Readers without Borders: A Diatribe and Manifesto

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent news that Borders has declared bankruptcy. Out of the 200 stores they are closing, several are attached either to me personally, or to friends I’ve met over the years. I’m not here to talk about those friends, though they certainly might come up. Besides, James Yates, a fellow bookseller and good friend, has already written about this admirably and with grace and pathos. I certainly could talk about the many wonderful people I’ve met at Waterstone’s, Bookstar, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, and that could be a fairly long and wistful post, remembering all of the great times I’ve had with other readers. But, I am not feeling wistful right now. In fact, if there’s an opposite of wistful, that’s what I’m feeling. Once I finally do get to that point, maybe I’ll write about those people, and the quirky ‘book’ things I remember about them. No, I am not looking at the Pensieve with a reverent eye, or eating a Madeleine cookie and falling back headlong into personal memories. I wish that I could, and I might someday soon. Currently, I am angry.

I have somewhat addressed pieces of my anger previously, as Mr. Yates refers to in his own piece on Chicago Ex-Patriate (if you’re not reading it, you should). That particular essay was my comparison of books as a consumable product to wine, something in which everyone can partake, yet can also be explored indefinitely with the knowledge and tastes of a connoisseur. I feel strongly in this connection, and I might come back to that before long. Let me first admit that, yes, some of my anger comes from personal feelings of hurt, betrayal, abuse, diminishment, insult, and the awful memories unfortunately outweighing the good. There’s no avoiding it. So, you can imagine that my reaction to the announcement of bankruptcy was met with a certain amount of schadenfreude. Unlike many of the comments I’ve read at the end of articles on said bankruptcy, this turn of events was not a surprise. In fact, I’m shocked it didn’t happen sooner.

Part the First: The Executives
I am angry. I’m angry at the string of corporate CEOs who have mismanaged a powerful force in the book industry, playing a large part in the objectification and marginalization of books as opposed to the celebration of the written word. I’m especially angry at them for making incredibly unwise and poor decisions about the business, then lashing out at the people implementing their asinine vision. I’m angry at the executives, choosing to ignore the wealth of knowledge inherent in their employees, forging ahead with their own deluded ideas, having come from a business background, but never one that involved books. I’m angry with them for implementing costly projects with nothing other than a pet philosophical bias, with no basis in practicality or knowledge of the business, such as ‘flushing’ and moving every subject in the store to a different location, with the only result being frustrated loyal customers and wasted payroll, man hours, and optimism. I'm angry at the self-fulfilling prophecy of poor sales by leaving Borders stores with skeletal staffs, but no decrease in tasking or goals. I’m angry at the lack of technological vision, years behind the curve on nearly every aspect of a computer driven culture, miring the company in debt for bad decision upon bad decision, creating yet another self-fulfilling prophecy of failure in which executives were never at the center of blame. I am angry with those people in the company who managed with suspicion and paranoia, accusing blameless people in their charge for crimes they did not commit, and for treating their employees like criminals, when all they wanted to do was share the love of books with their customers.

Part the Second: The Customers

I’m angry at the book buying public, or lack thereof. This is not a new anger. I worked as a buyer at Waterstone’s in Delaware. Lack of a reading culture was ultimately what caused the store to close after only a year in business. Once the closure was announced, people came in to say how sad they were about it, and that it ‘seemed’ like a good idea, never once having actually purchased a book at the store. I have read recent comments on blogs that claim to be sad about any bookstore closing or how Borders was a great place to hang out all day. But, the truth is, these self-same commenters most likely didn’t purchase books there, and in their comments about ‘hanging out’ prove that the stores were more used as libraries and social centers as opposed to community businesses. Both the corporation and the customer were complicit in this arrangement, purposefully providing an atmosphere for reading as opposed to buying, complete with comfortable chairs and cafés. What should have been emphasized is the culture and enjoyment of reading, or even building a personal library, which, in my sixteen years in the business, I never saw from a corporate bookstore. Both of the big chains offer regular discounts, through sales or coupons, that far outweighed the 20% given during these current Borders liquidation sales, and yet people have unsurprisingly and characteristically mobbed the closing stores, salivating at the idea of a ‘sale,’ a Pavlovian response to the dog whistles of rhetoric that make them believe they are actually getting some kind of deal, picking at the carcass of yet another closed bookstore. Before the closure, the stores in which I worked were populated with people who asked for Shakespeare in ‘play form,’ insisted that Jane Austen wrote Jane Eyre, and were angry that the words of Jesus were not present in the ‘entire first half’ of the Bible they purchased. This kind of ignorance can’t be blamed on eBooks, and nor can the demise of print. Most of the eBooks being purchased are the popular literature and bestsellers that every store sells, the book business having been under a long succession of dilution, with Costco and Wal-Mart taking a big chunk, and Harry Potter books being sold at gas stations. 70% of book sales are backlist, and Borders failed at every level to emphasize the great reads that waited around every corner. They also failed to recognize, and this is what will ultimately doom Barnes & Noble in the long run, that all good bookselling is local, and that great bookselling comes from voracious readers, not from corporate edicts, deals with publishers, or marginal cost.

