With shares of leading book retailers Borders (NYSE: BGP) and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) having tanked in recent months, some prominent investors are starting to wonder if there's value to be unlocked.

Pershing Square Capital Management, a very good activist hedge fund run by William Ackman, secured a spot on the Borders board of directors last week, and may seek to make changes.

But with sites like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and discounters like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) offering books at a much better value than Borders can, the activists' traditional bag of tricks -- cost-cutting, buybacks, dividends, putting the company up for sale, etc -- may not be enough. For Borders, cost-cutting is the opposite of the solution. In order to remain relevant, the brick and mortar stores will have to provide a value-added experience to the consumer, and make it worth paying 30% more than you would on Amazon. Creating an environment like that costs money.

Running a small independent bookstore is a labor of love characterized by poor margins and cutthroat competition. The Wall Street Journal recently looked at one of the ways struggling retailers are looking to stay open (subscription required) -- essentially getting book-lovers to "invest" in the stores to keep them open, with the understanding that the investment is risk and has very little upside. Now that my friends is angel investing.

In the end, I think Ackman may be barking up the wrong tree. As Oren Teicher, the chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association, told the Journal, "The margins are small, the competition is fierce, and you're selling a product that is the same no matter where you buy it."

Borders is already bleeding red ink and won't be able to differentiate itself without spending tons of money, probably exacerbating the problem. But in its current form, the company just can't make any money.

Can brick-and-mortar bookstores be saved? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.