Former Editorial
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The Trouble With Books (part one) |
22th December 2009 |
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The bookstore chain Borders (Books Etc.) has gone into administration, another victim of the times only this time, it’s the books that make it interesting. Borders, originally founded in 1994 has faced challenging times along the way and had been loss making since 2007 but according to news reports, it’s the competition from online book retailers that have led to increased competitive pressure for Borders in latter times. The 1994 date coincides with the collapse of the Net Book Agreement; an ancient institution that had fixed the prices of books in the UK. Now we’re used to discounts of as much as 70% off the retail price, and it’s hard to imagine a time when the price on a books jacket meant that's what you would pay. This collapse heralded the slow slide of prices, so much so that in 2008 the average price per book sold continuing to decline, stood at around £7.50. Returning to Borders (and its 45 branches); it may not strike a personal note with you but one particular store marks out the chain for me. It was on Charing Cross Road (London) and at points had come closest to being a regular on my list of shops to visit. This store had a certain easy atmosphere, a place for real browsers, somewhere to while away an hour between the shelves. It also hosted events where you could meet and mingle with authors, interesting others and the writer-reader community in general. The first event I attended was in 2005, the launch of ‘telltales’ second volume of short stories (editorialaug05.htm); where else I remember thinking; a place of knowledge and a setting for creative conversations. I guess the pressures on store-front book retailers (not forgetting the independents that make up 10% of the market) turned my thinking to unheardwords. How? Why? Good questions. I wanted to talk about the history of unheardwords as it enters its sixth year (April 2010). What the site set out to be about (and the landscape of that time) when it started in 2004, and how those ideas have evolved and adapted to change. The story-lines of the changing fate of the book and the writers’ site are interlinked. Histories of writing, publishing and consumption run in parallel. It’s a story about technological change, about access to information and the distribution of content. Borders (Books Etc.) has gone into Administration, the traditions of commercial publishing are changing; and bind-on-demand (Blackwell’s ‘Espresso Book Machine’ introduced June 2004) may not be a bright enough idea to halt the march of print-on-demand; and even this, is a step behind content you consume-on-demand. What digitisation (making into an electronic file) of content began, the eReader, with low power consumption and an infinite appetite for content, is making personal and practical (editorialoct08.htm). All change. I guess you must have gather by now, in all ways it’s change. |
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