Without Borders

Local sellers react – and adapt – to the closing of the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain.

SOUTH PORTLAND/SCARBOROUGH — The too-big-to-fail mantra that saved banks at the start of the recession apparently means nothing for booksellers at a time when – as we’re constantly being told by the televised talking heads – we’re supposed to be in the midst of an economic recovery.

Last Thursday, Borders, the nation’s second-largest chain of bookstores, gave up the ghost. In bankruptcy since February, the 40-year-old business was unable to fund a buyer and got instead court approval to close up shop at all 399 locations, including for in Maine, in Bangor, Brunswick and South Portland, as well as a Borders’ managed Waldenbooks in the Auburn Mall.

Local bookstores, such as Bull Moose in Scarborough and Nonesuch Books and Cards in South Portland, as well as Maine-based publishers, see the closings as a sign of an industry in flux, due to changes in technology and culture. But they also see it as an opportunity to rethink and improve their own businesses, even as the nearby Borders is being shuttered.

That day will come by the end of September, at the latest, according to Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis, who said the closing of the Maine Mall location would put 49 people out of work. A group led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners took charge of liquidating Borders’ assets, with the “Everything Must Go” signs hitting store windows Friday.

“The discounts are starting at 10 to 40 percent,” said Davis. “Eventually, we’ll try to get rid of everything – shelves, lighting fixtures, the whole thing.”

Davis, who proclaimed it “very sad for all of us,” said Borders will try to help its South Portland employees “make the transition,” but declined to give specific details on any placement programs, or other initiatives.

However, she confirmed that everyone at the South Portland location will have to pursue other opportunities, with or without Borders’ help. A last-minute deal brokered by Alabama-based Books-A-Million, in which the No. 3 book chain hoped to take over 35 Borders locations, including South Portland, “fell through” late Monday, said Davis.  

Simply put, there will be no reprieve.

So, where does that leave the area market for books?

“We’re not celebrating,” said Jon Platt, owner of Nonesuch Books, with locations in South Portland and Biddeford. “Even though we’ve had a lot of people come in during the last week, looking for a new bookstore.”

The conventional wisdom is that the big-box retailers came along in the ‘90s and killed the mom-and-pop corner shops. Then, Amazon came along and compounded the favor. Whoever was left standing got at least a black eye when the recession hit in 2008 or, as was the case with popular local chain, Books Etc., a knockout punch.

Now that Borders has gone under, will it take whoever’s left down in its wake?

Probably not, but the survival guide is comprised of a single phrase, local booksters say, and it’s one that would have been familiar to the whip-and-buggy makers of exactly one century ago: Diversify or die.

“When we started out 11 years ago, three-quarters of our sales were through bookstores,” said Dean Lunt, owner of Yarmouth-based publishing house, Islandport Press. “Today only one-quarter of our catalog moves through traditional bookstores. The rest is sold through places like L.L. Bean, the Kittery Trading Post, various children’s boutiques, things like that.

“In the last year, we’ve been actively trying to find new places to sell our books, even expanding into Canada,” said Lunt.

Still, that doesn’t mean the closing of Borders doesn’t hurt. Lunt got stuck with a bill of goods when Books Etc. folded, and has little hope of getting paid for items Borders sold over the holidays.

“That’ll be a five-figure hit for us, which is pretty big deal for a company my size,” said Lunt.

Islandport employs five, publishing eight to 10 books per year (with more than 40 titles currently in print), including such Maine staples as the “Bert and I” titles, illustrated children’s books by Dahlov Ipcar, and a new novel by Bangor Daily News reporter Ardeana Hamlin.

The loss of borders means as much to Islandport’s marketing, as anything else. Unlike other large chains, Borders gave its store managers complete autonomy to stock shelves and schedule author appearances as they saw fit, he said.

 “Borders was our second- or third-biggest customer, so losing that is going to be hard,” said Lunt. “When you lose a retailer like that, you lose the opportunity to expose your books to new customers.

“I think some of the independents will pick up some of those lost sales opportunities,” said Lunt, “but what we typically find is that you never get 100 percent of those sales. People change shopping patterns, they migrate online, the pick up new reading habits.”

Islandport Press has also jumped on board the digital revolution. This year, for the first time, all of its adult fiction and nonfiction books are available in ebook versions.

