Writers Without Borders

The news that Borders is bankrupt and may soon completely vanish wasn't surprising--they've been slowly dying for a while now--but it's still depressing. A lot of bookstores will close, a lot of booksellers will be out of job, and a lot of publishers are wondering how exactly to promote their books.



I do empathize with the indie argument, that chain bookstores are soulless corporate behemoths that drive mom-and-pop's out of business, and as a result of that I haven't shopped much at a Borders in many years.



But I do have two good memories of the place. A few years ago, in the run-up to the publication of my first novel, Random House sent me along with their marketing director to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to have dinner with some people from Borders' corporate headquarters. You'll be surprised and relieved to hear that they did not have cloven hoofs or tails. They were all great people, book people, who talked excitedly about the new E.L. Doctorow novel and debated the merits of different new writers. Maybe they too would have liked to work for an indie store, but Borders was where they wound up, and they had cool jobs, selling books and promoting reading to the wider world. Folks like them may soon be unemployed, and there will be acres of empty bookshelves in stores soon.



After college, my first job was at a terrible consulting firm in downtown Boston. Hated every minute of it. The best thing about it was its location; it was directly across the street from the biggest Borders I'd ever seen (and honestly, even now, after seeing Borders in dozens of states, I still think that was the biggest. Or maybe it only seemed that way, since I was 21, and mega-bookstores were still a newish thing in the mid-1990s). I so loathed my job that I always made sure I took my full 60-minute break, sometimes walking through the Common, sometimes shopping at Filene's Basement, or heading to Chinatown for lunch, or just wandering the streets. I spent many an hour inside that Borders. Sometimes I would find on the shelves a copy of the same book I was in the middle of, and take it to a comfy chair and pick up where I'd left off. (This strategy helped me read Infinite Jest in a mere four weeks!) And I bought some of my favorite books there, including Corelli's Mandolin, which, now that I think of it, I should totally reread, and soon. My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I wandered the stacks a few times, after walking through the city or seeing a movie or having lunch.



And on a few particularly bleak days (there are a lot of such days in Boston in the winter), I remember going to the Children's Section, which had cool outer-space themed carpeting and stars painted on the ceiling, and sat down to read a few Dr. Seuss books, just to escape, just to set the imagination racing once more.



So, yeah, it was a chain, and my 22-year-old self didn't yet realize that I was spending my dollars at a corporation that was quashing indie competitors. But it also did a lot of good, and soon it'll be gone.



INSIDE PUBLISHING SIDENOTE: The top 2 ways in which publishers publicize their books (at least in my experience) is by trying to get them reviewed in the major newspapers and magazines, and paying to get them on the front tables of the big chain bookstores. But we now live in a world in which people don't much read the newspapers (which have been cutting down on their book sections anyway--here in Atlanta, the AJC gives books one page a week!). And we're also in a world where bookstores are disappearing, so the number of front-of-store tables to put your books on is shrinking. This is the $54 million question: How do you publicize and promote books in a world without newspapers or bookstores?



I know, I know. Blogs, social media, Net advertising, etc etc. Hopefully they truly are the answer. We shall see...

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