Our Constitution was finished in September of 1787. But it had to be ratified by the individual states through popular conventions. The people of the states, rather than the state governments, had to approve the new document. Supporters of the Constitution had to appeal directly to the American people. It was not easy as the Colonists were reluctant to give more power to a central government controlled by an established political elite.

The Revolution promised power is in the local community and the hands of the common folk. Now the writers of the Constitution wanted to change all that. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay used the widespread and widely read newspapers of the day to distribute a series of short essays known as the Federalist Papers to influence America to accept and ratify a Constitution.

The essays covered a broad range of topics, including presidential authority, taxation and representation, and the division of power between the national and state governments.In the end, the newspaper plan worked. The Liberty Bell rang so long, it finally cracked. Americans were persuaded to support the Constitution, but the Liberty Bell could not ring in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed the sought after freedom and individual liberty for all.

The Federalist Papers are now considered the first – and most important internationally – discussions of federal government.

The Federalist Papers serve as a model of political reasoning, and so can readily be ascribed to the reason the Colonists were influenced and prepared to ratify a Constitution for the United States of America.

No other set of essays created such an international clamor for independence and a new kind of power in that eighteenth century. No man could believe or envision that Power actually emanates from the bottom up. Power is by the will of the people and is granted by Providence. That is what happened. The Natural law then, would soon be an Organic law in a written Constitution of the United States to protect the rights of all men created equal.

The sentiment swept the nation then and such is the sentiment which was later so historically and strongly expressed by President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

We are again at that same crossroad where sovereignty and liberty intersect. The basis for our Constitution is inherent in its Federalist Papers. But who knows of them? Our Constitution, after months of work, finished in September 1787 and is a document that cannot by any standard be ratified by the individual state unless their populations wants them to do so.

The Constitution FOR the United States of America is ordained and established in its Preamble by the People OF the United States.

Its Federalist Papers (number 39) established two things:

• A country to be known as the United States of America (U.S.A.).
• A national government for that country to be known as the United States (US).

All American citizens are Sovereign citizens OF the United States of America – the Country. They live under the Common Laws of the country (Nation) known as the United States of America (U.S.A.)

The United States, as such, is only a national government (US) representative of the union of all states, known as these United States (U.S.A.); and is not to be confused with the nation (country) known as the United States of America.
The only sovereignty delegated to the national government (US) is that of foreign commerce and treaties.

It is this area where the States granted international powers to the federal government, albeit with the checks and balances accorded the separation of powers among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments.

Continuing with Schiel & Denver Book Publishers‘s U.S. Constitution series in modern American political life, today we consider further areas of writing appropriately about our Constitution and how to frame narrative in these sensitive contexts.

The intent of the Common Laws in America was to preserve the Sovereignty and rights of all citizens in the new Republic of America known as the United States of America. Such intent shocked the world historically, lawfully, and realistically as it challenged the heart of all previously known rights of heredity, nobility, and dominion over lands and property as well as people.Sovereign, in early Webster 1828 dictionary definitions comes closest to that understood by our founding fathers:

Supreme in power; possessing supreme dominion, as a sovereign prince. God is the sovereign ruler of the universe; also supreme; pertaining to the first magistrate of a nation; as sovereign authority; also a supreme lord or ruler; one who possesses the highest authority without control. Some earthly princes, kings, and emperors are sovereigns in their domains.

And sovereignty was defined then as “Supreme power; supremacy; the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power. Absolute power belongs to God only.”

It is no accident, then, that our founding fathers claimed their sovereignty came from God’s law that all men are created equal.Sovereignty had shifted to a right belonging to man, granted by the supreme ruler of the universe.People were no longer to be considered vassals, subordinates, and slaves only to serve the pleasures of sovereign earthly rulers, who usually inherited their status or won it through force and continued to exercise it over all the people and lands under their dominion.Our Nation was founded by people who claimed their freedom and sovereignty as a right derived from God.