Part the Third: Corporate America

Most of all, I’m angry at corporate America, in which this form of accumulating personal wealth off of the backs of hardworking people doing what they love has become the norm, not the exception. Ron Marshall, the CEO who drove the Borders stock price to under a dollar, ruled with an iron fist, drove many good people out of jobs, and specifically chose not to compete in the eReader platform business, thus perpetuating Borders’ long line of technological incompetence, left after only a year, bailing out on a sinking ship he was heralded to save, and possibly left with a contractual 4.3 million dollars in compensation. While he revels in his millions, and is rewarded with another CEO position, at his former company (which he also brought to bankruptcy some months later), thousands of people have just lost jobs that, while they didn’t pay terribly much, were jobs that these people did with passion, care, and love. Ironically, during his tenure, he and his minions treated booksellers, the lifeblood of the industry, as whining, selfish, resistant, and replaceable automatons who should do exactly as asked, and recommend the same book to vastly different readers, a notion that pleased some publishers, but not customers or booksellers. But, this is America. This is where people vote against their own interests because of the fear mongering, selfish, and manipulative diatribes of messianic talking heads. This is where people fought hard to gain rights for workers, while other workers claim that unions are destroying America, secure in their delusion that they one day could be that CEO, gaining from the sweat and toil of others. Because of this, I am indeed angry, but sadly, not surprised.

Part the Fourth: Beyond Borders

I hope that someday soon, the anger subsides. Like Jamie, I have met some absolutely wonderful people in this business of books, two ‘b’ words that somehow don’t seem to go together in the most harmonious fashion. I cherish the memories of the sixteen years I’ve spent selling books, in over twelve stores, with three different companies. My anger will eventually recede, and it will only start to vanish by both recalling those incredibly valuable memories and picking up a good book, getting lost in the pages of a well-written narrative.

This isn’t the end of bookselling, or even the end of Borders…yet. Borders will ultimately fail, as I stand with the publishers in a lack of faith that the executives of the company have the vision and foresight to dig themselves out of an ever deepening chasm. My wish is that with the loss of Borders stores in 200 locations, customers begin to frequent the independent stores in those areas, started by people who love books and have risked their financial stakes on bringing that passion to their communities. Like the music industry, some will go digital. The Lady Gagas, Justin Biebers, Stephenie Meyers, James Pattersons, and political pundits of the world will find a home in the worlds of digital media, but that leaves the hidden gems for the rest of us, the discerning listeners and readers. Record stores have thrived with a return to vinyl, and independent bookstores will continue on with lovingly used books, midlist critical darlings, and word of mouth masterpieces. With lower overhead, due to an increase in digital distribution, publishers will hopefully still be able to publish great authors in bound form, but possibly at lower volume, much like vinyl. And, for those people lamenting the loss of Borders because it was the only game in town, I urge you, if your passion so envelops you, to find a way to open an independent bookstore, or at least visit your local library. Many of us, in this climate of rampant consumer culture, have forgotten the joy of a local library, where the reading is free and the smell of a well-read book is just a bonus.

Attached is a link to a post in which a good citizen gives indie alternatives to those neighborhoods that have lost a Borders. The comments here add hundreds more.



Works Cited:
Bomey, N. (2010, Jan. 26). Borders CEO Ron Marshall resigns to accept position at another retailer. Retrieved from http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/borders-ceo-ron-marshall-resigns-prompts-ann-arbor-retailer/