I went to pick over the carcass in Concord, NH this past weekend. Borders is now filled with just the ghosts of books. I carved out a little piece of the YA section to carry away, since most of what remained was 75% off. Some of my purchases will be given away here in the next few weeks.
They still had a few copies of
Minder and
Adversary in-stock. Yeah, of course I bought them! But it was the first time I'd ever seen my work on the bargain shelf, and that wasn't a good feeling. At least I was in good company with Richelle Mead; they had a ton of
Last Sacrifice copies still in-stock.
In any case, there are still millions of readers in the country and the world. But the places we buy our books have changed, and while we may sigh and wallow in wistfulness over past practices, we need to embrace the new reality and make it work for us.