NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bankrupt Borders Group Inc.'s shot at remaining a going concern is getting slimmer after a bidding deadline passed without offers to keep the second largest U.S. bookstore operator in business, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the situation as saying. Bids for Borders, which employs close to 11,000 people, were due at 5 p.m. New York time Sunday ahead of a bankruptcy-court auction scheduled for Tuesday, the Journal reported, adding by late Sunday Borders was in talks with the 231-store chain Books-A-Million on some kind of potential deal. If a new bidder fails to surface soon, about 400 Borders stores, including about 259 superstores, would close, hastening the decline in sales of hardcover books and paper backs and could lift sales of digital books at Amazon.com Inc. and other online operators, the paper said. Barnes & Noble Inc. would remain as the only national bookstore operator. Borders' best chance to survive fell apart last week after negotiations collapsed with private-equity investor Jahm Najafi, whose Direct Brands unit owns Book of the Month Club, the Journal reported. Barnes & Noble BKS, and Amazon AMZN, +0.12% was each down about 1%. Over the counter trading of Borders bgpiq shares slumped 32% to 6 cents a share.