They wanted new lives in a new country; and although there was allegiance to the old country, the intense desire to be sovereign as man was their birthright.The Great Seal for the federal government of the United States clearly affirms on its obverse Crest: a glory Orb, breaking through a cloud proper, surrounding an azure field bearing a constellation of thirteen stars argent. And on its reverse, the eye at the top of a pyramid is the Eye of Providence with the Latin motto Annuit Coeptis in the sky above – meaning It (the eye of Providence) is favorable to our undertakings or He favors our undertakings.) – Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were given the task of creating the seal on July 4, 1776 and it was officially adopted on June 20, 1782.

Sovereignty was an expression, then, of the natural, organic, God-given Right that man was created equal and such rights are natural as they are granted by the Supreme Authority: Providence. Thus, in 1772 at a Town Meeting in Boston, such rights although internationally a threat to the existing monarchy and ecclesiastical supremacy of many nations, were adopted and expanded to being;

“the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First, a Right to Life, Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can – Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature –“Sovereignty continues to explain such Natural Rights relating to Life, Liberty, and Property, and concludes the Rights of Colonists with the force majeure that:“no men or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens or members of society, can for themselves give up, or take away from others.”“First, The first positive law of all Commonwealths or States, is the establishing the legislative power; as the first fundamental natural law also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the Society.

Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people…

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot Justly take from any man, any part of his property without his consent, in person or by his Representative.”These, then, were the Colonists’ sovereign expression of the first principles of natural law and justice and the basic fundamental maxims of the Common Law: common sense and reason.And again, the Natural Rights are expressed as Declarations by an act of the early American Continental Congress at New York, on October 19, 1765. This time, however, the rights are expanded as “humble opinions” respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the Colonists to protest taxes, duties, and to assert as a seventh right to establish sovereignty:“That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies.”

And as an eighth right in claiming sovereignty:

“That the late act of Parliament, entitled, “An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, etc.” by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the aid act, and several other acts by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies.”

All such claim for personal Rights, as a natural course, are summarized with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and a pledge to each other of lives, fortunes, and sacred honor of the Colonists in their Declaration of Independence, as adopted in Congress on July 4, 1776 — now a matter of the historical records of “The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the United States,” compiled under an order of the United States Senate by Ben Perley Poore, Clerk of Printing Records. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877.

Finally, to insure that there is no doubt, even in the new country, the United States of America, a Bill of Rights is agreed to and added as the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution when ratified on December 15, 1791.

Amendment IX expressly identifies the limitation of the new federal government and re-affirms sovereignty remains in the people.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And with even more specificity, Amendment X expressly identifies the limitations extending from the new federal government down through the individual States by reservation, and continues to re-affirm sovereignty remaining ultimately in the people.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’

Should the States not claim sovereignty power over the federal government, when necessary; then the people are the ultimate power proving that they hold the force majeure and are the master over the servant State or federal government when not specifically delegated as a national government. The claiming of sovereignty meant freedom and liberty for all.

The Liberty Bell, to announce such ideas of sovereignty, could not ring until the people were prepared and ready to form a more perfect union and ratify a Constitution for and of the United States of America.

And such ideas of freedom and liberty had to be communicated to the common man; to all the Colonists. Thus, the Federalist Papers originally written under the name of Publius, were published and distributed to all of the thirteen proposed states.

An Italian book publisher has yanked copies of a book on Catholic Church teaching after a translation error implied the Vatican approved of contraception, officials said Tuesday.

The book “YouCat,” a Catholic catechism book for young people, is to be presented officially Wednesday at a Vatican press conference.

But on the eve of the presentation, officials confirmed that Nuova Citta, the Italian book publishers of “YouCat,” had pulled the Italian copies to fix the error, which concerned whether married couples could plan the size of their families.

The Vatican opposes artificial contraception, holding that life begins at conception. The church does, however, condone Natural Family Planning, in which married couples chart the changes in a woman’s menstrual cycle to determine when she might, or might not, conceive.

It’s the second time in a year that translation problems have muddied church teaching on contraception. In November, the Vatican’s own publishing house mistranslated the pope’s comments about condoms and AIDS, implying that condom use for prostitutes was justified in some cases.

