Borders UK on the brink of collapse

There are too many stories about a month's absence from blogging to detail all of them, so I will stick to the most important one for the moment, and that concerns once again, the future of ailing retailer Borders Books.

For the second time this year speculation has reached fever pitch, as the retailer is once again up for sale, a mere months after it was the subject of a management buyout.

It is claimed that publishers who have spoken to The Bookseller have expressed fears over the future of the retailer, after it emerged that one distributor had cut off supply following an unpaid bill. I have never dealt with the chain stores direct, preferring that they order my own book through wholesalers (much easier all round), but I know of at one author who is owed several hundred pounds.

Anyway, rumours have mounted since it was reported on Friday that both WH Smith and HMV had walked away from possible deals, while another deal over the Borders website has also fallen through, following the departure of the web team.

Borders' corporate finance adviser Clearwater placed an advertisement in the Financial Times on last week offering for sale "the assets and trade of a chain of book and entertainment stores", with revenue in the region of £150m. The chain was described as having "prime locations on the High Street and 'out of town' retail parks" (in my opinion it is these out of town locations have been partially responsible for at least some of the problems). No asking price was given.

Borders have so far refused to comment on any of the stories mentioned above, so not surprisingly the industry is awash with rumours and speculation. In an email sent to staff last Friday, Chief Executive Philip Downer said that the chain had received "an unsolicited approach from an interested party", and that it had "retained a corporate finance specialist to investigate future possibilities for the business, in line with best practice". Downer added that a "further announcement will follow once we have confirmed information to share with you".

The fall from grace seems to have happened remarkably quickly and her reasons are unclear. Barely one month ago, Downer outlined a clear and positive vision for the future, full of ideas including a new loyalty scheme and plans for further store openings. At least four national newspapers claim that the chain is on the brink of collapse, and if so, it will be sad day indeed for the book industry. If Borders go, they will take between 7 and 10 percent of the market with them (not to mention several hundred jobs), and that business will have to go elsewhere - leading to even less competition and less choice. The staff will not be the only losers. My thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

Getting Published in Children's Books

It has been just over a week since I last wrote on this blog, and I am pleased to see that I have another follower. The book world seems busy at the moment, with the Frankfurt Book Fair in full swing and deals being struck with various different authors (predominantly for a change, non fiction). For my part, I have been busy at work. With various colleagues on holiday, there has been plenty of overtime, which is good for me, as it means I may get that trip to Iceland yet.

This afternoon though, I am taking a trip to Guildford, whose Book Festival opened yesterday. Before you get excited, no I am not doing a talk (I tried last year, but they wouldn't have me), but am attending one - entitled Getting Published in Children's Books, given by Julia Churchill. Julia so the blurb says, is an agent who will offer important tips and advice on getting your book published. It is a little early for me to consider this, with only 1000 words written, but it will be useful nevertheless. I have taken the day off work (I only work for 2 hours in the evening on a Thursday anyway, from 5 to 7pm), so I do hope so. The talk starts at 3pm, so it will be an early lunch to leave at around 1.30pm, just in case I miss the park and ride and have to wait.

Borders anounce plans for expansion

Philip Downer, new CEO of Borders UK confirmed at the company's annual conference on Monday, that the chain is to launch a loyalty card scheme next year. Downer added that following a management buyout last summer, the company aims to expand its number of stores, taking full advantage of the recession, with cheaper rents. This follows the recent announcement that the company is seeking to become a single brand on the High Street through the sale of its Borders Express and Books Etc stores. It also follows a summer of closures and considerable uncertainty for Borders superstores throughout the country.

Non book sales in the form of various novelty items currently account for around a third of the company's business, and Downer hopes in the coming years to increase this to around 50 percent. It is hard to see how this will be achieved without negatively impacting upon the the sale of books. It is however a sad fact of life that since the abolition of the Net Book Price agreement with the resultant erosion in the perceived value of books through ever increasing discounts, novelty items generate considerably more profit while taking up a lot less space. This is particularly important with Christmas approaching, when let's face it, people buy all sorts of junk.

Downer said that a "full space-planning programme" was now under way, backed up by consumer research this autumn, to ascertain whether his plans are what his customers actually want. With no Borders near me, personally I will be sticking to Waterstones.

Words speak for themselves

On the day that Amazon announce the launch of an international version of the Kindle, Richard Curtis has an interesting slant on digitial book technology on his blog E-Reads.

