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Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and CommentarySix devoted readers who serve up fiction book reviews (primarily romance and fantasy with some non fiction and manga thrown in) and provide honest commentary on the Romance genre and publishing industry.
S E A R C H
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Jan
10
Borders sales, like BAM and Barnes & Noble, saw a decline of sales this holiday season. Borders is partnering with Gather to create reader communities. You can earn points for participation that can be redeemable in the form of a gift card. That’s a decent bribe. Per Publisher’s Weekly.  Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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4 comments to “Borders Sales Down, Tries to Increase Reader Participation”Say What's On Your mind |
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Open Threads at Dear Author. Want to know what new releases are out this month and what readers are excited about reading? Check out the threads below. 
We don’t like to censor comments nor do we endorse the comments of any poster. We do reserve the right to moderate comments but most of the time will not, believing, as Justice Brandeis did, that the greater good is in “more speech, not enforced silence.”
Don’t you think that each probably has declining sales but for different reasons. I can’t speak for BAM (we have none in our area), but it seems to me Borders needs a web presents like B&N and Amazon. And B&N needs to lose the $25 charge for being a member.
I think Tara Marie is absolutely right about web presence. I never really understood the Borders-Amazon relationship; if I was going to end up buying from Amazon, it was easier to go there and search in the first place. But if Borders had their own online sales service? They’d get the lion’s share of my new online book purchasing. Which so far this month, with pre-orders for January and February books, is ~$250.
Locally, BAM has a beautiful store in the Arundel Mills mall….but I don’t shop at the mall unless utterly desperate. Which I guess is why Borders Express and/or Waldenbooks don’t work for me. The bookstore is a destination for me. I go there with intent, not as an afterthought while I’m out shopping for clothes or whatever. I wonder how much of the Borders business model is based on mall stores, and how that compares to the B&N model.
And I think jmc is right about destination–LOL . I never go to Borders/Waldenbooks/Borders Express because they’re located in “The Mall”.
Me too
[...] posted a 34% increase in quarterly sales (compare this to the decline in sales for both BGI and BN) but their profits were down 51%. Increased sales of electronics, lower prices and discount [...]