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ABOUT THE STORE : NEWSLETTER
DISPATCHES FROM THE BORDER
Events and News from Borderlands Books
January, 2012
Chapter One - Event Information, News, and Special Features
Upcoming Author Events
Rudy Rucker, NESTED SCROLLS, (Tor, Hardcover, $25.99)
Saturday, January 14th at 3:00 pm
Jo Walton, AMONG OTHERS (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99 and Trade Paperback,
$14.99) Saturday, January 21st at 3:00 pm
Borderlands Discount Showing of Little Brother, The Play,
Sunday, January 29tht at 7:00pm
SF in SF with authors Ryan Boudinot and Ayize Jama-Everett at
the Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, (582 Market Street)
Saturday, January 28th at 7:00 pm
Stephen Blackmoore, CITY OF THE LOST (DAW, Trade Paperback, $15.00)
with special guest Mira Grant, Saturday, February 4th at 3:00 pm
Katharine Kerr, APOCALYPSE TO GO (DAW, Mass Market, $7.99) Saturday,
February 11th at 3:00 pm
SF in SF with authors KW Jeter and Jay Lake at the Variety Preview Room
in the Hobart Building, (582 Market Street) Saturday, February 11th at
7:00 pm
(for more information check the end of this section)
Look for lots more amazing events in the upcoming months -- we're happy
to host Tobias Buckell, Kim Harrison, Matt Ruff, and many, many others!
News
* Own a piece of Borderlands' history! Over ten years
ago, as we were planning on moving from our original Hayes Valley
location to the Mission, Alan designed a new style of bookshelf for the
store. Examples of the final design are all over the store but,
before the design was finalized, there was one prototype. For
years we have used that prototype to house our oversized art books and
HP Lovecraft section, but it's time to move it along and replace
it. Rather than sell it, we want to give it to one of our
customers so . . . if you're interested in a nice shelf and a piece of
history, drop us an email saying so. We'll pick the winner one
week from today. One warning though, it's _tall_ . . . very
tall. Slightly over 8 feet in height, it will not fit under the
ceiling of most houses built later than 1950. So please do grab a
tape measure before emailing us. Pictures and complete dimensions
can be found here <http://www.borderlands-books.com/furniturepages/furniture.html>.
At that same page, you'll find pictures and details of a display case
we're passing along. Honestly, I expect that this one will have
to go on CraigsList but I wanted to offer it to our customers (at a
reduced price) first. One warning goes with this one as well --
it is probably the heaviest single piece of furniture I've ever had to
move. You will need a truck and probably three other people to
load it and unload it. And I wouldn't even want to think about
moving it up a flight of stairs. If I list it on Craig's it'll be
$50 but I'm happy to sell it to a customer for half that. Let us
know if you're interested.
* Jonathan Knapp from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts wanted to let
everyone know about an upcoming screening of "The House by the
Cemetery" from Lucio Fulci. Here are the details: "'The House by
the Cemetery" by Lucio Fulci, Jan 27, 2012, at 10:00pm & Jan 28,
2012, at 10:00pm UNCUT GRINDHOUSE RARITY! One of the best
films by one of the greatest Italian exploitation directors, this is
the “old dark house” genre by way of the grindhouse. In typical Fulci
fashion, the movie sidesteps logic, instead reveling in gore and a
truly haunting atmosphere. We are presenting a specially imported,
fully uncut European 35mm print, dubbed in English and -- just to up
the weirdness ante -- with Danish subtitles. Bring a phrasebook, and a
barf bag. (1981, 86 min, 35mm) Admission: $8 general • $6 YBCA
members, students, seniors Location: Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco) For more information: <http://www.ybca.org/house-cemetery>
* The Custom Made Theatre Company (the fine folks who are staging Cory
Doctorow's "Little Brother") are offering a special deal for our
customers! Sunday, January 29th at 7:00 pm, Borderlands customers
can see the show "Little Brother" for $20 per ticket, and the director
and cast will be staying after the show for a Q&A! Tickets
can be purchased at http://www.custommade.org/tickets,
and
the discount code is M1k3y. There is no service fee.
Tickets are picked up at will-call starting at 45 minutes before
showtime, general admission seating begins 30 minutes before.
More info on the show at <http://custommade.org/little-brother>.
We
hope you'll join us there -- many of the Borderlands staff will be
attending!
* Borderlands Cafe now has a Twitter feed to keep you apprised of cafe
happenings, things we overhear, and occasional specials! Follow
us @borderlandscafe. Also, it's kind of silly, but we're really
pleased to have exceeded 5000 followers for the store's Twitter feed,
@borderlands_sf.