According to Curtis, the day is coming - much sooner than we think - when authors will no longer be able to define themselves as creators of literary works. As electronic technology gets more and more sophisticated (thank goodness I no longer have to sell this stuff and keep up to date with it all), the emerging generation of readers will no longer be content to accept text that is not as Curtis describes it, "interactively married to other media", demanding not just words, but video, music and probably bells and whistles too. The definition of author will be far removed Curtis says, from how we currently define it.

The word that Curtis uses to describe this new form of media is "vook" (video + book = "vook") blending traditional books with audio, video and other digital media as described above. Bear in mind as I write that Simon and Schuster are already working with a multi media partner to release such material that can be read or viewed, online or through electronic devices such as an iPhone or iPod.

Does this though mean the death of the book - of course not. Traditional books will I believe always be around, albeit in more limited form. Will the term author need to be re-defined to make way for the emerging technology? No again. It has always been the case with books that the author writes while others perform the various tasks that are necessary to put the book into paper or electronic form ready for publication - illustrators draw pictures, IT people convert the book to PDF or some other format that can be read via these devices, cover designers well, design the cover. None of this detracts from the fact the author wrote the thing. An author then will always be an author, and nothing can take that away.

E-books may well be here to stay, but whether "vooks" will catch on remains to be seen. Personally I find that when I read I need silence and concentration, and having moving images and music on the screen would distract from the experience. Maybe younger people would like this, I wouldn't know to be honest, as there aren't many young people that I know who read anyway - not unless you count Heat magazine as reading !

Todays young may feel that they need this distraction, as it what they are used to and they feel lost without these so-called "must have" devices, but like everything else, eventually it will swing back the other way. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I just do not see how images and background music will add to the reading experience.

The whole point of reading is after all, to read, to learn and to stretch the mind and the imagination. Viewing a video of a book, or about a book may be entertaining, but it is not reading. The idea of reading is to be immersed in the story and lose yourself almost in another world, video cannot help you do this - the only way to get immersed is quite simply, to read. Vooks may be cool, but they do not communicate ideas and information, they do not capture the imagination in a way that only words can. The words should be allowed to speak for themselves in the way that only words can.

Publishers reluctant to embrace the blogosphere

Blogging continues to be in the news this week, with an article in the Huffington Post claiming that US publishers are reluctant to write blogs for fear of saying the wrong things. The reasons given when pressed range from being overworked, having no talent for blogging, too many other writing projects, and that their bosses had said "no" without giving any specific reason.

The reason is of course fear - and wanting to control, which in a way is understandable. Jason Pinter, a former Random House Editor lost his job in 2007 because of his blog, and I suspect that he is not the only one. Pinter the article claims is now blogging for the Huffington Post and enjoying success as a thriller writer.

Publishers may not have said yes, but authors have - in their droves, as have independent book sellers, publicists and agents. There are one or two Editors who blog, such as Editorial Ass and The Intern, but these are for the most part anonymous. I occasionally read Editorial Ass myself.

These blogs exist for the most part to give advice to aspiring writers and an insight into the world of publishing. When the world wide web was first created all those years ago, no one could have foreseen the way in which it has grown, both in terms of commerce and as a tool for raising awareness of causes and brands. The Internet for authors, especially the self published, remains the best way in which to reach as wide an audience as possible, and also to network with other authors, through blogs, social networking and peer review sites. The publishers do not know what they are missing out on!

Dishonesty is sometimes the best policy

There is an interesting discussion going on at the moment over on the Writers Group at BlogCatalogue regarding honesty in writing. The author of the post was alerted to this subject via a blog post that she came across contemplating both sides of this issue, as both a reader and a writer. As a reader, she felt misled, and somewhat betrayed, when she discovered that a writer she admired appeared not to have been telling the whole truth, yet when she examined her own writing she had to admit that she hadn't either. It can be a very fine line, as I discovered myself not that long ago.

When I first began this blog three or more years ago, the aim was to write about my experiences with print on demand publishing, in the hope that this might help others considering the same path. As time went on, more of my personal life began to creep in, which was difficult to avoid, since I had a lot going on with regard to my paid nine to five job at that time. I also saw it as a major obstacle standing in the way of my writing success, which I was very resentful of. In retrospect I was maybe a little too honest, as I made the mistake of writing about my work in too much detail. So much detail that when my then employer discovered what I had written, I was suspended from work, and eventually forced to leave. It was a difficult time and a harsh lesson that I had to learn.

