Borders' closure and the end of the book.

The end of the book, may not be far off. Borders bookstore are closing all remaining 399 stores in America, and are liquidating the company. For those who grew up, browsing the shelves of Borders this may come as a shock – but it is probably only the beginning of the end, for the traditional bookstore and, even, the traditional book.

The closure of Borders will have multiple effects on books and book buying. Firstly, by reducing the number of stores available at which to buy books, it would increase the average distance to a bookstore, for the average American. This makes the buying of books more inconvenient. This will have an obvious effect: American readers (or those that still read, anyway), will seek a more convenient alternative – the ereader, most probably the Kindle, but it could be the Nook (by Barnes and Noble), too, or any of the other ereaders. Thus, instead of travelling further for a bookstore, many former book buyers, may just download their reading material with an ereader. They may become habitual ereaders, once they see its convenience, and may never again return to bookstores, on a regular basis. So, the closure and liquidation of Borders bookstore, is likely to provoke an increase in the rate of exodus from the traditional book, to ebooks.

However, the end of Borders, will relieve pressure on their competitors, to some extent, meaning that it might, for instance, save Barnes and Noble from a similar end, at least for the foreseeable future.

Yet, the long term picture for the traditional book is not a healthy one. Ebook readership is growing fast and looks set to grow faster still. As word of its convenience spreads, so too will the take up of this new medium. The cost basis of traditional publishing is not going to go away – yet the breadth of distribution is in decline. This means that fewer and fewer traditional books, will be able to turn a profit. Thus, publishers will become ever more conservative in whom they publish, greatly restricting the type of book that gets published traditionally. This would mean an even greater focus on big name authors, bestsellers and celebrity “authors” (ghostwritten, usually). This could mean that the traditional book becomes the preserve of those who have no real taste, or whose taste is that which is most common and conventional in the culture. This would alienate, further, those whose tastes run to the more eclectic (once served by bookstores) – again accelerating the flight to ereaders and ebooks.

The end result of this will be that books become a very modest niche in the world’s – or at least America’s - reading culture. Ebooks will dominate and relatively few bookstores will remain. Indeed, it is possible, one day, that there might be no bricks and mortar bookstores – the only ones might be online ones, like Amazon.

Living in Asia, though, I do note the present popularity of books and bookstores here. I rather think that the book might last longer in Asia, than elsewhere, since books are popular, and ereaders are not. Indeed, Kindle doesn’t even work in Asia and Pacific, according to the Amazon website (unless you trick them).

So, in a sort of reverse Gutenberg, we might see the book retreat from the West, with America leading and seek a holdout in the East. Would it not be strange if the twilight of the book, saw its last stronghold, the Orient? What would Johannes Gutenberg have thought of that?

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

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To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Borders Bookstores and the Kindle Effect.

The Kindle is killing books – or, more precisely, the Kindle is making physical books less available. News out from the US, suggests that high street bookstores may, one day, be little more than a fond memory, because of the Kindle and Amazon. Borders bookstores is, today, on the verge of bankruptcy and may file for it, later this month. The venerable and respected owner of 500 bookstores is expected to close at least 150 of them, in a desperate effort to save itself.

An indicator of just how dire things have become is that, only last week, Borders secured a $550 million dollar credit facility from GE Capital, a subsidiary of General Electric. That works out at 1.1 million USD per store, to keep the show running.

Part of the reason that Borders is failing, now, is that it was slow to move on the advent of digital books. It entered the digital market with an online presence fully eight months after Barnes and Noble – and three years after Amazon. Borders' sales have fallen an astonishing 37.3 per cent in the last three years, pushing the company to the edge of ruin.

Now, to my mind, this development is far from welcome. The whole point of Amazon and the Kindle was, from my perspective and that of many consumers, no doubt, to give us all more choice. However, the success of Amazon, for paper books, and the Kindle for digital ones, is such that the end result might be a loss of choice for book readers everywhere. I read recently, that around 10 % of books sold were by Amazon. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that figure – but let us look at what it means. 10 % might not sound like much – but it is, for what it means is that those books sold by Amazon were NOT sold by physical stores. Thus, the numbers of books sold in physical stores can only have dropped. Now, physical stores have a big, inherent problem: they have large fixed operating costs in terms of rental, utilities and staff. A modest drop in sales can mean a very significant drop in profitability, as overall profits can easily drop below operating costs, or too near them for comfort. The result is what we see with Borders: a great name reduced to having to borrow large sums just to survive, whilst closing one third of its stores to further cut costs.

Much of the blame for all this can be laid at the foot of the Kindle. You see the Kindle does something that might not, at first, be obvious: it stops people from visiting a bookstore. With a Kindle, you can order what you want, at home, without ever having to make a trip to a physical store. This means that the book you purchase via Kindle, will prevent not only the trip to the store – but all the other purchases of books at the store, you might have made, had you been there to accidentally stumble upon them. Thus, one Kindle sale, could cost a physical bookstore several sales.

The Kindle is growing in popularity month on month. Fewer people are actually taking the trouble to visit physical bookstores as a result. This can only mean one thing: the pressure on real bricks and mortar bookstores, can only increase in the coming months and years. More bookstores will have to close down, to further reduce costs. This will mean that the average distance to a bookstore will increase for all customers – which will act as a disincentive to get up and actually visit that physical store. That, of course, will mean that fewer customers would visit the fewer stores – which will lead to more of them closing down and so on. It seems likely that we are entering a vicious circle which could end the presence of physical bookstores on our high streets and in our malls. What is sure is that they are about to get a whole lot rarer.

All of this is a pity. Browsing in bookshops is one of life’s sublimer pleasures. It is also a pleasure not replaced by the Amazon experience. There is something supremely delightful about holding real books in one’s hands, and flicking through the pages for the first time, to see whether this book is The One. Amazon, whilst highly convenient, is only a partial replacement for that experience – though it does have the edge in terms of range of books available. (I should add, though, that my own views of Amazon are coloured by the fact that Amazon has never let me order a book, so far, from either Singapore or Malaysia…it doesn’t seem that they support these destinations).

One day, our grandchildren might have to ask: “What is a bookshop?”, if we ever mention them, to them. Now, wouldn’t that be sad? I have no doubt, however, that they will know what Amazon is, and they will probably all be using Kindle 20s (or whatever model they have got up to by then), in school and everyday life.

I don’t wish to be misunderstood. I think the Kindle is a great idea, and highly convenient. It is a step forward with many life enhancing benefits. However, to me, it seems sad if this innovation should be at the expense of the traditional bookstore. I am all for an expansion of choice, not a change of choice from one medium to another: I would like both media to survive. Let us hope that they find a means to co-exist, and not fall prey to the Kindle Effect. This would be better for everyone, except, perhaps Jeff Bezos.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)