* Thanks, io9: I'm not sure how I got along before I knew about
the "Alien vs. Predator" Chess Board! <http://io9.com/5874206/this-alien-versus-predator-chessboard-was-built-for-chessboxing?tag=tabletop-games>
From the Office
What Happens When the Showrooms Go Away?
By Alan Beatts
In the aftermath of the holiday shopping season the consumer trends
have turned out to be pretty much what anyone would have expected,
other than people seeming to be willing to spend more money that was
expected. Barnes and Nobel, along with many independent
booksellers, had a nice boost in sales due to Borders Books
closing. Even more stuff was bought on-line. A little bit
of a surprise was Amazon's offer to pay customers up to $5 to go into a
local store, scan an item, walk out, and buy the same item on Amazon (a
move that was decried by even some of the biggest tech and Amazon fans http://gawker.com/5865612/amazon-launches-christmas-attack-on-local-shops).
That recent offer from Amazon got me thinking about where that
phenomenon (i.e. consumers shopping at physical stores and then buying
online) might take us. The obvious conclusion is that eventually
the physical stores will vanish since they won't make enough sales to
stay open. But what happens then?
Obviously, people will have to get used to buying things without being
able to take a look at them first, which is actually fine for most sort
of product but may be troubling for people shopping for things like
furniture, clothing, and so forth. But even then, simple,
friendly, no-questions-asked return policies will reassure consumers
enough that it shouldn't be a big hurdle for on-line merchants.
Impulse purchasing will probably decrease since the number of products
that you can "suggest" on a web page is much smaller than the number of
things that someone will look at during a trip to a retail store.
But there as well, technical advantages may even it out. Unlike a
retail store, an online retailer can gear the products that get
suggested specifically to the individual shopper based on their login
to the site and cookies planted in their browser. So, though less
products are put in the consumer's face, the one that are presented are
much more likely to result in a sale.
But I think that the most interesting change may come from a change in
the covenant between manufacturers and retailers. Retailers, in
essence, supply manufacturers with advertising, showroom space, and
customer service for free. In return manufacturers don't undercut
retailer's prices and don't try to poach the customer from the
retailer. For a very long time that system has worked pretty
well. There have always been some manufactures who either choose
to sell direct to consumers (some very successfully, like Snap-On
Tools) or who maintain their own retail stores, either in parallel to
non-affiliated retailers or exclusively, but in general that retail /
manufacturer split has been dominant. But what happens when
retailers can't stay in business because of ecommerce?
Before I take my guesses at that, I should touch on some of the things
that are influencing my answer.
One of the lessons that came out of the collapse of Borders was that
it's important for merchants to have a direct relationship with their
customers rather than allowing an intermediary in the middle.
It's also important that retailers pursue new sales channels
themselves, rather than farming those channels out to another
business. Borders made a mistake in both those departments when
it contracted with Amazon to provide ecommerce services to Borders
customers.
Apple has demonstrated how successful a company can be by controlling
the entire relationship with the customer. Apple Stores are some
of the most profitable retail spaces in the world, on a per-square-foot
basis and have cemented the direct relationship between Apple and its
customers.
Manufacturers have found themselves in "golden handcuffs" to a number
of retailers, often to their regret. Publishers took a huge
financial hit when Borders started to have money problems and then were
hit again when Borders closed down. Many suppliers to Walmart
have ended up having draconian terms dictated to them, often after they
have made investments to increase output to keep up with Walmart's
demand. As a result, when Walmart tells them what retail price
they need to achieve or set penalties when their deliveries are late by
as little as 15 minutes, the manufacturer has no choice but to dance to
Walmart's tune.
All those factors plus some of the basic realities of ecommerce are
going to keep shaking up how we buy and sell for years to come.
We might start to see manufacturers in a common industry joining forces
and running their own co-op stores. Consider books -- there are
only five or six major publishers in the US. As bookstores close
in major markets like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago perhaps those
publishers will join together and open their own "super-stores".
Just by stocking all the in-print titles from the participating
publishers such a store would have an inventory to rival the biggest
and best bookstores in the world (and just imagine the author events
they could host). The profit margin would be great since the
stock could be purchased at _manufacturer's_ wholesale. Another
fertile field for that would be power tools, another industry dominated
by a small group of players (DeWalt, Porter Cable, Milwaukee, Makita,
Bosch and a few others).
Or more companies might open their own stand-alone retail stores.
Apple has certainly had a huge amount of success with that model.
