Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Sad news for scifi booklovers. Borderlands Books of San Francisco is closing.
40hz:
SF writer Cory Doctorow posted some very sad news on Boing-Boing. One of the very few independent science-fiction bookstores left in the USA, the famous Borderlands Books in San Francisco is planning on shutting its doors by March 31, 2015.
Their blog post serves up a neat summary of the seemingly insurmountable challenges an independent bookstore faces under the current realities of retail book selling.
You can read it here.
There is still some small hope. From their blog:
Some of you reading this probably have questions popping into your minds -- Is there a way to keep Borderlands open? What alternatives have you considered? What about moving out of SF? What is going to happen to the cafe? Is the business for sale? And so on. Before asking us your questions, please wait for a week. We'll be sending out and posting updates frequently over the next week or so and those updates will probably answer most of your questions. We will also be holding a public meeting in the cafe at seven P. M. on Thursday, February 12th. We'll be on hand to answer questions and moderate a discussion about alternatives to closing the store. Although we do not believe that any viable alternative exists, we also think that we have a very smart and imaginative group of customers. It is not impossible that we've missed a potential solution, and so we want an opportunity to hear your thoughts.
--- End quote ---
Hopefully some clever Jill or Joe will come up with an idea in time.
If not, "So it goes."
superboyac:
SF writer Cory Doctorow posted some very sad news on Boing-Boing. One of the very few independent science-fiction bookstores left in the USA, the famous Borderlands Books in San Francisco is planning on shutting its doors by March 31, 2015.
Their blog post serves up a neat summary of the seemingly insurmountable challenges an independent bookstore faces under the current realities of retail book selling.
You can read it here.
There is still some small hope. From their blog:
Some of you reading this probably have questions popping into your minds -- Is there a way to keep Borderlands open? What alternatives have you considered? What about moving out of SF? What is going to happen to the cafe? Is the business for sale? And so on. Before asking us your questions, please wait for a week. We'll be sending out and posting updates frequently over the next week or so and those updates will probably answer most of your questions. We will also be holding a public meeting in the cafe at seven P. M. on Thursday, February 12th. We'll be on hand to answer questions and moderate a discussion about alternatives to closing the store. Although we do not believe that any viable alternative exists, we also think that we have a very smart and imaginative group of customers. It is not impossible that we've missed a potential solution, and so we want an opportunity to hear your thoughts.
--- End quote ---
Hopefully some clever Jill or Joe will come up with an idea in time.
If not, "So it goes."
-40hz (February 02, 2015, 07:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
For those that follow this sort of business, what is the general perception of where this kind of business is headed?
I have friends in SF who are authors in niches like this...I kind of always have this image of SF as this haven for authors. I'd hate to see that go.
40hz:
^It's whole new world for word publishing. The landscape of which is looking pretty grim. I mean seriously...for a shop like Borderlands to be shutting down in a city like San Francisco???
I'm not getting warm fuzzies.
Ten or so years ago, my town used to have three independent bookstores, two used book shops, and a Borders.
It now has no bookstores...unless you want to count the half-assed one our local college installed in the ruins of Borders old location. It's mostly school-branded stationary, campus swag and course texts, with a very small fiction/general book section - plus the de rigueur coffee shop. (This school has a lot of off-campus residents living in the immediate area.)
About the only saving grace is that our local library association still throws its major used 'book faire' in the summer, plus one or two smaller ones in the fall and spring. (And they're invariably mobbed so it's not like nobody is reading physical books any more.)
wraith808:
^It's whole new world for word publishing. The landscape of which is looking pretty grim. I mean seriously...for a shop like Borderlands to be shutting down in a city like San Francisco???
Ten or so years ago, my town used to have three independent bookstores, two used book shops, and a Borders.
It now has no bookstores...unless you want to count the half-assed one our local college installed in the ruins of Borders old location. It's mostly school-branded stationary, campus swag and course texts, with a very small fiction/general book section plus a coffee shop. (This school has a lot of off-campus residents living in the immediate area.)
I'm not getting warm fuzzies.
-40hz (February 03, 2015, 09:08 AM)
--- End quote ---
It's a change in venue and a change in distribution. Adapt or die. The big chains are having problems with it... the smaller ones have been for a while. It's not so much the authors getting hit these days though- it's the booksellers. If you try to compete with the chains... it's a losing proposition. But not competing is not an option anymore either in the age of kindles and nooks and other e-readers.
40hz:
It's a change in venue and a change in distribution. Adapt or die.
-wraith808 (February 03, 2015, 09:30 AM)
--- End quote ---
It's actually more a change in expectations that's the tipping point AFAICT. As the owners of Borderlands Books said in their blog, the list price of books are set (and printed on the cover of books) by their publishers. And with the advent of Amazon, nobody expects to pay list for a book today. So the indie stores can't push the price up above list because that's simply "not done" (nor is it doable) when it comes to books that are in print.
"Adapt or die" is one way of looking at it. (I suspect Renegade would applaud that one.) But there are practical limits. What's happening to these small stores is the equivalent of sealing them in a glass jar and telling them: "You have a simple choice. Learn to live without oxygen - or perish."
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version