Are the administrators liable to return any books that they find in stock (and expect money from you, of course)?

So this leaves Waterstones as the main brick-and-mortar book retailer in the UK (WHSmith have made themselves irrelevant for all but gift purchases). I like that this makes more room for independents, but it worries me that Waterstones, with their shareholder-focussed stance on buying, are now the gatekeepers of mainstream literary culture in this country.

Pierre - they buy books based on sale or return, of course, so they are within their rights to return within the confines of that agreement. However, they can only return for credit. If they're not buying more books, the balance will just remain at a negative number.

First reaction is it's a shame, because I loved the Glasgow Borders, where I would repair after a busy day teaching journalists and spend a couple of hours browsing and having a coffee, or beer. Great building and well-stocked.

Elsewhere - York, London, Teesside, the experience is more of a shopping mall nightmare.

I think most of its remaining custom will migrate online, which is probably what got it into this situation in the first place.

Borders had an advertising campaign that my young teenage bookworm son took very much to heart. It showed people curled up on the shelves etc having a lovely read. Every day after school he would go into the one in Shepherds Bush, curl up on a chair and resume whichever book he was currently enjoying. We did buy in there as well, because we felt so warmly towards the lovely way they treated a teenage boy.

It's interesting (and heartening) to hear what you say about Amazon. I have heard some small independent publishers recently complain about Amazon's terms that mean they can't sell their books through them without making a loss.

Then again, I suppose it all depends on the number of sales and how small is small.

AS for Borders, well, I'm sad when any bookshop business folds--although Waterstone's has always been my chain of choice.

Ah, Borders. I love those shops (partly because they often have Starbucks in them--my coffee chain of choice). This is a sad day for all the people who work in the stores, for the publishers who are going to lose money and books on the back of this closure, and for the UK bookselling trade. Much as I love Waterstones (I share Sally's preferences despite the whole latte issue), I don't think it's going to be good for them to end up with little or no competition. This isn't healthy, business-wise, and it makes me worry for the future of British bookselling. As usual.

The usual rule following a retail closure used to be that 80% switches channels and 20% 'disappears'. This is probably due to the reduced number of 'opportunities to sell' - apologies for the jargon. I think that the open access, 24 hour nature of web selling improves this ratio from the publishers' perspective with reference to Borders - although the swap to Amazon is lower margin.

My view is that, in the medium term, pressures will continue to build on bricks and mortar bookselling. There's probably a third too much book selling space out there today. Waterstone's might be the 'last one standing' in the UK (B&N in the US) but I expect them to be closing stores as leases end, downsizing stores and reducing books in the 'product mix'.

This is with e-reading at around 1%. Continued growth of web sales, supermarket share and, even a modest expansion of e-reading should cause a dramatic contraction of bricks-and-mortar bookselling, a decline in top line sales (with much lower prices on e-books in the mix) and lower profits for publishers as the channels that are most expensive to supply rise to dominance. Independent booksellers will come under the same mounting pressures as the remaining chains but those with low overheads, clever ranges & great service will survive or better.

Publishers have already starting doing some of what they need to do - cutting overheads, cutting publishing programmes and lowering advances. All of these are fundamentally negative and tactical. I guess we'll see in the next few years who's developed a strategy that works .

When a bookstore closes (even a big box one) it depresses the heck out of me. The US version of Borders has long been in financial dire straits and it might well be a matter of time before they file for bankruptcy. Here in Canada we only have one big box retailer (Chapters/Indigo) but we do have an independent chain that is a genuine pleasure to do business with. I hope McNally Robinson comes to the UK - they're a fabulous success here in Canada and they've got one store in NYC that is apparently THE place to buy books from a number of magazine articles I've read.

Just wanted to drop by to agree with Steve. It's almost ridiculous to call WH Smiths a bookshop anymore (although it's where I go if I want a reasonable selection of chick-lit). Our closet branch has only three fiction walls.
And David is right about Glasgow Borders. I once had to wait almost 2 hours for a train in Glasgow and I spent the whole time in Borders, without even stopping for coffee - I had a very damaged bank balence and a split plastic bags to take back on the train.

Unless you have a big community of independent UK bookstores you're now almost forced to shop online for anything a little out of the ordinary. Since there's nothing quite as pleasurable as browsing for books in a shop this news makes me sad.

I see in today's Times that Amazon are considering opening some bricks-and-mortar bookshops. Will be interesting to see how those fare. I'm sad to see the back of any bookshop too, but as with all businesses, if you don't make a profit you have to go.

I found the staff at Cheshire Oaks Borders very welcoming for a first-time novelist looking to do a book-signing; I thought I'd be fobbed off, since no-one's heard of me. Result: sold 12 books in a day and they asked me to come back in January. Sadly, that won't happen now and so I'll lose a good sales opportunity. Sorry for the staff there, found them very friendly.

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

www.onlineuniversalwork.com