It’s official: Borders is as good as pulped.
The big-box book peddler threw in the towel last week, when it announced that its attempts to sell itself had failed. An acquaintance of mine, an aging hooker, once made a similar announcement and it destroyed an otherwise perfect dinner party.
Anyway, it’s no big shock to us Central Texans – Austin stores closed months ago when the company amputated about 200 outlets nationwide in a last-ditch attempt to get into the black. (Since then, BookPeople, incidentally, has seen an uptick in sales.)
But now – in a showing of professional solidarity almost singular to the book industry – here comes a blog originally brainstormed by book-business nerds/evangelists in a Google+ comment thread: the unambiguously named Help Ex-Borders Employees.
It’s refreshing to read through, especially if you are one of those ex-Borders employees. You’ll find a so-far steady stream of bookish job postings (and some not-so-bookish ones). And you’ll find Texas-success-story Half-Price Books reaching out to Borders emeriti, too.
And don’t worry: not welcome there is the kind of histrionic, amateur punditry that inevitably accompanies book biz news of this type. You know, the kind that paints ebooks as the Gozer-summoned Stay Puft Marshmallow Men of the book industry. (Disruptive technology wasn’t Borders’ biggest problem, by the way.)
Looks like the good news is, even old hookers can find new work. Or something like that.
This article appears in July 22 • 2011.