to the court to use $400m of their $505m debtor-in-possession funding to continue in operation - without providing any budget (ie plan) for the recovery process. I think this is a company holed well below the waterline. I don't believe it will be saved. Between them, the publishers are owed an estimated $270m. Most of them are not prepared to ship any more books to Borders (not even on a COD basis), and one that is still shipping could be ordered by the court to return any money received for any shipments made after the bankruptcy filing.

Publishers Lunch estimate that one third to one half of Borders' business will be absorbed by other disributors; the remainder will disappear.

Over here, in Ireland, recently, we lost Hughes and Hughes, a big high street firm with 10 or 12 outlets. Waterstones are closing their two stores in Dublin city centre, and Kennys in Galway have switched to an online operation modelled on The Book Depository.

The figures also show a seismic shift from paper to electronic sales which is at the core of the problem.
 

euclid

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I'm wondering how much this is going to impact writers. Presumably, if the publishers are not being paid for books sold, then the publishers won't be able to pay the authors.
 

Ineti

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I'm wondering how much this is going to impact writers. Presumably, if the publishers are not being paid for books sold, then the publishers won't be able to pay the authors.

Good timing on this question. C.E. Petit offered some potential impacts to writers on his blog: http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/. Gotta dig a bit in the post, but a lot of good content there to consider.
 

amyashley

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It is interesting. I wonder if this will force some shifts in the industry that have been needing to happen. I know some of it is sad and awful, but perhaps in the end it will turn out to be a positive thing. I think in 12 months or so we will see a very different model of business. I could be wrong.
 

DreamWeaver

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Makes you wonder about the upper level managing of this chain, doesn't it?
If you'd worked there, you wouldn't be wondering, you'd be d*mn near certain.

I personally and probably illogically blame Harvard Business School, for perpetuating the myth that if one can manage one business, one can manage any business. Your head would spin if you saw some of the book-industry ignorance that flourished after Borders put an executive from a grocery chain in charge...
 

Bubastes

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I personally and probably illogically blame Harvard Business School, for perpetuating the myth that if one can manage one business, one can manage any business. Your head would spin if you saw some of the book-industry ignorance that flourished after Borders put an executive from a grocery chain in charge...

This X 1000.
 

MaryMumsy

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In today's paper it said the three locations closest to me are all closing. The next closest one is a Walden and not that close. So I guess I'll be renewing my BN membership. At least there are three of those a reasonable distance away.

MM
 

Michael Drakich

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This is ugly stuff going on, very ugly. Angus & Robertson in Australia just followed suit. Articles I have read are suggesting authors avoid Borders at all costs, you'll never get paid. Tracking ebook sales is almost impossible. In the end, it is we, the writers who will get it in the rear. Big publishing houses are dropping midling writers, small ones are offering ebook sales only. One article I read says the best solution is for all writers to go independant, set up as your own publisher. It's apparently easier than most think and you keep it all. God, the transition is going to be murderous!
 

DreamWeaver

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It's apparently easier than most think and you keep it all.
Extremely easy to do, exceedingly hard to do well, and even harder to succeed at, for values of "succeed" that go beyond Yippee! My Book Is Available For Sale.

I can vouch for extremely easy to do, I can extrapolate exceedingly hard to do well by reading the on-line blurbs for a random sample of self-published ebooks. Note I didn't say impossible to succeed at, just that it's hard. Success, of course, means different things to different people. Some authors who self-identify as "successful" seem satisfied with YMBIAFS. I, given no advance, would want to be pulling in annual royalties in the four figures. Someone else might be looking to make a living wage (which, I admit, would be Really Nice).

To relate this to Borders, it was surely a huge misstep that at first they partnered with their worst nemesis for on-line sales. Then when Borders *did* set up their own online presence, I'm pretty sure they didn't invest in the kind of computing talent that Amazon does. My friend's son finished his master's degree in Computer Science with national level recognition and a few summers of on-the-job experience in the tech industry. He had four or five Fortune 500 companies bidding to hire him. He went with Amazon.
 
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blacbird

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I personally and probably illogically blame Harvard Business School, for perpetuating the myth that if one can manage one business, one can manage any business.

Absolutely correct here. Think of the disaster John Sculley was at Apple, after being CEO of Pepsi-Cola. Even he now admits that he didn't know what he was doing at Apple, and he says when he left, the company was within weeks of insolvency and bankruptcy.
 

euclid

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Scary, really scary stuff. What a terrible time to be trying to get a debut novel published, or even represented!

*I'm off to make a cup of coffee*
 

BarbaraKE

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I think this is a great time to be a writer (especially a debut writer).

On the other hand, I'd hate to be a publisher.

On a $25.00 book, how much does the author see? $2.50? $3.75? No more than that (minus 15% to the agent). The vast majority of the money is eaten up by entities (publishers, bookbinders, transportation, books stores, etc.) that basically do nothing to change/improve the actual product (the written words). But they end up with most of the money.

Electronic books are the future. And that's good for writers because they can then keep a much bigger chunk of the pie.

Yes, there will be problems. Yes, some people will be hurt. But it's inevitable.

And I have one question for people who think (physical) books will always be around. How many music cassettes/8-tracks/LPs/VHS tapes do you think were produced last year?
 

Torgo

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On a $25.00 book, how much does the author see? $2.50? $3.75? No more than that (minus 15% to the agent). The vast majority of the money is eaten up by entities (publishers, bookbinders, transportation, books stores, etc.) that basically do nothing to change/improve the actual product (the written words). But they end up with most of the money.