The mistake made headlines since it indicated the church had softened its firm opposition to artificial contraception.

But the Vatican insisted Pope Benedict XVI was doing no such thing and was merely saying that a prostitute who uses a condom may be taking a first step in a more moral, responsible sexuality because he or she is looking out for the welfare of another.

“YouCat” makes clear that the Catholic Church still opposes condoms, the pill and other forms of artificial contraception.

But in the Italian copy of the book, which is set out as a series of questions and answers with commentary, the initial question is mistranslated. In the original German, the question concerns whether married couples can “regulate conception.”

The answer says yes, then goes onto explain that the church promotes Natural Family Planning.

In the Italian however, the original question wasn’t translated as “regulate conception” but rather whether married couples could “use contraceptive methods.” The answer remained the same, an affirmative yes, implying that the Church was sanctioning contraception.

“It’s an embarrassment,” but not a change in church teaching, said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, head of Ignatius Press, YouCat’s English-language book publisher.

He told The Associated Press that Nuova Citta had printed 45,000 Italian copies, 15,000-16,000 of which were already physically sold.

“The rest they’re going to have to pull them all,” he said.

As a broadcaster, Melvyn Bragg has discussed more topics with more specialists and more energetically than most of us could ever hope to do. The 400th anniversary of the King James Bible provides him with the perfect opportunity to write something with christian book publishers which reflects that breadth of encounter.

The Book of Books has three parts. The first takes us “from Hampton Court to New England”. It’s a broadly chronological account, putting the KJB in historical context and paying proper attention to earlier translations, with Tyndale (published in 1526) justly recognised as pre-eminent. The book explains how the KJB was commissioned, planned and executed. Then the camera angle widens and we are taken on the first of the KJB’s many journeys: across the Atlantic on the Mayflower; to the English civil war, where it provided ammunition for both sides; to the Restoration era in Britain; and to the Great Awakening in America.

In part two, “The Impact on Culture”, the journey extends to science, language, literature and political thought. The writer shows how the KJB was hugely influential among those who formed the Royal Society. Its language forms an important strand in present-day idiom. It can be seen as great literature in its own right, and has hugely influenced British and American writers. Bragg gives us a whistle-stop tour from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison, with way stations including Milton, Bunyan, Defoe, Blake, Melville, Faulkner, Eliot and Golding. “After all the pounding it has taken”, Bragg writes, this Bible “is still a source for such great imaginative writers today”.

The writer shows how the KJB survived attacks by philosophers such as David Hume and Thomas Hobbes during the Enlightenment. This leads him to make a strong case for how it will survive the so-called New Enlightenment of Richard Dawkins and others. Bragg does a grand demolition job of Dawkins’s limited vision – his failure to recognise the positive dimension to belief and to appreciate the critical importance of the historical backdrop. He ends this section of the book with an account of the KJB’s influence on the actions of individuals, presenting Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wilberforce as cases in point.

Part three is “The Impact on Society”. Here the KJB’s journeys take us first into slavery, and then the American civil war and its political consequences. A global perspective emerges. The Book is seen as “the prime educating force in the English-speaking world”, and Protestant missionaries as especially important in this process. The text has played an important role in developing social attitudes to sex and the place of women, and in the rise of socialism. Above all, it helped form our modern notion of democracy. This, Bragg argues, could be the KJB’s “greatest achievement” of all – Bragg’s book publishers agree.

The book’s strengths are its judicious selectivity and its breadth, yet both carry risks.

All readers will want to cite other examples: I would add the Virgin Mary to his discussion of biblical women, and one could easily double the length of the chapter on global spread by showing how the KJB has influenced literature across the Commonwealth. Nor do I doubt that specialists will dispute specific points. The linguist in me worries when I read that there are “literally thousands” of present-day idiomatic expressions in the KJB (my estimate is roughly 250) – but I’m happy to turn a blind eye to the occasional linguistic infelicity in the interests of seeing the wider picture.

