Sad days approach as I make my last purchase at my local Borders

With our kids off to school, my wife and I decide to run some errands "kid free" and decide to take a 20 minute drive to our closest Borders location. I knew it was in the final days and well, I was curious to see what was left.

There wasn't much talking between us as we both knew that our destination would be sad, well, at least for me. We pulled up to a full parking lot and giant signs that read "Final Days" and "Savings up to 90% Off". A sad day indeed. My wife and I walked into the store, doors were wide open and employees held a somber face as they walked slowly around their store putting away the final stock on the shelves.

As I always do, I scanned for a bargain when I walked into Borders that day and my wife gave a chuckle when I asked her where the "bargain" section was. We separated as we walked further into the almost empty building as we have different reading tastes. Understandable. I scanned the shelves and realized that there were absolutely no books spined, they were all faced out to show off the glorious covers that so many artists and publishers had worked on. These were slim pickin's.

I stumbled upon a copy of The Bone Palace by Amanda Downum and read the blurb on the back cover, and well for $1.60, I was willing to give it a try. We checked out as we handed the sad cashier cash and decided to save the bag as it wasn't needed for only one paperback. I tucked the receipt in the book and thought "Well, this will be my last receipt from a Borders store."

In the past year, I have discovered the wonderful world of ebooks through my University and decided to re-publish my first two novels as ebooks. Ebooks have also given me inspiration to continue writing the sequel to one of my books. I have joined among the many before me to try and make my name known in the reading world and ebooks have given me that opportunity. I have the feeling of success once again and I owe it all the fantastical world of digital media.

With this being said, it's still sad to see my local Borders store closing as it is the start of the new revolution of books and how digital media is impacting consumers. Although sad and disheartening, I understand that this new age of technology is giving authors like myself a new challenge and opportunity to make lifelong dreams come true. I won't hide the fact that the paperback editions of my work have not done well at all. But maybe, just maybe, in my search through a second hand bookstore (as I do frequent those often) I may find a beat up, spine-broken, copy of one of my books and I will admit it will bring a huge smile to my face knowing that there are still readers out there who still adore holding glued pages together to expand their imagination.

To this I shall end this blog post and I hope you share my sadness in knowing that our corporate bookstores are coming to an end folks, it may not be next week, next year, but we are in a full force technology age where bits of data are now impacting our imaginations.

Nicholas McGirr