The reason my employer was so upset was not because of veiled references to the company name or the products that they sold (which were admittedly there), but because I wrote in great detail about how I felt with regard to certain actions or rather inaction's that the company took and about how it made me feel. If I had written a blog saying what a wonderful company they were to work for and how happy I was in my job then they would have had no reason to get upset, but because I told the truth they became worried that if the wrong people read this, their reputation would suffer. Honesty then in my case was not the best policy.

On the other hand, I had been putting off leaving for a long time before they discovered what I had done (which came about ironically because of someone else's dishonesty), humming and harring over what I wanted to do next, so maybe this was the universe's way of forcing me out. This seems to have been a pattern in my life, whereby I stay in a job becoming more and more miserable and knowing that I should leave until I am made redundant or something else happens to force me to leave. This is a pattern, which I am pleased to say is now well and truly broken.

I admit that when I look at those posts now (they have since been moved to another blog and heavily edited), they make very compulsive reading, as you can feel the pain and the depth of the emotions leaping off the page. No employer wants to be told in such stark terms how their behaviour affects their employees health, so this must have been painful for them to read. Still, it is all water under the bridge now. I have learnt my lesson and moved on.

It does though go to show that sometimes dishonesty or at best a touch of white wash, is the best policy, as total honesty doesn't pay the bills. Fortunately, my new job does.

As Borders announce further closures, Google show their true colours

There are several stories of interest worth blogging about today, the first of which concerns Borders, who have announced their intention to sell the remaining Books Etc and Borders Express Stores, thus removing these brands entirely from the High Street. The move, which I am sure has gone down with the staff like a lead balloon, is not totally unexpected, as in the words of Independent journalist James Thompson, "Books Etc has been a financial millstone around the neck of Borders UK for a number of years".

The company, which has 36 remaining Borders stores, came close to collapse earlier in the summer, when it was rescued at the 11th hour by a management buyout headed by Philip Downer, Chief Executive. He is a braver man that I would be!

The company is also said to be negotiating with landlords to restructure or reduce the leases on some of the remaining Borders stores, one of which is believed to be Briggate in Leeds. There are however no plans for further closures.

In the meantime, the Google debacle continues on, with French publishing group La Martinière the first publisher worldwide to sue Google in court. The publisher, which is backed by the French publishers association Syndicat National de l’Edition (SNE) and the French Writers Union, Syndicat des Gens de Lettres, (SGDL), is seeking damages of 15 million Euros (£13.8 million) for books digitised by Google without permission. In addition to this, they are seeking a further penalty of 100,000 Euros per day with 3 million Euros for "prejudice to their image". The trial, which opened in Paris on 24th September is expected to last until 18th December at the latest.

What really takes the biscuit for me are comments made by Google lawyer Alexandra Neri, who argued that the French court was not competent to rule on this case, since the books were digitised in the United States. "What Google does" she said "is absolutely legal." "We have never denied that Seuil holds the copyright on printed works, but it has never proved that it holds the right on digital versions of the works."

For a qualified lawyer to show such ignorance of copyright law is to me breathtaking, quite apart from her other comments regarding where the digitisation took place. Surely copyright is copyright, no matter what form the words are printed in - they could be tattooed on her backside for all I care, the fact is that if Google did not write or pay for the rights to publish these works, then they have no right to digitise any of them. It may be true that the author did not assign digital rights to La Martinière since e-books are a relatively new development, but one thing's for sure - they were not assigned to Google, and I personally would suggest that until such rights are assigned to the publisher or to anyone else for that matter, they have to be regarded as resting fairly and squarely with the author. These comments to my mind show once again how breathtaking arrogant this company has become with its dealings with authors outside the US, they are fighting now for dear life to hold on to what little remains of a settlement that is effectively dead, and a reputation which is not much better.

Still e-books are not all bad, if placed in the right hands, they can open a whole new market for the self published and independent authors, and help to level the playing field by potentially cutting out most of the middle men who demand an ever larger slice of our hard earned cash.

Smashwords which was founded in 2008, announced a partnership with Sony, whereby its books will be available to buy direct from the Sony e-book store to be downloaded on to Sony reading devices. They are not the only company to do this, since Author Solutions have also signed an agreement. Smashwords have also announced a distribution agreement with Lexcyle, to allow their books to be read by users of Stanza, an iPhone eBook-reading device with 2 million users.