The Borders disaster continues to unfold. In Publishers Weekly, Barnes & Noble (who were at one point rumored to be the target of a Borders takeover) issued a somewhat prickly statement complaining about Borders possibly receiving “special terms.”
"We think the playing field should be even," the B&N statement says. "We expect publishers to offer same terms to all other booksellers, including Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers. We fully expect publisher’s [sic] will require Borders to pay their bills on the same basis upon which all other booksellers pay theirs. Any changes in publishers terms should be made available to all."
Given B&N’s own dire financial straits, it is easy to see where they are coming from, but there is concern that this position could endanger any potential deal to bail the troubled chain out.
The Publishers Weekly report does note that Borders has found a bank that might be willing to help out as long as certain conditions are met, such as Borders’s largest shareholder making a larger commitment to its debt payments and publishers accepting a bond for missed payments—this is the sort of special treatment to which B&N is objecting.
Of course, Borders has been in trouble for some time, and it remains to be seen whether even this will be enough to rescue the troubled company—especially with printed book sales heading downward as e-book sales rise.
If Borders and B&N could legally pay their employees $3/hour, they could make it for a while longer just as a place to drink coffee. Since that isn’t possible, they will all be shuttered soon.
On the upside, their service is always above that of the typical public library. If they could somehow contract to run public libraries, selling books in one corner and lending them in another, they might survive. Though I don’t see that happening either.
“If they could somehow contract to run public libraries…”
They’d run the libraries into the ground, just as they did their for-profit business.