Today Borders officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy citing a debt of $1.25 billion and supposed assets of $1.275 billion. Publishers and distributors are owed some $230 million. Over the next few weeks, Borders will be closing 30% of its stores or about 200. No news yet that Flowood’s Borders will be one of those. (Scroll down for full list of publisher creditors.)

At the present time, interpreting future landscape of book selling is difficult.

My first question, asking myself, is where will all the books go that are now on Borders’ book shelves. As stores close, will inventory be shared to the remaining existing stores? A logical guess. Will an extensive amount of inventory be returned to the publishers to pay outstanding bills? How much of Borders’ unpaid bills will be written off by the publishers, thus causing more pressure to booksellers who pay their bills. Will huge closing sales take place across America increasing the already exorbitant discount of my product?

My big question is why the publishers let Borders escape from paying their bills on time? I cannot fathom the size of the bath the publishers will take. I ask why? It doesn’t seem that Borders’ continual deep discounting of books they aren’t paying for has helped our book selling cause. I feel this publisher tolerance has erased value on all levels of legitimate book selling.

Just this November, I made an envelope addressing mistake on a publisher’s address. My check was lost in the mail, my slight error could have been caught by an astute postman, but it wasn’t. My favorite publisher, the one I try to pay first and foremost on time, threatened to cut off my account. I was beginning to run 30 days past due. When hassled, I knew I wrote the check and mailed it as soon as I could. Stopped shipments from this company would have been disastrous for Lemuria’s Christmas season. Fortunately, intervention from inside company aids kept my account temporarily open, until my check was returned, address error corrected and check then resent, thus clearing up my problem. I must add, I still was not 60 days past due.

My point is why a small bookstore paying its bills regularly is hassled and threatened while Borders owes and refuses to pay such a huge amount. Why didn’t the publishers demand results from Borders sooner? They were sure quick to pull the trigger on me. It will be interesting to see how the publishers answer this question about their tolerance over the next few weeks.

As Borders falls, I hope the publishers learn from their mistakes. Maybe their philosophy will become one of supporting real book selling with team work, and local community book selling will be enhanced.

Publishers helping the bookstores that pay their bills to make more money could be a starting foundation to rebuild our industry.

Here is the full list of publisher creditors:

Penguin    $41.1 million

Hachette Book Group    $36.9 million

Simon & Schuster    $33.75 million

Random House    $33.5 million

HarperCollins    $25.8 million

Macmillan    $11.4 million

Wiley    $11.2 million

Perseus    $7.8 million

F+W Media    $4.6 million

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt    $4.4 million

Workman    $4 million

McGraw-Hill    $3.1 million

Pearson Education    $2.8 million

NBN    $2 million

Norton    $2 million

Zondervan    $1.9 million

Hay House    $1.7 million

Elsevier Science    $1.6 million

Publications Intl.    $1.1 million

The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry

Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)

yyyy

Share