Bookstores

I have worked for Borders Group, Inc. for about four and a half years, now.  This November would have been my 5 year anniversary.  There will be no five year anniversary for me, however, because my store is closing.  It was definitely unexpected.  I'm sure most people know about the Borders bankruptcy, but despite that, my store was profitable.  We thought we were safe for a little while longer.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  Our landlord wouldn't renegotiate our lease.  There was someone else who would pay what the landlord was asking, so now, the store is closing. The capital city will have no Borders by this summer. 

When I was growing up, you could find bookstores everywhere.  I grew up in Detroit.  We had a Waldenbooks about the size of my current Borders.  We had Waldenbooks or B. Dalton's, sometimes both, in every single mall.  Now, you're hard pressed to find any bookstore in the mall.  B. Dalton's is history and Waldenbooks is on its way out.  There's not a single Waldenbooks store in Iowa anymore.  The idea of a mall without a bookstore in it is astounding to me.  I don't want to believe that such a place exists.  It does, however, and I live in one such place.

I remember going to the giant used bookstore in downtown Detroit every weekend with my mom.  She would tell me where to meet her and then I was sent on my way to have the time of my life.  Two or three hours later, whatever the time limit was given, I made my way to meet her.  The books I'd been reading were all back on the shelves, put back where I got them and in the right order, but a few of those books were in my hands.  I spent a lot of time in that store, but I never used it solely as a library.  Whether we spent thirty minutes there, or three hours, we always bought something.  It's a store, after all, not a library.

A lot of people blame the digital era for what's going on with brick and mortar bookstores.  They say that Amazon.com's low prices and the demand for eBooks are going to make brick and mortar stores unnecessary.  I don't think that's true.  Sure, people like shopping for cheap on Amazon.  They also like being able to have a ton of books at the tip of their fingertips.  But, there are still so many more people who love the feel of a book in their hands.  There are people who love the idea of just browsing a store, of spending a couple of hours looking at the covers, the spines.  These are the people that pick up a book, read a few pages, flip through a little more, and then say yay or nay on whether this is the book they want.  Unfortunately, these are not the people coming into bookstores, and worse, these aren't even the people who are complaining about the slow death of brick and mortar stores.

A lot of blogs I've seen complaining about their local Borders closing all say the same thing:  "Where am I going to hang out, now?"  A couple of these bloggers who call themselves journalists actually admitted that they were in a Borders, using the WiFi, reading magazines, and had no intention of buying anything, at all.  I read one where the blogger said she sits at the table in the kids section, pulls out her laptop, and shops for books at Amazon.  Another blogger talked about how he took up a table in the cafe of his local Borders for hours on end, flipping through magazines, manga, and graphic novels that he never had any intention of buying.

REALLY? 

Yeah, I look at these people and I want to scream at them, "What is wrong with you?"  They are so entitled that they don't realize just how much of a parasite they are, and it doesn't help that, for some reason, corporate higher ups don't think that they are a problem.  These are the people that pick up the last copy of a book, take it halfway across the store, leave it in a pile filled with various genres, and when a customer who actually wants to buy the book comes to us, we can't find it.  So now, we've lost that sale.  Now, imagine this happening ten times a day, every single day.  How is that helping us?

And don't get me started on manga fans.  I've seen all kinds of angry rants about how the stores don't have the manga or graphic novel that they want.  Well, let me tell you why the store doesn't happen.  You see, most of you don't actually pay for your manga.  You get it on the internet, or you sit in the store and read it, or worse, you steal it.  That means that the copies in the store sit on the shelves unsold.  What does this tell the buyers?  Why, it tells them that this is not a series that will make money.  They don't know how much you love it, because in the retail world, buying a product is the only way to show that people actually want it.  You are not showing that there's a demand for it, therefore there is no supply for it.  See how easy that is?

Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that customers who don't buy things are the sole reason that Borders had to file bankruptcy.  They are a part, for sure, but we all know that the blame is laid squarely on those sitting on high that made bad decisions; the CEO that didn't think that the internet needed to be taken seriously, the removal of actual book product to make room for toys, games, candy, and knick knacks.  This all was dumped into the lap of our current CEO who tried his best to save a company that just didn't have much left to save.  For a while, he was able to improve morale.  He was able to lift the spirits of people that were left battered and broken by his predecessor.  We had CEO after CEO who blamed those of us on the field for not selling hard enough or whatever they wanted to blame us for, when they were the ones that made bad decisions.