Lunt said he not ready just yet to give up on print for children’s books, but admits the new normal fairly well means “the demise of the traditional bookstore.”

In that way, books are not unlike buggies, or even records.

“When I was a growing up, there was a record store on practically every corner it seemed like,” said Lunt. “Now, you can hardly find one anywhere.”

Brett Wickard, owner of Bull Moose Music, knows that as well as anyone. Today, he has 10 stores, including a “warehouse” location in Scarborough, that sell every manner of “collectible, fun stuff,” from music, to books, to movies and video games and other pop culture errata, new and used, suited to every member of the family. But it really was just hipster music when the first Bull Moose opened in Brunswick.

“If I had insisted on staying with just music, Bull Moose wouldn’t be around today,” he said.

It’s a similar story at Nonesuch, which in recent years has expanded its offerings in cards, gifts and used paperbacks, as well as responding to customer requests to establish a search service for out-of-print books, to the point where it sells as may as 15 a week.

But where Platt got into more than bestsellers, Wickard got in for a similar reason: changes in the economy and buying patterns. Bull Moose benefited from the recession when shops on either side of its Bangor location closed, leaving the landlord to “make us an offer we couldn’t refuse.” That gave Bull Moose an opportunity to branch out into books. Roughly one year ago, it expanded the Scarborough location, to offer books there as well.

Wickard said he’s not worried about Border’s liquidations cannibalizing his sales. Many of the 45,000 books Bull Moose carries are already discounted as much as 35 percent, to compete with online retailers.

Instead, Wickard has treated Border’s closing as a “learning opportunity.” Of course, after 22 years in business, Wickard knows better than to try and grow too fast – the rapid capitalization of brick-and-mortar stores in Europe, to the detriment of digital diversification, is reportedly what killed Borders. 

“It can take a long time to turn an airplane carrier,” said Platt, of Borders seeming corporate inertia.

“One of the advantages of being smaller is that you can adapt to the marketplace,” agrees Platt. “And, not only can you react, you can form the marketplace, by meeting a pent up demand”

Wickard said he’s tried to form the market by actively seeking out what it wants.

The first thing he did upon learning of Borders demise, Wickard said, was to solicit feedback from Borders customers on the Bull Moose website and Facebook pages, asking them to share what they liked best about the big-box store.

“Even though Borders is a business fail, I feel like their South Portland store – which by all industry accounts was one of the strongest in their company by all metrics – they did a lot of things right,” said Wickard.

Among the unexpected answers: “The bathrooms.”

“That makes a certain amount of sense,” said Wickard, noting that the Scarborough Bull Moose lacks bathrooms. “If you’re going to be hanging out in a place for a while, it’s kind of nice of know they have a bathroom,”

But if Bull Moose lacks rest rooms, what it may soon gain is former Borders employees. Wickard said he’s actively recruiting those booksellers, who, in Lunt’s common experience, are among the most hardcore book lovers in the area.

That’s a mania that’s unlikely to fade no matter how powerful ebooks become. Wickard points out that although the best-selling albums now move ”only about one-fifth” the units they once did, the market still supports the same number of different albums.

“I think books will likely be the same way,” said Wickard. “The top books may sell less, but I think print will always be around, partly because I think people have a real emotional connection to owning things.”

“I think the digital market is a best-seller market,” said Platt. “We have a well-developed readership beyond the best sellers, as do many of the very well-run independent book stores in the area.”

Still, there will likely be unexpected changes along the way. Wickard will continue to stock whatever the “certified math nerds” who run his inventory software predict will sell, whether it’s books or not, just so long as it’s cool. And he’ll continue to learn as he goes, enjoying a business model that means “not being tied to any one thing.”

Lunt, meanwhile, will also roll with the change. In just the last year or two, he said, established authors have appeared among the 300-plus unsolicited manuscripts he gets each year, thanks to the “mid-list” publishers who have folded in recent years.

“What’s amazing to me is that the writing that going on these days is better than it’s ever been, both in adult and young adult. Including some very, very fine Maine authors,” said Platt.

Simply put, Platt said, the goal is the same as it ever was, connect quality artists with eager consumers. However the market changes, that will remain the same.

Still, said Lunt, “I think anybody out there who says they know what the book market is going to look like five years from now is either delusional, or lying.”