Yay Failing Book Stores?

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Being happy bookstores are closing just so you can get a great discount strikes me as rather self-centered.

No, it was self-centered when we allowed all the local book stores to get killed by national chains to save a couple bucks. Now those chains are dying. Soon there will only be one or two flavors of book stores. ("All restaurants are Taco Bell"). It's capitalism at work. What are we actually willing to pay for?

The market spoke.

 

[Stormonu]

Every once in a while our local "salvage store" - Hudson's - gets in a game store or bookstore stock. I picked up a few good book deals from those little events - D&D and otherwise between 50% to 70% off (usually the % off on top of the discount the store had marked because it was going out of business...).

As far as book stores go, we've only had one store - a Books-a-Million - after Katrina wiped out the Waldenbooks in the mall. Oddly enough, I haven't been to the mall since a month or two after then, mainly because it and Gamestop were the only two places worth going there, IMHO. I have noticed the gaming section also shrinking (as the comic section has been growing) even before 4E came out.

 

[Huw]

Borders are closing across the UK. However, many local independent bookshops are still going.

I did half my Christmas shopping in the local independent bookshop which was a tenth the size of the local Waterstones and (ex)Borders. Guess what? Every book was interesting. No huge displays of the latest publisher-pushed bestseller, just a few bookshelves of books people might actually buy - and I did.

No RPGs, but I've got my FLGS for that. And their selection is better than Borders ever was, even though Borders' science fiction section was the size of a typical FLGS.

Still a pity though. I bought far more from Borders than from Waterstones. They had a pretty good computing section. They also had about two acres of crap, but then that's probably why they're closing down.

 

[Mark]

I blame the schools.

I blame the books!

I blame the school books?

 

[Garmorn]

I blame the internet. My family buys less than 1 out of 20 books in a brick and mortar store. Amazon.com gets most of our business.

 

[Tewligan]

I blame the schools.

I blame the books!

I blame the school books?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwrL9MV6jSk]YouTube - Milli Vanilli - Blame It On The Rain[/ame]

 

[weem]

I blame the internet. My family buys less than 1 out of 20 books in a brick and mortar store. Amazon.com gets most of our business.

Yep... bout to by my wife a Kindle DX (she has wanted a Kindle for a long while now) and that will be the end of her Borders days (and she spent a lot there every month).

 

[fba827]

YouTube - Milli Vanilli - Blame It On The Rain

Wow... brings back memories from elementry and junior high school (all bad memories, but memories none the less) ... did you really have to go there?

 

[On Puget Sound]

The most powerful vote you can cast has nothing to do with elections. You vote every time you open your wallet. Sometimes voting for what you want to see more of in the world means paying a bit more.

 

[Zaukrie]

I find it sad, but I totally understand your excitement. The Half Price by me must have received a lot of overstock on D&D lately, there were 4 copies of the Giant themed D&D tiles there yesterday, and one other set, and several clearly new books.