Bookselling juggernaut Borders is no more. Are you surprised? Does the decline of the megabookstore mean anything to the emerging market of readers, many of whom have defected from the printed page to downloading content to their Kindles or otherwise reading online? And what does this have to do with the independent agency system?
Plenty.
First, full disclosure: Bookstores are a big deal to me. I've written and published four books in my career, all with small presses. My first novel was published “electronically” back in 2000, when e-publishing was so nascent as to be invisible. Because publishing a book on paper was (and is) cost prohibitive, the teeny-tiny publisher's strategy was to make its titles available exclusively via CD-ROMs and downloads to a primitive e-reader device that cost around $300 (I still have mine stashed in a drawer somewhere).
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
