R.I.P. Borders Bookstores

Only a few months after their Chapter 11 re-organization, Borders has announced that they will liquidate and close all stores. Liquidation sales should start as early as this Friday, so if you want to get in on any sales (and especially if you have any outstanding gift cards there), you'll want to visit soon. I haven't seen anything about gift cards, so they should still be honoring them, at least until the liquidation starts on Friday (if the judge approves their plan this Thursday). I know when we were in ours last weekend, the coffee shop had bags of beans for B1G1F and thought they were getting a new brand of coffee shop next month, but it looks like the big sale that was planned has fallen thru (and I suspect few stores have anything but flavored coffee left, for those who have missed this sale). The stores are, though, full of books, music and movies and there should be some good bargains, as it looks like they want to clear out the stores before the end of the summer (I've seen September mentioned by some blogs, but I would not be surprised if some stores closed sooner). Looks like those who signed up on the Borders+ memberships won't see the stores last long enough to get their promised bonus Borders Bucks (even though that would make them minority creditors of the company, I would not plan on seeing anything from it). If you have a free coffee or bonus bucks on your account, I'd spend those this week, too.

If you have ebooks from the Borders, I'd also be sure to download a backup of each one as an EPUB, using Adobe ADE (you download the .ACSM and open it with ADE), not just downloaded into the app on your computer or Kobo reader, as well as make sure you have moved your library to Kobo. Although Borders did invest in Kobo, that company should not be affected by the liquidation. Then again, with Borders creditor list looking like a Who's Who in publishing, the fallout from the liquidation may be far-reaching. Will publishers raise book prices even more to make up the losses (and, no doubt, guarantee their doom even faster)? In the short run, B&N should see more customers in their stores (and Books-A-Million may try to buy a few of the stores), but in our city, this closing means 2 out of 4 stores will close (and both have much better locations than the remaining two; of those B&N is the hardest to get to).