Posted on 12/31/2010 4:42:35 PM PST by Swordmaker
Borders delays book payments in financial deals
Borders has been delaying payments to book publishers in signs that it may be one of the first major victims of e-books. Early reports from Publishers Marketplace on Friday said it was putting off the payments to help refinance its debt but also wasn't certain that the plan would be effective. It might have to break its existing credit deals early into 2011 after facing a "liquidity shortfall," it said.
The publishers weren't named by Borders when asked by the Wall Street Journal, but Hachette and Sourcebooks were named as two of those told they weren't getting payments due as soon as today.
Financial pressure has now become acute at the company and mimics that of Circuit City before it was defunct. The electronics chain's problems with sales were reinforced when it engendered a lack of faith from device makers, many of whom began insisting on cash up front and didn't trust credit from the chain. Borders lost $74.4 million just in its most recent quarter and has lost money in most every quarter for the past two years except for the holiday season, when the usual spike put it back temporarily into profits.
E-books have been credited in part to the damage done to Borders and even more successful stores like Barnes & Noble, where digital downloads are mostly replacing paper copies rather than adding to the business. Borders has been exploring the possibility of financing from an investor to buy Barnes & Noble and get a successful business through a takeover.
Any financial collapse at Borders could have a ripple effect on the e-book business. It would cost Kobo one of its most important markets for e-readers and would close one of the few major online book stores. The shift could feed Amazon, Apple and other survivors with extra customers.
I don’t get it. Only 27% of adults who CAN read actually READ a book last year! 27%!
How can the tiny percentage of ‘e-book readers’ take down the book industry in this way? More like mis-management on Border’s part. Start carrying conservative authors and watch your sales revenues turn around!
The Borders in ‘The People’s Republik of Madistan’ is Commie Central. Commies and College Students aint’ got no cash for books. Idiots. Your MARKET is Conservative ADULTS who have money to pay taxes and time to READ.
I, for one, will NEVER own/read an e-book. I LOVE nothing more than the feel of a book in my hands. I never have less than three books going at a time, and I also read EVERYTHING from the back of soup cans to The Classics. :)
I, for one, will NEVER own/read an e-book. I LOVE nothing more than the feel of a book in my hands. I never have less than three books going at a time, and I also read EVERYTHING from the back of soup cans to The Classics. :)
Same here. I seldom buy brand new books. I mostly buy at used book stores and Amazon with great success in finding the books I want at great prices.
I have about a thousand books down stairs being eaten by white fish. I bought a Kindle, it has some limitations but when you read five books a week at times it solves the space problem.
Nope. I don’t care about space. A House is not a Home without a HUGE library! (And a bread machine, and a King Arthur Flour catalog...LOL!)
My brother got my mom some sort of an e-reader for Christmas that does a lot, but I’ll bet she never downloads a book on it or even uses it for anything else, like read a newspaper on it. This for a woman who rarely does anything on her laptop but play bridge. She was entirely befuddled as he tried to explain it to her....but maybe that was his plan all along. He’ll probably “borrow” it while she continues to read her paperbacks and hard covers. What does he expect from an 83 yr. old woman?
I got my 80 yr old mother a Kindle for her birthday. Her idea. What with arthritis in her hands and the size of a lot of books, holding regular books was becoming problematic. Now she can take her Kindle to doctor’s appointments, etc and read what she wants. When she’s done, she just slips it in her purse; hardly any weight at all.
I don’t have a Kindle, but I know a lot of professors who do. Now that I have an iPad with Kindle, I read a lot for work and pleasure on it. The iPad lets me tote a ton of material without having to lug it around in my bag. I don’t have arthritis in my hands, but I am middle-aged and it’s nice not to have to carry everything I may read in a day from journal articles to email to student papers.
Books are nice, but so are ebooks.
You’re the one that loves them...or do you just steal recipes from them? LOL!
I make the bread by hand, I let the machine do the mixing for me. I work a lot. Gotta cut time stealers somehwere! (Other than FR, of course!)
