We’ve all heard for a while that Borders is in trouble. Word has it that Thursday was a big lay off day for the Ann Arbor-based company.
First of all, my sympathies to everyone affected. The economy is a bitch.
Secondly, a knuckle sandwich to Borders boneheaded management that is responsible – just as much as the economy – for the sad developments.
I’ve been a Borders slave for years. Together with Barnes and Noble, they successfully drove out of the market the mall chain bookstores that pretty much used to define “romance friendly.” In the hands of Borders and B & N, romance was ghetto-ized to small spaces in the back in the corner in the dark and treated like an embarrassing aunt nobody wants to have over for dinner but everybody suddenly adores come will-reading time.
Their employees snickered. They put titles out late. And they didn’t care that I cared. I can’t count the number of times I complained about the unavailability of titles only to be confronted with a blasé manager who clearly didn’t give a crap.
And then there was red suspenders guy, the bane of Washington, DC romance readers. A long-time Borders employee stationed at the Information Desk next to romance, he sneered, stared, and pissed me off nearly every time I walked in the store. See, he has “better” taste and he’s all about everybody knowing just that.
It’s always ground my gears to pay for shipping and handling since I live in a major metropolitan area, so for years I shopped there every friggin’ week. With no competitors to choose from – at least, no competitors who would dirty their hands with romance, anyway – I was stuck. But not anymore.
Now there is Kindle. I’m not happy about Amazon having any kind of a monopoly because that is pretty much always a bad thing, but there are many things I love about Kindle. Like the instant downloads. And the prices. And the fact that I can use it free of my computer without having to bother with any Mac work-arounds. And, most of all, I love being free of the tyranny of Borders. I know that lately Kindle has been decreed uncool, but for me right now, it’s a terrific solution.
So, while I mourn the employees out of work and those who will be in the future, I hope somebody, somewhere who matters will realize that this is about more than the economy. This is about a company with their corporate heads determinedly in the sand playing with the lives and livelihoods of employees and authors and publishers by doing bad business. Day after day and year after year.
Someday soon there’s going to be one store to buy electronics, one for linens and housewares, and one for books. And there’s more than just the economy at fault.
-Sandy AAR
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Iris: When I hear complaints about the lack of romance in some countries (wasn’t somebody here complaining about New Zealand?), I’m glad to hear you’re having better luck.
Gwenhwyfar: Sounds like BAM heaven.
Schola: As I’ve said to others here who talk about their bookstores, I’m jealous. Seriously.
+IHS+
We don’t have Borders where I live, but my own favourite chain bookstore has a staff that has been trained to respect customers’ reading preferences. I’ve never felt uncomfortable bringing a Romance with even the most explicit of covers to the till–though I always look for a till with a female attendant rather than a male one, just in case!
Well – I shop exclusively at my local BAM and not only are the staff NOT snobbish, but a number of the salespeople read romance (voraciously), but will also hold back a new release for me – and will let me know when new titles by my fav authors are in. They are always recommending authors to me and talk enthusiastically about the books they are reading. On a couple of occasions when I went in and a new release was sold out out, have had a salesperson RETURN the copy she had just bought for herself so I could buy it. Customer service truly is not dead everywhere.
Hey guys,
After reading the numerous replies, I suppose that I am quite lucky that my local books store carries mostly all the latest titles. BTW, I live in Asia! We have a Borders here but it has a limited number of books from our favourite genre.
Anyway, the people here don’t even bat a eyelash when I put the books at the cashier counter (unless it has a very blush-inducing cover).
Bee, I do miss Waldenbooks. And I’m an e-reader convert, too. Love my Kindle.
Michelle, I do occasionally hit the B. Dalton (is that what it still is?) at Union Station and they do tend to have a pretty good selection. The 18th and L Borders is also the best in the area, IMO, with regards to selection and getting books out. However, the Borders to which I am usually sentenced (and the home of Red Suspenders guy) is the Friendship Heights store, which is the most convenient for me. As for UBS, C & W books way the hell out in Chantilly has a great selection. It’s a road trip, but well worth it — you can literally spend hours there.
I also live in the D.C. area. I buy most of my romances at the union station bookstore, the 18th & L Borders, the dupont books-a-million or the B&N at Clarendon. A few years ago, the Borders’s romance section improved greatly – I think it was a company-wide initiative. They tend to have everything I’m looking for really quickly. I’d actually say they’re better than Barnes and Nobles is at getting the latest romances on the shelf quickly, and lots of B&N’s carry category. I can’t say they have a romance-friendly vibe from the staff, but I can get the books I want typically.
I’ve never been able to find a romance-friendly UBS in the area – I’m really surprised at that. Fortunately, I can afford to buy new…
I feel your pain, Sandy. I used to adore Waldenbooks because I thought they were very customer service and romance/fiction friendly. I, also, agree with you that the nature of the publishing world will ultimately change due to both the online book shopping (Amazon with no shipping and sales tax charges) and e-book phenomenon. I have a Sony reader which I love (so I guess there is not a total Kindle monopoly, although that is what Amazon would want us to believe) and even with the cost of the device it has truly made my reading experience more pleasurable because I can have multiple books that I am reading at my fingertips at the same time.
To the fellow Canadians: I’ve actually found Chapters/Indigo relatively good, in the romance department, and the World’s Biggest Bookstore in downtown Toronto puts the romance section AT THE FRONT of the fiction department. As in, if you want to get to the highbrow literature at the BACK, you have to walk past the lesser genres of Romance, SciFi/Fantasy, or Mystery to get to “”real stuff””. I love it there. But I also agree that the slow but sure marginalisation of smaller bookstores is killing the diversity across the board.
I’m currently living in New Zealand, and I would kill for a good Barnes & Noble or Chapters. Romance here is almost non-existent (and I’ve been to chain bookstores in Australia that don’t HAVE romance sections), and the chain bookstores seem to favour very recent Avons (and NOT the quality ones, in my opinion) with a smattering of Pocket and Dell. And there are some very suspicious holes in their shelves – a romance section without Mary Balogh, Julia Quinn, or Lisa Kleypas?? I’m not talking the latest titles, I’m talking those authors, PERIOD. And a NZ bookstore that doesn’t carry Nalini Singh – who happens to live in NZ and is one of the biggest paranormal phenomena in recent years??? Oh wait, I forget, she’s ROMANCE paranormal. Maybe that explains it. I just got back to the boons from a trip to Auckland, where I went on a major USB spree (and their secondhand stores, thankfully, make up for the deficiencies of the new ones), where I stocked up on enough romance novels to last me a good long while. Cause it will be a while. I love it here, but there are some things I really, really miss about North America….