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Borders teetering
Galleycat reported yesterday that a "major distributor" for independent publishers has sent a note out to client pubs that Borders "now tell us that they will not be paying us for two months due to anticipated excessive returns."

Of course, there is only one appropriate response to this: Aaaaaaaaack!

Galleycat continues:

Therefore, the distributor is telling its clients they need to make a decision this weekend: "Publishers must either instruct [us] not to ship their titles to Borders [or] accept the provision that [we], for Borders business only, will guarantee payment only for the publishers' historical printing cost of books that are not paid for, rather than for the whole amount of any unpaid invoices." (As the memo explains, the printing cost of a $14.95 paperback is roughly $1.50, compared to the $7.48 the distributor bills Borders.) The new policy is contrasted to what the company says other distributors do, asserting that some of its competitors are refusing to take any credit risk at all on inventory sent to the struggling chain.

Of course, the question is, given that some are predicting an economic turnaround won't be upon us till 2010, does Borders have an ice-cube's chance in hell of surviving? Even when times were GOOD (relatively speaking) they couldn't find a buyer.
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Posted by Laura Dawson , November 11, 08, 11:35 AM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post
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