Bookstore moves into old Border's location

**narnarnar** · April-14-13, 08:49 AM

I was happy to see yesterday that the closed Border's location at 13 and Southfield has just reopened as a Books a Million. Despite the "independent vs. chains" issue, I'm happy to have somewhere to browse after all of the closings. I've been to BAM stores in Florida and was pretty pleased.

**Zacha341** · April-14-13, 09:01 AM

Sounds like a good choice. That was a smaller sized Borders... so they may make it. And that's a good location.

**detroittrader** · April-14-13, 06:40 PM

My daughter applied for a job there yesterday, she said it was "awesome" and the best place she applied at. She came home from Northern Michigan U for the weekend to get a head start applying for summer jobs. We will see what happens. I am going there this week and grab a book I have wanted as long as the price is fair.

BTW....if anyone knows of a great summer job for a 4.0, hard working, fun to be around person, that's in the Oak Park,Berkley,Royal Oak, Southfield area let me know! I'll send her over. She is looking for something interesting first....before desperation takes over and takes just about anything open.

**JBMcB** · April-14-13, 06:59 PM

I visited a Books-a-million in Washington DC, and it seemed like e nice chain. They seem to carry a good selection of more oddball stuff which I like. Lots of reading groups and kids read-a-longs, just like Borders used to do. I think it will be a good swap-in for Borders.

**Hermod** · April-14-13, 07:13 PM

BAM is a pretty good book store. The more "liberal" among the DYesers will be appalled that they have a selection of [[horrors) Christian Books, but theor paperbacks are good and their kids book are great. Cue the standard DY complaints about them not locating in the Borders store in "vibrant" downtown Detroit.

**dtowncitylover** · April-14-13, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by Hermod

BAM is a pretty good book store. The more "liberal" among the DYesers will be appalled that they have a selection of [[horrors) Christian Books, but theor paperbacks are good and their kids book are great. Cue the standard DY complaints about them not locating in the Borders store in "vibrant" downtown Detroit.

As a liberal and a Christian, I'm more appalled you even said this. Of course I'm not sure what you mean by a "selection of Christian books" because most booksellers, used and new, have some sort of religious section. Unless you meant it has a quality selection of Christian books, which doesn't surprise me because it's a company born and based out of the Bible belt.

Shollin · April-14-13, 08:26 PM

Wait, liberals aren't Christians?

**Zacha341** · April-14-13, 09:13 PM

Sure some are. Another example of tidy boxes of expectation not working...

...

Originally Posted by Shollin

Wait, liberals aren't Christians?

**Zacha341** · April-14-13, 09:15 PM

Borders had a Christian book section as does Barnes and Noble. This is a market that is too strong for most book sellers to ignore whatever their feelings or tolerance regarding Christianity.

Originally Posted by Hermod

BAM is a pretty good book store. The more "liberal" among the DYesers will be appalled that they have a selection of [[horrors) Christian Books, but theor paperbacks are good and their kids book are great. Cue the standard DY complaints about them not locating in the Borders store in "vibrant" downtown Detroit.

**narnarnar** · April-14-13, 09:37 PM

My silly criterion for a bookstore's "depth" is always to see if they have any Bukowski on the shelves. This BAM passed the test with a copy of Post Office.

**louis** · April-14-13, 09:43 PM

we already have John R Kings downtown [[well, close enough anyway), so there is no love lost in knowing that an independent book shop will be opening up somewhere outside of the city proper. I'm just going to ignore the other half of Hermond's statement as this is a forum for discussing Detroit and not the reading preferences of liberals/conservitives

**antongast** · April-14-13, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by Hermod

BAM is a pretty good book store. The more "liberal" among the DYesers will be appalled that they have a selection of [[horrors) Christian Books, but theor paperbacks are good and their kids book are great. Cue the standard DY complaints about them not locating in the Borders store in "vibrant" downtown Detroit.

You know, when you first showed up here all sincere and long-winded and shit, I thought you were an insufferable prick, but this new obvious-troll-is-obvious shtick of yours is almost speaking my language. It's like my language with a thick Highland Scottish accent or something, where I still can't understand you but I feel like I should be able to.

**jt1** · April-15-13, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by Hermod

Cue the standard DY complaints about them not locating in the Borders store in "vibrant" downtown Detroit.

Well, I doubt most people would support kicking out Texas de Brazil which has been in the old Borders spot for quite some time now.

Sometimes it's better to let people assume you're a fool instead of proving it to them.

**Spartan** · April-15-13, 09:01 AM

Nothing against the owner, but what signs would point to opening a bookstore being a good thing at this point in time? It's a dying business model. Anyone know what they plan to do differently than all the other ones that are closing?

**Bham1982** · April-15-13, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Spartan

Nothing against the owner, but what signs would point to opening a bookstore being a good thing at this point in time? It's a dying business model. Anyone know what they plan to do differently than all the other ones that are closing?

Independent bookstores have been growing. And Barnes & Noble is generally healthy. Same goes for Books-a-Million.

Borders had some poor business practices. They never embraced e-books, their stores were generic-looking and poorly staffed, and they had management issues.

**Spartan** · April-15-13, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Independent bookstores have been growing. And Barnes & Noble is generally healthy. Same goes for Books-a-Million.

Borders had some poor business practices. They never embraced e-books, their stores were generic-looking and poorly staffed, and they had management issues.

Books are like newspapers, there is still some demand, but it's dying and likely will continue to die out as we move forward. With Amazon, plus eReaders and tablets, physical bookstores are becoming a risky proposition. As a niche market, small store, there is potential in some cases and may always be, but it's hard to see a large-scale Border's/B&N-sized store surviving for long. I'm wondering what their selling point plans to be to differentiate themselves.

Yeah, Barnes and Noble is in decent shape because it embraced the eReader movement. Still, many of its B&M stores have closed or are closing, and its stock price has stayed basically constant through the last two years, despite massive gains overall

**iheartthed** · April-15-13, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

And Barnes & Noble is generally healthy.

Barnes and Noble is shutting down 200 locations over the next decade, about a third of its total stores.

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonvi...ose-about.html

**Gistok** · April-15-13, 11:05 AM

One thing people need to realize is that novels and "photo-less" books are getting more popular among readers as E-books. But anything with any quantity of images is still as popular as ever in book form.

Kindle only has a 50MB limit on book size. Add a few images, and that limit can be reached pretty quickly.

I think that there will always be a demand for picture books... perhaps smaller book stores... but novels are another matter.