Which is what we get. Bragg’s strengths as a novelist yield an account that is personal and imaginative, full of

Leaders in digital book publishing are in New York at the InterQuest2011 Digital Book Printing Forum to discuss the latest trends and opportunities in an industry beset with change during the past few years. At the event, Kodak’s Eric Owen is speaking about the role Kodak is playing with its customers by providing effective counsel and comprehensive solutions.

“The publishing industry is in a dynamic period and Kodak is helping customers profit from developing trends like short-runs, automation and self publishing,” said Eric Owen, Vice President, Sales and Business Development, Kodak Digital Printing Solutions group.  “Kodak is well positioned to help guide printers and book publishers with a blend of offset and digital technologies and comprehensive workflow offerings.”

Kodak is a leader in digital book publishing, bringing many innovative solutions to market in recent years. Book publishers constantly seek more efficient and economical ways to produce short-run book titles and streamline processes. By printing digitally with the KODAK PROSPER Press Platform, the need for inventory is reduced, waste can be minimized, and the number of available titles increased. The KOKAK PROSPER Platform integrates with a wide-range of leading finishing equipment offerings to ensure that customers can produce books in a manner that best fits their businesses.

Kodak is fully committed to helping its customers capitalize on industry changes and recently assembled a panel of independent experts for an expansive roundtable discussion about the future of book publishing companies. Held at the New York Public Library, the roundtable brought together executives from book publishing, manufacturing, retailing and distribution companies, as well as an author. Topics and insights from the events discussion included:

- High-speed inkjet printing will have a significant impact on book manufacturing-”the biggest development in publishing in the past 50 years,” according to one panelist.

- Inkjet printing will allow for more and shorter production runs, saving on inventory, waste and obsolescence costs, and providing a means for niche books to be printed that otherwise wouldn’t get produced.

To view video highlights from the roundtable, go to: www.kodak.com/go/changepublishing

The 2011 Digital Book Printing Forum will be held Tuesday, April 5, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Marriott Marquis New York in midtown Manhattan during the annual Publishing Business Conference Expo organized by Book Business magazine.

Imagine quitting your job to pursue your passion, and becoming a millionaire nearly overnight.

That’s what a Southern Minnesota author is experiencing, now that her books are becoming must-reads.

Amanda Hocking has been writing stories for years, but when she started putting her works up for sale online, her whole life turned upside down.

The author said, “When I started publishing I thought that I would maybe sell 100 copies or something.”

Amanda’s book publisher estimates however were not even close. In just a matter of a few months, she didn’t sell 100 copies, she sold around 100 thousand copies.

Hocking added, “It was very exciting and surprising. I couldn’t believe I was selling so many books and people were reading and responding to them.”

For those close to the author, her rise to stardom may not come as a surprise.

“I started writing when I was really young,” Hocking said. “My eighth grade teacher Ms. Smith, she thought that I was a really really great writer.”

So the young author wrote and wrote, but was rejected several times by publishing companies.

“I feel like they didn’t reject me, they just didn’t know me,” she answered.

However, once Hocking’s work became an online sensation, she was signed and she took a leap of faith to follow her dream.

She said, “When I quit my job, it was both really exciting and really scary. I knew this was something that I always wanted to do, but it’s scary to think, what if this stops working.”

However, the gamble has paid off and Hocking has sold more than 600 thousand books just this year, as has become an overnight celebrity.

“My mom is totally crazy ecstatic.”

But the additional popularity brought on more challenges.

Hocking admitted, “Finishing up a series I feel a lot of pressure because they have expectations on how it’s going to end.”

Even with the difficulties Amanda maintains the added book publishers‘ pressure only makes her a better writer.

”I think that each book I write is better than the last so if you liked the earlier stuff, you’re definitely going to like the stuff that comes out.”

Just when do books wear out?

That the big question, especially after Book Publishers announced this month that libraries will only be able to circulate its e-book titles 26 times before they’ll have to buy a new copy.

