After Border Book Chain's Closing, Waterstone's Under Cloud

With Border chain of book stores already gone and Waterstone's (the bookshop chain) up for sale, there's bad news for publishers and writers. This article argues that along with the disappearance (or rather dumbing down) of these chains a set of readers (read book buyers) could also vanish says this article.

Certainly, publishers are worried that books may be becoming less visible as we go about our daily business. There are fewer chances for us to catch a shop-window glimpse of the debut novel by the exciting new author they're desperate for us to discover, or to stumble across the cult writer on the table inside. And if we're not seeing books as often as we did, there's a fear that out of sight is out of mind. When Borders went, publishers believe that while some of the sales they made migrated to other retailers such as Waterstone's and Amazon, some simply disappeared. The people who really liked Borders, or happened to have a convenient one nearby, simply stopped buying as many books after the chain collapsed. Not good news.