Borders bookstores shutting in Australia

I read online today that the rest of the Borders stores left in Australia will be shutting including the one in Perth!! I cannot believe that every single Borders store in the country is going to be shutting down. It was shocking when they closed half of the stores. I really don't know how to feel about this. The company has gone bankrupt, and not surprisingly, considering the prices they charge for their books. I went into one not long ago to look at books for how to use an exercise ball. They had one for about $40 I took one look at it and left. Sorry. Too much. I could get the same book on Amazon for probably less than $20. Sad, but true. If you over price things people will not buy your stuff!!

I feel really sad about my state's one and ONLY Border's store closing. I like living in Perth, but it is so small, so boring, sometimes it feels like I am living in a lonely little backwater somewhere. The Borders in the city was one of my favourite places to browse and shop. It was one of the best stores in the mall. I don't know what the hell they will replace it with but it will leave a big gaping hole in the shops there. We used to have two Angus and Robinson's, one Dymocks and Border's there, now there is only the Dymocks store left. I'm sure they're jumping up and down happily right about now. "Huzzah! No more Borders! Huzzah!" something to that effect. When Borders first opened a few years back I wondered how the other bookstores in town would survive. They did, though, and like I said, Dymocks must be laughing now. I hope they do not close. That would mean having no bookstores in the city at all!! Is that what society is heading towards though? Maybe.

In addition to their sky high prices, Borders went down because people are buying things online and getting ebooks. Is the print industry slowly dying? Will the book end up going the way of the cassette player? Will it become so out dated, so hippyish, so old fashioned, that the only place people will be able to buy books in the future will be from tiny, quirky little shops or antique stores? Possibly.

I feel like I am standing at a crossroads. Do I take the traditional publishing route with my next novel and attempt to get my book in a brick and mortar store like Borders? or do I continue to plod down the road of e-books and see if success awaits me down the path? The risk factors are about the same, to be honest. People say that the chances of success are higher if an author is published by a big house like Penguin or something. That's not really true. I could get published by one of them and still not earn a dime. Frankly, part of me is wondering if it would be wise to stick with ebooks, because what if I get a book pubilshed and then in ten, twenty years time, there are no more bookstores? What then? My book will vanish. Now, if it were an ebook....