It set 26 as the cap, arguing with an average two-week borrowing period, it works out to a year — the length of time when printed books wear out and popularity wanes.

Technically, e-books will never fall apart. And librarians argue many printed books circulate far more than 26 times, and are still in good shape after more than 100 checkouts.

The new rule, which went into effect on March 7 for new titles, has upset librarians, sparking some in the United States to call for a boycott of HarperCollins books.

While Canadian librarians aren’t making such threats, the Toronto Public Library is holding off on any new HarperCollins purchases until the new restrictions are clarified.

“This announcement was discouraging,” said city librarian Jane Pyper. “We respect the publishing industry. We want a viable and vibrant Canadian publishing industry, in particular. We want Canadian content.

“We also want something that’s fair to public libraries and viable and sustainable for the library sector.”

While e-books represent less than 1 per cent of the 32 million items that the Toronto library circulates each year, they are growing in popularity. The library currently carries about 11,000 e-book titles, and they are checked out about 17,000 times each month.

On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, after people had ripped off the wrapping paper on new and self publishing reading devices like Kobos and Sony readers, the library had an unbelievable surge in hits on its website for patrons wanting to download e-books, Pyper said.

With each e-title, the Toronto library can only circulate that single copy to one borrower at a time. Patrons can borrow 10 books for up to 21 days. After the due date, the book disappears from the individual reader and the item can circulate again.

The New York Times says nine million devices are in use in the United States, according to Forrester Research. Market research firms here estimate 500,000 Canadians had readers by the end of last year.

“It’s important for the future to understand that the public libraries will be in e-collection market,” said Pyper. “We want to own books, we want to preserve them, and we want the public to have permanent access to them.”

E-books range in price from $20 to $30 and there are no library discounts — unlike print versions, she said. And given the library’s financial woes, pricing or the need to repurchase books has an impact on the budget.

When asked for comment, a spokesman with HarperCollinsCanada said no one was available.

In an open letter to librarians, Josh Marwell, president of sales at HarperCollinsPublishers in the United States, explained that the company’s previous e-book policy was almost 10 years old, developed when there were few such readers.

“We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book ecosystem, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors,” Marwell wrote.

He added the 26 checkout cap can provide a year of availability for titles with the highest demand and much longer for other titles. “If a library decides to repurchase an e-book later in the book’s life, the price will be significantly lower as it will be pegged to a paperback price point.”

The ease with which consumers can borrow e-books makes book publishe

The public library has long attracted avid readers with an unrivaled pitch: Check out a best-selling book for free and renew it multiple times.

But as more people ditch printed books in favor of e-books that can be downloaded directly to a computer, the rules are changing.

As of Monday, HarperCollins, book publisher of authors such as Anne Rice, Sarah Palin and Michael Crichton, will not allow its e-books to be checked out from a library more than 26 times.

After that, the license on the e-book will expire and libraries will have to decide whether to buy a new one.

For library users, that could mean longer waits for popular titles, tighter limits on how many times an e-book can be renewed and the possibility that e-books that are not repurchased would be available at the library for only about a year.

Librarians across the country are outraged and fear other publishers could adopt a similar model. Some have organized a boycott of books published by HarperCollins. They argue the restrictions place an additional burden on financially strapped public libraries, some of which have reduced their inventories because of budget constraints.

The added expenditures on e-books, they said, will make it more difficult to compete in an industry that is quickly becoming dominated by electronic readers such as the iPad, the Nook and the Kindle.

“This strikes at the heart of what we do,” said Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey, who described electronic media as the new virtual library. “With limited financial resources affecting all libraries across America, people are asking, ‘Why would you do this?’”

For HarperCollins, it is about balancing the benefits to book publishers, authors and libraries in a rapidly growing segment of the publishing industry that has left many newspapers, magazines and booksellers scrambling to catch up.

Nearly 10 years ago, when HarperCollins began offering e-books to libraries, the number of e-readers was too small to measure, the company said. Now, it is projected that more than 40 million e-reading devices will be in use in the U.S. this year.

“We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors,” HarperCollins said in a statement.

