Writers Band Together To Save Struggling Borders Bookstore Chain With New Anthology

Jan. 3, 2011 - PRLog -- Things look pretty grim for Borders, the #2 brick-and-mortar book retailer in America -- and for the US publishing industry that supplies Borders.

You've seen the headlines:

"Borders: Getting Closer to the Bookseller's Final Chapter (Daily Finance)"
"Borders Distributor Halts Shipments to Chain: Report (ABC News)"
"Borders shares plummet after it discloses cash crisis (LA Times)"

"The dissolution of Borders means a sizable chunk of the trade book business, somewhere around 10% of overall market, will vanish overnight. And that will affect publishers' bottom lines and force them to make decisions they may not have wanted to, or would regret," Sarah Weinman reports for AOL Daily Finance.

Obama could bail out Borders. Publishing has to be as important an industry to this country as the auto industry. Right? *cough, cough*

Clearly, the only solution is for authors to band together to write a charity anthology to save Borders from bankruptcy! The working title is WRITERS WITHOUT BORDERS: REQUIEM FOR A BOOKSTORE.

Author and Order of St. Nick creative director Andrew Shaffer conceived of the charity anthology after learning of the retailer’s troubles. “Although chain bookstores get a lot of bad press, Borders is an important part of many communities,” he says. “Borders and Barnes & Noble are the only bookstores selling new books where I live [along the Iowa and Illinois border]. The closest independent bookstore is fifty miles away.”

EvilReads, Order of St. Nick’s publishing imprint, is looking for short fiction, non-fiction, or poetry with a Borders bookstore somewhere in the submission. Word count is limited to 3k words. Interested writers are encouraged to visit http://www.evilreads.com/save-borders for full submission guidelines.

All proceeds from the sale of the WRITERS WITHOUT BORDERS: REQUIEM FOR A BOOKSTORE anthology will go to Borders.*

Submissions will be accepted through April 1st, 2011, with a tentative publication date set for Fall 2011.

*In the event that Borders shutters its doors or is sold or simply doesn't accept a cashier's check for the proceeds, all proceeds will be donated to Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the largest children's literacy non-profit in the United States.

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Order of St. Nick, founded in 2007 by author Andrew Shaffer, is a greeting card publisher specializing in alternative and edgy humorous cards.