The big dogs at Borders Group have developed a company network to get select books into the hands of their employees in order for them to recommend them to local shoppers. It’s the same idea you might see at a small, independent bookstore. You buy a couple things or shop there regularly, and the store owner says, “Hey, have you heard of On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet? It’s debut novel, like the kind you seem to enjoy, and I love it.” That’s called hand-selling. Publishers have given Borders credit for making the four previously selected hand-sellers into best-sellers.

“Online retailers are recording hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales of mugs and sweats, buttons and bumper stickers, with much of the proceeds going toward organizing the tax-day tea parties, takeoffs on the original 1773 protest of British taxes,” reports Fox News. The head of Patriot Depot, Jay Taylor, says they’ve been so busy, he doesn’t know what their profit is.

Taylor is partnering with the Augusta, Ga.-based Reagan.org to send tens of thousands of tea bags north to Washington for a massive tax day tea dump. Though Reagan.org is asking for about $1 per bag, they estimate they’ll end up losing money in the transaction.

“What we figure is that we’ll probably end up losing a little bit of money on it,” said Joshua Bolin, executive director of Reagan.org, who told FOXNews.com that his organization accepted requests to send 30,000 tea bags packing in just the first two days of its promotion.

Now, can I brew you a cup of tea?