Borders, the second largest chain bookstore in the U.S. has gone bankrupt! 2011 is not shaping up to be a good year for brick & mortar book sellers.
Read details here.
It isn't really a surprise. Borders has been in trouble for a while, and were slow to embrace online sales. In fact, Borders used Amazon for online sales until 2008, and they have contracted Kobo as their eBook channel.
Borders (and other large chains) were responsible for the loss of countless independent bookstores, so this may be good news to small, struggling bookstores in markets where Borders will be closing mega-stores. So it isn't ALL bad news.
List of alternatives to closing Borders stores.
Like the H.B. Fenn bankruptcy, this means a lot of publishing houses are owed a lot of money that they may never see. A wave of bankruptcies or companies scaling back publishing plans is more and more possible. Physical books are hardly doomed... but eBooks are going to continue to look better and better as long as the bad news for physical books continues.
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