As mentioned below Borders has been in the news a good bit in the last two weeks. It seems that they’ve had a great deal of trouble keeping in good standing with publishers. Well, the announcement came out yesterday that they are finally meeting with publisher representatives this afternoon – so we’ll be expecting an announcement, or some news late today.
In the same breath they announced that they are closing one of their distribution centers, the one in LaVergne Tennessee. Apparently the Tennessee distribution center is one of three or four – they have a large center in California another in Pennsylvania, but only the one in the south. Of course this sounds like bad news for Borders (and of course it’s horrible news for the 300 employees who lost jobs) but what does it mean to the larger book industry? And to southern retail bookselling? Well, two things, one: LaVergne is also the location of the major southern distribution center for Ingram. Ingram is one of the two big book distributors in the South. So will Borders be handicapped when it comes to getting books quickly from Ingram? But secondly, and more importantly, this means that Borders is severely handicapping their southern efforts – maybe even giving up the south. If they are planning to close more stores, and it seems almost guaranteed that they will, then does the closing of the southern distribution center mean that many of the closings will be in the South? Does this mean that Books-a-Million will be changing their strategy as well? How will this effect independent bookselling in the South?
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)
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