I buy flour in bulk when it’s on sale at my local grocer. Got some really good deals pre-Christmas Baking season.
Lots-O-Flour in the freezer right now! :)
I’m on the road. On a given day, I may need access
to multiple books. I commute to work on my
Harley with a few books in my backpack. It’s
heavy and I often guess the wrong books for
the work day. An e-reader (my Droid phone)
keeps far more books accessible with no weight
penalty. Shipping is dirt cheap compared to the
paper books. I buy a paper computer book
about once a week. Often from a Borders store at
a 40% discount. Their financial woes aren’t due to
a lack of patronage from me.
“Classics”
May I suggest http://www.gutenberg.org
over 30,000 free downloads found there.
Heavy “Classic” literature bias.
Many of them in HTML (including images and links).
Many of them formated for Kindle and other hand held readers.
There are great things there like the “Federalist Papers” etc.
So do I, have been the family baker for over 30 years. Keep at least a lb. of yeast in the refrig and 50+ lbs. of flour in the pantry. Nice to meet you FRiend.
“Often from a Borders store at a 40% discount. Their financial woes aren’t due to a lack of patronage from me.”
I’m in Retail. They’re either jackin’ the price up sky-high to begin with to give you and others a 40% discount, or they’re just your basic liberal business idiots.
They also own Walden Books - they closed TWO HUNDRED STORES in 2010! That’s at least 4K American jobs gone.
*SHRUG*
Obed Hussey
Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19547/19547-h/19547-h.htm
“There are great things there like the ‘Federalist Papers’ etc.”
Got the hard copy right here on my desk... :)
IMO, Borders is losing money by merit of their “liberal lay-abouts” in-store policy.
In my local store, there’s a guy with his fat ass parked on a comfy arm chair back in the arts/photography section, reading a new novel every few days.
He never buys them.
Then, they installed the cafes.
Now, I’ll go in to -purchase- the only copy available of a $60 Photoshop book, only to find the pages literally glued together by somebody’s latte’.
When the pages actually do successfully open, I find chocolate eclair smudges and cookie crumbs in the binding.
The magazines have been ripped out of their plastic bags and often, the “free software” DVD is missing.
[no RFID tags on them]
I am literally paying new book prices for obviously -used- books.
Back when all we had was a Books & Things chain, the sign that said “BUY IT THEN READ IT” was no joke.
You had about five minutes to decide before a manager came after you.
I have no problem with that.
Every time I go there, I complain to the manager, the clerks, whomever but nothing ever gets done and *now* I should pity their financial woes?
I buy 80% of my books from Amazon, now.
[they’re thriving]
And I won’t even go into the “Free WI-FI access” in every Borders.
My legitimate purchases are paying for *that* too.
“I, for one, will NEVER own/read an e-book.”
Never say never.....I used to feel the same way. I still read “regular” books, but for long plane flights, and general paperback-type reading my kindle is great. Also getting the newspaper delivered without having to get out of bed and sneak down the driveway without neighbors seeing you in your bunny slippers is also a bonus.
Also - check out the Project Gutenberg - there are books you can get on an e-reader that you don’t have, and can never buy.
All in all - its a great enhancement to one’s reading pleasure. If you want to read a paper book, you can still have at it.
Again- I used to share your same skepticism.
In my local store, there’s a guy with his fat ass parked on a comfy arm chair back in the arts/photography section, reading a new novel every few days.
The Barnes and Noble bookstore on Shattuck Avenue (near the UC Berkeley campus) suffered that fate. It ended up as a library/study hall/haven for the homeless. It's now a Staples office supply store.
The Barnes and Noble in Walnut Creek, and the Borders bookstore in San Francisco, are still going concerns. Walnut Creek is a relatively prosperous SF suburb whose population has adequate disposable income to buy books, and San Francisco has the tourists with money to spend likewise. I think stores too close to "college towns" have to develop a different business model, or else relocate.
Yes, I steal their recipes as well as those from from a number of other places and schools in NYC, SF, RI, and Chicago. My brother and I are serious bread makers, their flour is over priced.
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