Sony has also done alright with that idea and other companies may
follow. Again, in this situation the profit margin should be very
good since the companies set retail prices high enough that there is a
profit share for both the company and the retailer. If they cut
out the retailer, the excess profit goes to them. Some companies
might even adopt the Snap-On Tools model and have roving sales people
with company supplied trucks stocked with a huge range of their
products. Such trucks could set up in public areas on a rotating
schedule (posted on the company web site, of course) and deal direct to
the public without the headache of large staffs, high rents, and
associated overhead. Anything that wasn't in stock on the truck
could be drop-shipped direct to the customer. In fact, even more
of Snap-On's model could be used -- Snap-On drivers own the truck and
inventory. They are, in essence, independent contractors working
on a franchise scheme.
Finally, I think we'll see more and more companies create and maintain
their own ecommerce sites. The attraction here is three-fold --
they get to "own" their customers in terms of marketing, promotions and
repeat business, they reduce their reliance on a single retailer (i.e.
Amazon) for most of their sales, and they, again, benefit from
increased margins. Some premium vendors might even withdraw their
products from other sales channels figuring that they're better off
getting the entire profit margin in exchange for less exposure and
sales. A decision like that might even become a matter of
significant prestige (as in "our products are of such high quality and
desirability that we don't _need_ to sell them anywhere else).
You'll notice that all of the preceding ideas are attractive to
manufacturers in part because of the increased profit generated by
selling products without a retailer in the middle. That equation
might work out differently though. Perhaps manufacturers will
abandon the principle of not undercutting retail prices. If most
commerce is on the internet then the benefit of having retailers
maintaining showrooms for products no longer matters. If selling
is merely a matter of setting up an ecommerce site with the associated
fulfillment department and customer service, might it not be worthwhile
to take that step, cut out _all_ the retailers and make greater
profits? Or, accept a lower profit (though perhaps still greater
that in the past) and undercut all the retailers, even Amazon?
If I ran a successful on-line retailer, I would plan on moving very
cautiously into the next ten years. Without good customer
service, good relationships with suppliers, and careful thought, the
end of small independent retail might be the start of an "extinction
event" that could spread to on-line retailers as well when
manufacturers start cutting out all the parties between them and the
consumer.
Top Sellers At Borderlands
Hardcovers
1) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
2) Reamde by Neal Stephenson
3) Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
4)1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
5) Ready Player One by Earnest Cline
6) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
7) Seed by Rob Ziegler
8)11/22/63 by Stephen King
9) Rule 34 by Charles Stross
10) Inheritance by Christopher Paolini tie with
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Paperbacks
1) Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
2) Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
3) Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
4) Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
5) Feed by Mira Grant
6) Fate's Edge by Ilona Andrews
7) Equations of Life by Simon Morden
8) Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
9) Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
10) Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
Trade Paperbacks
1) Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
2) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
3) Faith by John Love
4) Unpossible and Other Stories by Daryl Gregory
5) Empire State by Adam Christopher
Book Club Info
The QSF&F Book Club will meet on Sunday, February 12, at 5
pm to discuss THIS IS NOT A GAME by Walter John Williams. Please
contact the group leader, Christopher Rodriguez, at
cobalt555@earthlink.net, for more information.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club will meet on Sunday, January
15th, at 6 pm to discuss THE ILLUSTRATED MAN by Ray
Bradbury. Please contact bookclub@borderlands-books.com for
more information.
Upcoming Event Details
Rudy Rucker, NESTED SCROLLS, (Tor, Hardcover, $25.99)
Saturday, January 14th at 3:00 pm - "My greatest ambition was to be a
beatnik SF writer... " In his charming autobiography NESTED SCROLLS,
Rudy Rucker has created a punk mathematician's mental "On the
Road". This bittersweet memoir bounces effortlessly from the
scatological to the mundane to the sublime, journeying in time, and
filled with snapshots of the bizarre situations and fascinating
characters of Rudy's life. Sudden wry insights combine with
seemingly irrelevant details to form an archive of all the tiny,
fiercely important components that make up a lifetime. The book rambles
from Rudy's Rockwell-esque childhood in Kentucky all the way through
Germany, Lynchburg, VA, Genesco, NY, and finally on to the Bay
Area of California, where Rudy still resides. Along the way we
hear tidbits about the other founders of cyberpunk (Bruce Sterling,
William Gibson, John Shirley, Pat Cadigan, Richard Kadrey and Pat
Murphy all make cameos), set theory, zen, painting, and the creation of
transrealism, to touch on just a few of Rucker's fascinations.
Rudy writes that he "planned to spend [his] years as authentically and
ecstatically as possible" and create "mass market surrealism. . . .a
literature that was ecstatic and countercultural, but with logic and
rigor to its weirdness." I believe he succeeds
wildly. I cannot think of a better description for Rudy's
fiction, this autobiography, or for Rucker's life itself. Come
meet Rudy and check it out for yourself!