As an editor, I feel we do improve the written words from time to time. There's the gatekeeper/curator aspect to what publishers do, as well, which we all benefit from as consumers; I don't really want to try to buy books in a world without publishers filtering for quality. (For a glimpse into that world, check out PA's website and try to imagine finding something you'd like to read.)
 

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I don't dwell so much on how much the publisher ends up with as a percentage, but on how much I end up with as a lump sum. Large presses typical still pay authors a lot more because the do a lot more, which is what their cut pays for. Besides, any balance sheet I have seen shows that their actual free and clear profit is around 2% of cover--far less than the author gets. And I say this as a predominantly epublished author, not an axe-grinder.
 
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Collectonian

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Yes, there will be problems. Yes, some people will be hurt. But it's inevitable.

And I have one question for people who think (physical) books will always be around. How many music cassettes/8-tracks/LPs/VHS tapes do you think were produced last year?

No, it isn't "inevitable" and yes, I do believe physical books will always be around. You ask on old styles of medium, however they are very different things. Whether in the form of a cassette, 8-track, etc, the visceral experience of the music doesn't change greatly perhaps having a greater amount of auditory detail. The visceral experience of music or a movie doesn't depend on the media (other than the difference between a movie at home and on the big screen) as they have no sounds nor feel. The equipment can enhance it, but it doesn't take it away. And yes, older forms aren't being produced, but you can still buy record players (at $200 a pop even) at Target, and of course music CDs are still made, and movies are still released on both DVD and Blu-Ray, despite the availability of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services.

A digital book does NOT offer the same visceral experience as a physical book. They don't have the same feel, smell, sounds, etc that you get while reading a physical book. Those who just want to read the story who don't care about those experiences will probably go to eBook readers, for SOME books. The other sticking point is not all books are available on eBook readers. Go to a used book store, browse the shelves, find some titles you want, then try to find them in eBook form. There are wonderful classics that also are not available in eBook because they are not in the public domain yet and copies are so rare that the few services that do the public domain stuff probably don't have them.
 

willietheshakes

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I think this is a great time to be a writer (especially a debut writer).

On the other hand, I'd hate to be a publisher.

On a $25.00 book, how much does the author see? $2.50? $3.75? No more than that (minus 15% to the agent). The vast majority of the money is eaten up by entities (publishers, bookbinders, transportation, books stores, etc.) that basically do nothing to change/improve the actual product (the written words). But they end up with most of the money.

Electronic books are the future. And that's good for writers because they can then keep a much bigger chunk of the pie.

Yes, there will be problems. Yes, some people will be hurt. But it's inevitable.

And I have one question for people who think (physical) books will always be around. How many music cassettes/8-tracks/LPs/VHS tapes do you think were produced last year?

If you're wondering, in the future, the bolded sentence is where I stopped reading.
 

BarbaraKE

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As an editor, I feel we do improve the written words from time to time. There's the gatekeeper/curator aspect to what publishers do, as well, which we all benefit from as consumers; I don't really want to try to buy books in a world without publishers filtering for quality. (For a glimpse into that world, check out PA's website and try to imagine finding something you'd like to read.)

I'm not dismissing 'editors' (truly I'm not). A good editor can be invaluable. But 'editor' can (and should) be separate from 'publisher'.

As for the 'gatekeeper' aspect, you have a point. Now. But that will change. I don't buy books based on who publishes them, I go by reviews by individuals (whether on Amazon or people I know). (Same with movies, byw.)

No, it isn't "inevitable" and yes, I do believe physical books will always be around. You ask on old styles of medium, however they are very different things. Whether in the form of a cassette, 8-track, etc, the visceral experience of the music doesn't change greatly perhaps having a greater amount of auditory detail. The visceral experience of music or a movie doesn't depend on the media (other than the difference between a movie at home and on the big screen) as they have no sounds nor feel.
<snip>
A digital book does NOT offer the same visceral experience as a physical book.

I know people who used to say the same thing about LPs. (I guess that's one of the advantages of age <grin>)

And I don't understand how you can say music/movies 'have no sounds nor feel'. Books do??

If you're wondering, in the future, the bolded sentence is where I stopped reading.

Why?? That's like someone saying "I didn't like the book". Not very useful unless they can give a reason why.

Besides, any balance sheet I have seen shows that their actual free and clear profit is around 2% of cover--far less than the author gets.

You know that that is bookkeeping, right? It's like me saying "I'll mow your lawn for $1,000. After all my expenses (wear-and-tear on my lawnmower, expenses for me to travel to your house, Social Security taxes, workmen's comp, etc. etc., and, oh yes, my $900 salary ), my 'profit' is only $10. That doesn't mean the $1,000 I'm charging you is fair.

'Profit' can be a very elastic number. (Who was the movie house that claimed they didn't make any 'profit' from the original 'Spiderman'. Stan Winston (creator of the Spiderman character) actually had to sue them to get the share of the 'profits' he was legally entitled to.)
 

Soccer Mom

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Let's keep this a discussion about Borders and the business of publishing without degenerating into an ebooksareevil/ebooksaresalvation debate.

Thanks.
 

willietheshakes

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Why?? That's like someone saying "I didn't like the book". Not very useful unless they can give a reason why.

Because the notion that publishers and bookstores -- for a start -- do nothing for the work is insulting, and lacks any basis in fact.
And yes, as a bookseller, I choose to take it very personally.

Stan Winston (creator of the Spiderman character)

That'd be Stan Lee who created Spiderman.
 

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