Bad news, good news

The Borders store in Hyde Park is closing. However, that means that everything is on sale.

The one on North Michigan Avenue just went through the same thing, closed on January 8, I think. As far as I know, the one on State Street, near where I work, is sticking around for now. I know that Borders has been having a lot of financial problems, trying to work things out with publishers.

Borders payment arrangements have, so far, been rejected by publishers. Barnes and Noble just announced that they were going to be talking with the publishing houses but I don't know what that is about. After Christmas they announced robust sales in both print and ebooks.

The one at State and Randolph seems to do a booming business. I'm hoping it sticks around.

More "good news", the Hyde Park store is down to 30% off. It still feels like an estate sale for a good friend :(

It certainly says something that Borders' "Liquidation Sale" is featuring discounts (20-40%) which are less than what Amazon frequently features on a daily basis (I believe my most recent purchases there have been 45% off or more).

 

Oh, lord, I'm just back from the Hyde Park Borders. It's now 50% off. The line goes nearly to the back of the store, even with all four registers going. I've bought a dozen books so far (not counting what I've bought for other people), a stock of birthday cards that will last a couple of years, and various other odds and ends.

If you need bookcases, they're selling their fixtures, too.

I was at the one at Clark and Diversey earlier today, and the line there was snaking around the whole first floor and almost out the door onto Broadway. The signs all said 20% off for book and 40% off for things like cards, which didn't seem that great. I wondered if there were somehow bigger discounts that weren't reflected in the signs, but I didn't feel like standing in that line, so I left and went up the street to Bookman's Corner, where I got about 10 used books for $28.

I picked up a book at the Evanston Border's clearance this afternoon. After nearly 40 minutes' wait in the enormous line, the cashier told me that he was going to have to take a black marker to the back cover of the book, because it was "unreturnable." I was pissed. 20% (the markdown in this case) is not a remainder-level discount, and I could see no real reason for them to deface the book; a mark on the reciept would suffice. If they had warned me that this would be the outcome, I wouldn't have gotten in line in the first place, but after all the time I'd waited (with my impatient 6-year-old in tow), I wasn't about to walk away without the book.

Tonight I had that experience (but with a shorter line) at the one at Lawrence and Broadway.

With an attitude like that, I say, good riddance. Chicago is lucky to have many thriving independent bookstores.

> 9, 10

Weird. Must be a north side thing! The Hyde Park store has signs up that say "no returns", but that's it.

(Then they give you a receipt that tells you how much you just saved, so you can justify how much you just spent.)

My understanding is that the Hyde Park store was already slated for closure before the Chapter 11 went through; that may account for the difference. It occurs to me that the "instant remaindering" of stock-on-hand might be part of the negotiation with publisher-creditors, in which case one of the effects is to screw the authors out of royalties.

> 12

It was. The closure was announced several weeks ago. So you may be right that that accounts for the different treatment.

The Hyde Park store is down to 60% off, but the shelves are getting bare :-(

The Hyde Park store is down to 75% off, time is getting short :-(

I picked up a few more books on Sunday, and will probably go back again in a day or so.

I must say, if you're into romance novels (which I'm not), you ought to wander over there, because they're selling those at $1 apiece.

If you're looking for some SERIOUSLY inexpensive book deals ... this weekend is Open Books' "Open Boxes" sale ... where paperbacks are $2, hardcovers are $3 ... and a full BOX of books is only $30! While Open Books is a "used" store, a significant portion of what's in these sales is brand-new "remaindered" stock, and my kids and I got 20-some-odd really excellent books at last Fall's sale. They're just a block or so from the Chicago stop on the Brown Line, so they're easy to get to ...

Details: http://www.open-books.org/events/events_upcoming.php