Borders and Angus & Robertson in liquidation.

What's going on? Does anyone know what this is all about?

No one knows quite what will happen yet. Worst scenario is all Borders and A & R stores will close. Best case is someone will buy the profitable stores from the receivers. They were going downhill anyway some thing had to be done.

No one knows quite what will happen yet. Worst scenario is all Borders and A & R stores will close. Best case is someone will buy the profitable stores from the receivers. They were going downhill anyway some thing had to be done.

Short overview of it all here: http://www.theage.com.au/business/borders-angus--robertson-go-bust-20110217-1axt...

While A&R has gone downhill quite badly, I do wonder what's going to happen to all the small A&R franchises around. They weren't part of some of the worst problems with the main A&R stores (they were mostly independent, I believe, just had the branding), but will they go down with the mother ship??

Henry Rosenbloom of Scribe Publications gives an industry insider's perspecive on his blog at http://www.scribepublications.com.au/blog/inthered

This new is not good for the area I live in. If Borders goes (A&R have just gone) then there is only 1 secondhand bookshop left. I'm very unhappy.

interesting blog post. looks like reduced choice for us for a while.
oh well, it'll all be sorted out when the revolution comes!

I'm not surprised. How can our stores with their exorbitant prices compete with places like The Book Depository? The Productivity Commission recommended opening the market to imports and I think that should have been done. Makes it harder for our own writers but someone has to lose out whichever way it goes.
ETA: Apparently book chains in other countries have also been affected by online buying.

I'm sad to hear this, but I wasn't in the habit of buying from Borders or A&R. I'm in Melbourne, so I usually go to Readings or Reader's Feast in the city. I like B&M stores much better (the ability to pick up books and browse!) than buying online, but the prices of places like Book Depository are so much lower, it's hard to justify buying from a B&M store here.

While I am guilty of buying heaps of pb and hb from Book Depository, ebooks are the the biggest danger to the Australian booksellers in my opinion. I bought an iPad for my last o/s trip so that I wouldn't have to cart a bag of books around with me. I read my usual holiday dozen but wasn't torn between carrying/sending them home and leaving them in hotel rooms across Asia - I just popped my iPad in my purse.
In addition ebooks are even cheaper than hard copies. Interestingly I've observed myself buying more than I could possibly read..... Publishers (and authors, dare I suggest) are ultimately going to win - from me anyway - but booksellers will lose unless they provide other services.

I have a Kobo and have bought over 40 books for it. E-books are much cheaper than tree-books and Kobo seems to have a few days of 20% off specials pretty well every week. As well, more and more newly released books are being published in e-book format.

Booksellers are going to have to provide more; I agree with kateking there. There used to be a bookshop in Fremantle (New Edition - probably still there) which had cushions and allowed people to come in, select a book and settle down to read. When I found something interesting I usually bought it but it wasn't obligatory ... and it had a cafe attached.

It was always packed.

I have over 5000 paperbooks on my shelves but there will be additions there only if I can't get a Kindle version.

Since January last year my partner and I have purchased over 500 ebooks and neither us will return to paperbooks.

One of the biggest benefits has been discovering a myriad of 'indie' authors that we would never have come across but for the Kindle and prices are usually less than $2.99. I've found so many of these are equal to, or better, than 'name' authors and it's rare for us to buy a 'bestselling' author these days.

A&R Town Hall Square (Sydney) had a 50% off sale on Saturday, may still be running if there is any worth while stock left on the shelves.

I think its fairly obvious, with three big players and a number of smaller ones if you try to go and add a 4th big player then you're going to squeeze the market too finely and eventually someone will reach their breaking point.
Turns out it was the ones doing the squeezing which I bet wasn't their intention.

Heaps of illegal files are already cropping up. I have a friend who downloaded a file that contained over 7000 books - all formatted for Kindle.

It seems the publishing industry has not learned the lessons of the music industry: as soon as you digitize something, you open it up to pirating.

It's all Danny Katz' fault! I may have contributed a little to their downfall as well.