Librarians also have serious concerns. At the Naperville Public Library, the new policy would be an additional strain on a materials budget that has shrunk by about $200,000 in the last three years, said deputy director Julie Rothenfluh.

“It’s a balancing act for us,” Rothenfluh said. “We have to be that much more careful to make sure what we purchase provides the best benefit to our users.”

For most libraries, e-books are only a small percentage of the items circulated but represent the fastest growing segment.

About 10,000 e-books are circulated in Naperville. The Chicago Public Library, which has experienced slight increases in its budget, doubled the circulation of e-books from 17,000 in 2009 to more than 36,000 in 2010.

Librarians said HarperCollins’ decision failed to factor in the role libraries play in promoting reading, which benefits the book industry and christian book publishers. Some said the book publisher should have included librarians in discussions about the checkout limit.

E-book checkouts are “a growing percentage, and it definitely reflects a trend that people want to take their e-reader and upload it

When Borders opened its first outlet in Pittsburgh in 1990, the book-selling world including that of many New York book publishers was a far different place than it is in 2011, the year that store and two other Borders in the region are preparing to close in April, dropped by the bankrupt chain.

Started in Ann Arbor, Mich., by the Borders brothers, the young chain was pushing its book “superstore” concept coast to coast in the 1990s, getting a head start on Barnes & Noble, then a smaller competitor.

Launching the takeoff was the brothers’ sale of their name and idea to Kmart. In 1988, there were five Borders; there are now more than 600.

The company will abandon 30 percent of the outlets, including the pioneer Bethel Park spot and the Monroeville and East Liberty stores.

Kmart dropped Borders in the late 1990s but the chain managed to thrive and expand on its own in the new century, but it made one fatal mistake: It hired Amazon to handle its online book and music sales while B&N established its own website. Dumb.

After Borders launched its own online sales operation, it was too late to make headway as Amazon and B&N soon moved into the e-book world with their digital reading devices.

Other business decisions aside, the decline of this almost iconic book chain reflects a subtle shift in minds of readers after years of “bigness” — in stores, sales numbers and the franchising of “big” authors.

Dedicated readers are a sensitive bunch; whether they are pushing the book publishers buttons on a digital screen or turning the page in a well-used paperback, they crave that quiet one-on-one with the book.

But, for some time now, they have been getting books and authors shoved in their faces, not because they’re good, but because publishers flog them so hard. And the superstore concept is a willing partner in this relentless marketing.

Exhibit No. 1: James Patterson. He’s the Little, Brown franchise, a mediocre writer at best who churns out formula thrillers like a movie popcorn machine with a similar stale, greasy fake butter taste. The publisher signed a 17-book contract with him in 2009, with 11 titles to be turned in by 2012.

These demands prompted him to farm out the writing to a stable of typists, coming up with the idea and giving them credit as “co-author.”

Mr. Patterson’s financial demands then forced the publisher to market the books strenuously, blanketing those superstores with books and displays, paying extra to get good “floor” position, exiling more interesting books to the shadows of these 15,000-square-foot boxes.

Further exhibits include Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz, Kathy Reichs and Lee Child.

Turn back the clock to 1990 when Borders wooed the media with images of an intimate experience inside a clean, well-lighted place with more than 100,000 separate titles and a coffee shop and comfy chairs.

The chain stuck its first Pittsburgh outlet in suburban Bethel Park by wedging it into an awkward chess space in a strip mall with cramped parking.

Then the marketing team smoothed over the physical problems with promises of a busy author-visit schedule and other community events staffed with knowledgeable workers.

Even though the region had several well-established independent booksellers at the time, the Borders “experience” promised the hand-selling of independents with the wide selection of Kmart.

As the landscape evolved in the digital age, that cozy, caffeine-scented solicitude gave way to the uniformity of all national chains and Borders lost its distinctiveness.

Economics played the major role in Borders’ bankruptcy, but it’s cl

Books such as Harry Potter, The Book Thief or The Hunger Games have crossed the traditional lines between teen and adult fiction, something some book publishing literary types say is a bit of a trend.

Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing at Raincoast Books, said that 10 years of publishing Harry Potter really showed him the blurring of the lines between young adult and adult fiction.

“Consumer and Book Publisher surveys showed that about 20 per cent of the audience for Harry Potter are adults who don’t have children,” Broadhurst said. “Raincoast and Bloomsbury went so far as to produce both children’s and adult covers, but we found in actual fact that adults were equally comfortable reading book with a ‘kids’ cover.’ Harry Potter showed that the strength of the story mattered a whole lot more than preset genre labels.”

Vancouver’s Melanie Jackson, who writes young-adult novels, says there isn’t that much difference between young-adult fiction and adult fiction.

“I think young-adult fiction is getting to be more popular, but I don’t think that’s a new thing, I think that’s the way things used to be,” Jackson said. “The crowd that’s reading Twilight, I’m guessing it’s mostly schoolgirls, young women. Those same groups of people were just mad about Gone with the Wind, there was a total frenzy. There’s also Robert Louis Stevenson writing really bloodthirsty books – Treasure Island is full of murderous intents and plans.”

Phyllis Simon, founder and co-owner of Kidsbooks, names The Hunger Games series as one that appeals to all ages. The series is about a future dystopia in which people fight each other to the death while others watch.

“It’s kind of disturbing, it’s got its moments, but it’s very popular, and very compelling,” Simon said, adding that the brevity of young-adult fiction is also attractive. “You get a great read in 200 pages – you don’t have to plow through 500 pages.”

Teen fiction is more focused on storytelling, which makes it appealing, said Andrew Wooldridge, publisher at Orca Books, a Victoria-based company that puts out about 70 books each year, many of which are sold in schools.

“A lot of adult literary fiction is focused on characterization and plot and literary techniques, while teen fiction is mostly straight-ahead storytelling, and it seems to me that people find that appealing,” Wooldridge said.

“The lines are definitely blurring. A lot of the adults I know are reading teen fiction now. I think it’s becoming more sophisticated, but my theory is that it’s more focused on the story than adult fiction can be.”

Jackson said the same plot devices work in young-adult fiction that do in adult fiction, or even in Alfred Hitchcock films.

“You just apply it to someone who’s 14, as opposed to someone who’s 40,” she said.

In her book Fast Slide, protagonist Clay Gibson works at a North Vancouver water park, where’s he’s framed for a theft. His anger-management problem doesn’t help the situation when there is a death by drowning on a high-thrill slide at the park.

“No one believes him and it hasn’t helped that he’s lost his temper earlier on,” Jackson said. “It’s always more exciting when a protagonist witnesses something and no one believes them.”

Fast Slide was named a Best of 2010 book by Resource Links magazine – for book publishing companies.

In her other recent book No Way Out, the main character, 15-year-old Sam Jellicoe, is sent ag

Bargain hunters were out in force this weekend as liquidation sales began at 200 Borders locations slated to close as part of the company’s bankruptcy filing.

The affected stores — about one-third of the bookseller’s locations — are expected to close by the end of April. Twenty-one underperforming stores in Southern California will be shut, including stores in Sherman Oaks, Century City, Long Beach and Orange.

Huge “store closing” and “everything must go” posters covered the windows at Borders in Pasadena and Glendale, which were bustling with customers Sunday. Many sections were already picked over, including from christian book publishers, with shelves left bare and items such as notebooks, journals and photo albums strewn about.

Most items were discounted 20% to 40%, with markdowns expected to increase in coming weeks.

“As long as there’s a deal, I’m going to take advantage of it,” said Jordan Francke, 27, who was checking out the games section at the Glendale store.

“It’s just the changing landscape of literature these days. It’s all electronic,” Francke, a children’s book publishers and television schedule coordinator, said of the chain’s bankruptcy. “I can only imagine it’s a struggle for a place like Borders to stay relevant.”

That’s a harsh reality for regular customers such as Kathleen O’Reilly, 52, who was at the Pasadena Borders carrying a shopping basket laden with discounted stationery and magazines.