Jo Walton, AMONG OTHERS (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99 and Trade Paperback,
$14.99) Saturday, January 21st at 3:00 pm - We're so excited to
be hosting the brilliant Jo Walton! AMONG OTHERS is a gorgeous
tale that uses experiences from Ms. Walton's life as a starting point
for the novel. Walton told John Scalzi "For me, writing is always
about the emotional truth, and it’s always at a little distance.
There’s less distance in this book than with anything I wrote before,
and more than anything else I kept asking myself if I had the right to
write this, and what it was going to mean to me for other people to
read it. I’m still not sure about that." In addition to its
semi-autobiographical elements, AMONG OTHERS is about the love of
reading, and particularly the life-changing aspects of science
fiction. Do yourself a favor and do not miss this event.
SF in SF with authors Ryan Boudinot and Ayize Jama-Everett at the
Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, (582 Market Street)
Saturday, January 28th at 7:00 pm - We are very excited to help SF in
SF welcome these authors! Each author will read a selection from
their work, followed by Q&A from the audience moderated by author
Terry Bisson. Authors will schmooze & sign books after in the
lounge. Books available for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.
Seating is limited, so first come, first seated. Bar proceeds
benefit Variety Childrens Charity - learn more at
<http://www.varietync.org/>. We REALLY encourage you to
take BART into the City, or use MUNI to get here - parking can be
problematic in San Francisco, to say the least. We are less than
one block away from the Montgomery St. station. Trust us - you
don't want to be looking for parking and be late for the event!
Phone (night of event) 415-572-1015. Questions? Email
sfinsfevents@gmail.com.
Stephen Blackmoore, CITY OF THE LOST (DAW, Trade Paperback, $15.00)
with special guest Mira Grant, Saturday, February 4th at 3:00 pm - Come
join us for a Zombietastic reading as we welcome Stephen Blackmoore and
special guest Mira Grant to Borderlands Books! Kirkus Reviews
called Blackmoore's debut novel CITY OF THE LOST a "head-shakingly
perfect blend of zombie schlock, deadpan wit, startling profanity,
desperate improvisation and inventive brilliance". Joe Sunday was
your everyday thug and leg-breaker for hire, but that was before he was
sent on a shakedown that ended with him dead and brought back as a
zombie. Being a zombie doesn't suck, except for the need to chow
down on living flesh every twenty-four hours to maintain his
lifestyle. Enter an ancient stone with the ability to grant
actual immortality and everyone in L.A. wants it, "from a Nazi wizard
and a razor-toothed midget, to a nympho-demon bartender, a too-powerful
witch [out] to help homeless vampires, and the one woman who might have
all the answers..." Come get a taste of "a remarkable
debut, L.A. noir with eye-bulging refinements" (Kirkus Reviews) . Mira
Grant will also be reading zombie fiction and signing books!
Katharine Kerr, APOCALYPSE TO GO (DAW, Mass Market, $7.99) Saturday,
February 11th at 3:00 pm - APOCALYPSE TO GO is the third in the Nola
O'Grady urban fantasy series by Katherine Kerr. From the
publisher, "Nola O'Grady has enough trouble when a were-leopard accuses
her of receiving stolen property. But when her younger brother Michael
goes searching for their missing father, he lands himself and his
brother, Sean, in a world of hurt --quite literally --in a deviant
world version of San Francisco. Can Nola and her partner in the
Apocalypse Squad, Israeli Interpol agent Ari Nathan, find her brothers
in time to save them from death by radiation poisoning? The
search will lead them through a city of secrets, but the worst secret
of all lurks at the heart of the only thing Nola loves more than Ari:
her family." Don't miss this explosive entry in the newest series
by one of fantasy's most established and respected authors!
SF in SF with authors KW Jeter and Jay Lake at the Variety Preview Room
in the Hobart Building, (582 Market Street) Saturday, February 11th at
7:00 pm - More info to come!
Borderlands event policy - all events are free of charge. You are
welcome to bring copies of an author's books purchased elsewhere to be
autographed (but we do appreciate it if you purchase something while at
the event). For most events you are welcome to bring as many
books as you wish for autographs. If you are unable to attend the
event we will be happy to have a copy of any of the author's available
books signed or inscribed for you. We can then either hold the
book(s) until you can come in to pick them up or we can ship to
you. Just give us a call or drop us an email. If you live
out of town, you can also ship us books from your collection to be
signed for a nominal fee. Call or email for details.
Dispatches from the Border
Editor - Jude Feldman
Assistant Editor - Alan Beatts
Contributor - Naamen Tilahun
All contents unless otherwise noted are the property of
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-824-8203
http://www.borderlands-books.com
Comments and suggestions should be directed to editor@borderlands-books.com
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