We all heard the news earlier this week: Border is shutting down all its stores. So how does that impact the average author? Here are some quotes, collected from various sources (with varying opinions), that should help to shine a light on things.
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“Borders was known as a retailer that took special care in selling paperbacks, and its promotion of certain titles could propel them to best-seller status.” Independent booksellers, counterintuitively, could also be harmed by Borders’ closing: In the Providence Journal, one independent bookseller feared that publishers, squeezed for cash, will be less able to extend discounts to indies.”
–Laura Hazard Owen, Former Editor of Publishing Trends
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The passing of Borders, and the likely passing of more bookstores in the future, is part of a technological evolution that allows writers like me to put content in front of people like you without adding all kinds of costs to the process for both of us.
The only reason we ever had bookstores in the first place is that it wasn’t possible for people to get books any other way. That is no longer true, and the result is a positive one for authors and readers. It’s obviously not so good for bookstore employees, but businesses that perform a function that’s no longer necessary don’t serve their customers – or the economy at large – by hanging around. Things evolve. They always do and they always will.
We simply don’t need Borders anymore. And most of us will be just fine – if not better off – without it.
–Author Dan Calabrese
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“Borders was particularly open to African-American writers. Many of my own signings were at Borders, as were signings of a lot of my authors,” she said. “We’re going to have to find alternative ways to market books.”
“Aside from Barnes and Noble (BKS), which analysts predict would pick up 18% of the Borders market, most retail book chains carry a fraction of Borders’ titles. To put it in numbers, a robust independent bookstore might stock as many as 10,000 titles, while the average Walmart (WMT) typically carries 1,400 to 1,700 titles. By contrast, a Borders’ superstore has well over 100,000.
“Many of those tens of thousands of titles stocked by Borders are written by midlist authors, the writers who are most reliant on browsing book buyers. Not yet elevated into the the rarefied ranks of authors with instant name recognition, members of the midlist may have a single title in print, or dozens. While their books may be selling briskly to a solid core of devoted fans, most midlisters haven’t yet cracked a national bestseller list, which means their names aren’t sufficiently recognizable to generate a sale.
“For these authors, the bulk of their sales depend heavily on impulse purchases made in retail outlets. For this reason, authors frequently fret over whether or not their publishers have purchased “co-op,” or front-of-store placement for their titles. But the issue becomes moot if the bookstores themselves are no longer there.”
–Karen Dionne, internationally published author of the environmental thrillers Freezing Point and Boiling Point.