The Pasadena resident said she was “old school” and enjoyed seeing and touching books before making a purchase. She said she would miss visiting the store with her teenage daughter.

“I spend several days a week here,” said O’Reilly, a self-publishing counselor at a high school. “I actually debated whether I even wanted to come because I was worried I’d be too upset to see the store torn apart.”

Business is expected to continue as usual on the company’s website and at stores that aren’t closing.

After a slew of competitive blunders and missteps in the last decade, Borders Group Inc. found itself in trouble and had to cut staff, shut stores and shake up its top management.

Critics said the company botched its move into the book publisher digital age, causing sales and earnings to plummet. At the same time, mass merchants including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. became major players in the book-selling market, often offering lower prices than Borders and rival Barnes & Noble Inc.

But Borders maintains it isn’t done for good. In a letter e-mailed to customers and posted on the company’s website last week, Borders President Mike Edwards said the company hoped to emerge from Chapter 11 as “the destination of choice.”

About 6,000 of the chain’s roughly 19,000 workers will be laid off as part of the closures. Among them is Rich Kilbury, a christian book publisher, who was pushing a cart stacked high with books at the Pasadena location Sunday.

“It’s depressing, but we kind of saw it coming,” he said. “Business had dropped off.”

The promise of discounts attracted Victoria Rose to the Pasadena store, where she was browsing mystery and thriller books. The 60-year-old high school English teacher said she was never a regular customer because she could find a better s

Blogger starts a blog. Blogger solicits photos or texts or emails. Blogger gets a book deal. That formula has been wildly successful for the last few years, but is showing signs of market saturation.

There were roughly 100 book deals involving blogs or Internet memes last year according to Book Publisher’s Marketplace.

Christopher Weingarten, 31, was one of them. A year ago, he decided to start a blog about dogs, dressed as hipsters. He gets readers to submit photos and attaches a witty caption.

Over three million hits and thousands of submissions later, he just recently landed a book deal, with the book hitting bookstores in July. While the freelance music writer discloses that his book deal was not six-figures, it was “certainly more than the $3,000 advance I got for doing a book about music.”

Blog-to-book deals have also changed the humor genre in general. “Now if you’re funny, you start a blog or a Twitter feed, and cultivate an audience that way and a publisher finds you,” says Patrick Mulligan, Senior Editor at Gotham Books, an imprint of Penguin, which specializes in blog-to-book deals.

One of Gotham’s blog-to-books is “Texts From Last Night”, which features random and funny texts sent from submitters, who are typically in a drunken stupor when texting. The blog on which it is based gets around four million page views a day. The book is in its sixth printing. The blog co-founders say the website brought in about one million dollars in revenue last year, and it’s now being converted into a TV show.

They bristle at the notion that they’re taking other peoples’ contributions and running away with the money from an ebook publishing book deal.

Usually publishers require bloggers to put in at least 70 percent new content into the books and often try to market them to a new audience.

“You can’t just sort of repackage the greatest hits on a website,” says Megan Thompson, Senior Literary Agent with LJK Literary Management which represents a number of blog-to-book authors, including the people behind “Geek Dad”, and “Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.” “Why would someone buy the cow if they can get the milk for free?” she says.

Penguin’s Gotham Books was able to find a new audience with the popular LOLcat series. “It’s 50 year old women from the midwest who have ten cats who are buying it,” says Mulligan. “When you make something a book and take it off the Internet, people who never stumble upon this website find it in book form.”

Some overnight authors are commanding lucrative deals, even if it isn’t as frequent as it once was. “When people were going crazy for this stuff, we got into really competitive auctions where people were spending into the mid six-figures for some of these books,” says Mulligan. “That just becomes tough for book publishers to make money.”

Still, the publishing industry is mindful that the genre has some staying power.

“It’s what happens in publishing,” Mulligan says. “Something becomes hot, it becomes over-published, and then it wanes, and then there will be this awesome new blog in 2012, and we’ll go crazy again for it.”