Borders is running a special on romances. If you buy 4, you get 1 free and if your order is over $25, you get free shipping. If the average book you buy is $6.50 or greater, then four books would exceed the $25 mark.

Mobile Read has a couple of articles on the new debate of whether Amazon, rather than Barnes and Noble, should acquire Borders. William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management says aye (and Pershing has a 10% stake in Boders Group Inc) and Rich Aristotle Munarriz of the Motley Fool says nay. From a [...]

A total of 274 Borders employees were laid off, most of which were corporate employees in all departments except the buyer/planner group. According to the PW article, 156 positions at the Ann Arbor, MI, headquarters were eliminated and 118 positions at the distribution centers, field marketing organization and corporate sales division.
The loss of Borders [...]

Borders had initially partnered with Amazon to serve as its online retail vendor. A year or so ago, Borders severed that relationship and made plans to start its own e-tailing presence. The beta launch is over and customers can now buy from Borders.com direct.

Borders is suffering financially and Tuesday saw the removal of eight management individuals which included buyers Beryl Needham and Tom Dwyer. Rob Teicher was numbered among the eight although Shelf Awareness reported that he was retiring.
Via ShelfAwareness.

Sue Grimshaw, buyer for romances at Borders for the past 7 years, was awarded the 2008 Vivian Stephens Industry Award from RWA. This was announced a week or so ago when the RITA nominations were announced.
Grimshaw is a voracious reader of romance as well as general fiction and mystery. She devours a [...]

Borders has successfully refinanced the terms of the loan from Pershing Square Capital Management.  The overseas operations are still for sale which I understand will help Borders quite a bit if they can unload.
More details that I really don’t understand are here at Publishers Weekly.

Publisher’s Weekly has an article that “handicaps” the possible BN takeover of Borders. Before I talk about the article, I’ve heard that some agents and authors have been spreading some alarmist news that the takeover has already begun and that Borders employees are being laid off. Um, no. That is false. [...]

There have long been rumors of a sale/merger of Borders and Barnes and Noble. Analysts have commented on more than one occasion that this made sense. I think publishing folks generally dislike this notion across the board. Consolidation doesn’t help sales and it certainly doesn’t help midlist authors.
But according to the [...]

There is a fascinating article available for free on the Wall Street Journal (it was pay yesterday) about changes at Borders’ stores. Borders believes it can sell more books if they are face out on the shelves than spined and therefore is cutting back on stock. It will have fewer books in store, [...]