So, why is my bookstore closing?  Well, I could give you the flat answer of another business is willing to pay more for the lease of our building, but that's only part of the story.  Really, it's only an answer to part of the question.  Why are bookstores, as a whole, having problems?  Yes, poor decisions were made in business, but let's be honest.  A store can't succeed if people don't make purchases, and in the end, people were not making purchases.  So all of you asking where your family is going to go for their Friday or Saturday night outing, or where your book club/chess group/meeting group is going to go, do a couple of things for me.  First, think about the people who are losing their jobs, because that is much more of a tragedy than where you will hang out.  And second, think about what you could have done to help this company thrive.  Remember when you printed up five copies of a coupon and put each one in a book, then got nasty when the cashier wouldn't risk his/her job because the coupon clearly states that it is one coupon per customer.  Think about those books/CDs/DVDs that you stole.  Consider the great heaping messes you left behind for someone to clean up when you didn't even buy anything. 

Caught in the middle of this are those of us who are hardworking and diligent.  Sure, there are people out there who give bad service and don't care about their jobs, but most of us are working at a bookstore because we care about books and we care about our customers.  We are the ones who are left to deal with the customers who want to break the rules.  We are the ones who get the lectures and the disapproval when customers become patrons, when we stop being a store and become a library.  Yes, you are losing a place to buy books, or to some, a place to hang out, but we are losing our JOBS.  You may say that the economy is on the rise, that there are jobs out there, but there are nowhere near enough jobs to accommodate the number of people who are on their way back into the job market.  We have given our sweat, blood, and tears to this company, and now, we are the ones that have to face the customers on a daily basis, the customers that want to cry because they're losing their favorite place to shop, the customers that want to scream because they're losing their hangout place, and the customers who berate us because the discount isn't enough.  Remember folks, we are victims here, too.  We're not only employees, we are customers, and we are in the same boat as you are.

Now, you may ask what this has to do with writing.  Well, this is now one less store that writers can have their books on the shelves.  And when people steal books or use the bookstore as a library, those are more published authors who have done the hard work but are now getting no revenue from that.  Bookstores closing doesn't just hurt those people who now have to find a new place to get their books.  It affects the workers who are now jobless, the publishers who now have to find more shelf space, and the writers who will now sell less product because that avenue is gone.  Bookstores need authors to have product to put on the shelves, but writers need bookstores, too.  We need that person who's going to tell you about this amazing book they just read.  We need that person who can remember what the title of the book is when all we can remember is that it was on a television show, or they're making a movie out of it, or that it was on the radio/TV/in the newspaper.

The hundreds of Borders stores that are closing as a result of the bankruptcy hurts more than just the customer that now has to shop somewhere else.  It hurts the employees that were caught unawares because instead of sharing information, the company told us that everything was fine and we shouldn't worry.  It hurts the authors who have less places, now, to get their work purchased. 

If you're going to shop the liquidation sales, I just ask that you remember that you are a human being, not a vulture there to pick the carcass of what was once a great place to work.  Remember that the person at the register is losing his or her job.  Remember that the person on the floor who looks like he or she is about to collapse while six or seven people all clamor to get help... Remember that person is losing his or her job and that this is no easier for them than it is for you.  The day after the store closes, you can go online or you can go to our competitor, and you can buy the book that you want.  The day after the store closes, many employees will go nowhere and they will wonder what they're going to do now, how they're going to pay the bills and feed themselves of their families.  I'm not asking you to express sincere condolences to every Borders employee that you meet during these sales.  I'm not even asking you not to shop these sales, or anything silly like that.  I'm only asking you to remain a decent human being.  Don't become a monster because OMG SALES!  Don't throw books on the floor and leave a huge mess.  This isn't a flea market or a garage sale.  It's the ending of an era for some places, and the end of a life's work for a lot of people out there.

Oh, and the next time you're in a bookstore that's not closing, that still has a chance to survive, remember that the library is down the road a ways and that you can help a store stay open, help people keep their jobs by doing one simple thing.  Buy that book.