The Great Big Book Swap – Read It, Love It, Share It
Posted on May 4, 2011 by Vanessa
Although we have been highly critical of World Book Night, we do agree with the essence of it – that it’s about sharing great books and celebrating the joy of reading. However, bookshops were marginalised and booksales declined across the trade in the wake of this giveaway in March and whatever happens next year I’m fairly certain I don’t want to be involved as it would have to change on an instrinsic level for me to have confidence that it was going to be good for the trade as a whole.
Given all this, we started thinking about the alternatives and realised that it was possible to do something different; to hold an event which combines the admirable aim of sharing books and extending the reading community with promoting bookshops and the work done by authors and publishers. An event which isn’t about top-down decision-making but about the grassroots; where any book can be included without authors and publishers losing out and where bookshops can be responsive to the needs and tastes of their customers and communities. And which – especially important in a recession – is actually about the business of selling books. Because if we don’t sell books then authors won’t write them and publishers will be even more reliant on celeb biographies and a handful of big-name best-sellers.
So. Here’s the plan…
We held a book swap a couple of weeks ago and it was a great success* – around 50 or so people and some fantastic guest speakers. For The Great Big Book Swap we’re going to hold a bigger one at a venue in Edinburgh with around 200-250 ticket-holders. We’ll be asking them to bring a book and we’ll have two or three guest authors, just like we did the other week. We’re going to need a venue that has a good PA, a bar and space for people to mingle and swap books in between the discussions with our special guests, and seating so that all those people can listen to our guests. We want the bookswap to be just as much fun as our other ones – just bigger. I’m hoping that we can get sponsorship to cover the cost of the venue or – ideally – that we can secure somewhere free of charge on the basis that the bar takings should be healthy. If you think you can help with a venue in Edinburgh, do get in touch.
However, instead of the ticket price covering the cost of the venue, wine and nibbles, we’re going to put all of that into a fund. We’re going to use that money to buy books to give away to people who maybe don’t read or don’t read much. Maybe they’ve never got into the habit, maybe they don’t have a bookshop or library nearby. To clarify – we will make no profit on the books we give away – if we raise £1000 that’s £1000 of books at trade price we’ll be giving away. The bit that makes this worth doing from a commercial point of view is that we’ll hopefully get some positive publicity and widen our customer base. And it’s a really worthwhile thing to be doing – I fo have my altruistic moments you know!
We’re going to find these groups by asking our customers and others in our community to suggest them and we’re going to find out what they want to read. For example, if we have books going to a nursing home we’ll find out what sort of things the residents like reading or watching on tv and, in conjunction with the staff, we’ll put together a selection that we think will appeal. We’re also going to provide a range of books so that they can swap between themselves, rather than carpet-bomb the place with dozens of copies of the same book. When people buy their tickets for the bookswap, there will be the option for them to add a donation which will buy more books for us to give away. Tickets will probably be around £7.50: add another £2.50 (this morning’s latte was less than that) and that’s almost another book paid for.
As we’ll be purchasing the books from publishers and our wholesalers, authors will receive their normal royalties and because we’re not asking publishers to contribute we can choose books from the tiniest indie publisher without them losing out. And we’re including readers in a meaningful way – we want readers to suggest recipients for the books and to help us give them out if they can. It’s a project which really can include everyone involved in books whether reader, author or any of the people between.
So far, so good. We’re putting on a great evening’s entertainment for booklovers and potentially giving away thousands of pounds worth of books in an attempt to spread the joy of reading. We’re making sure that authors and publishers don’t lose out so it’s sustainable. So what’s in it for us as a bookshop? Hopefully, we’ll generate a fair bit of positive publicity for the shop and it will enable us to point out that there is a viable, and in our opinions, better alternative to World Book Night.
But obviously we’ll be hoping to see some increase in our customer base so we’ll be including in the back of each book we give away two stickers. One will list ten titles that we really love and we’ll try to make sure that there’s something there to appeal to everyone. The other sticker will mean that – up to a certain date a few weeks hence – the recipient of that book can bring it to the shop and buy any of those ten books at a 50% discount. We can do that because we’ll be buying large quantities of those titles and the publishers will almost certainly be willing to support us in terms of the discounts they offer us. I’ve already had undertakings that they’ll help with that from some of the publishers’ reps that we see.
We might not see many of the books we give away back in the shop – if we donate some to a prison, it’s less probable that the inmates will be popping by – but if and when the recipients do visit, it’s a great opportunity for us to show how good our service is and hopefully to make an impression that will ensure that that new customer becomes a regular customer.
Simple isn’t it? According to the Booksellers Association website, there are around 1000 independent bookshops in the UK. If half take part and gives away an average of 500 books (I’m working that out as 250 people at the book swap event paying £7.50 per ticket) then that’s a quarter of a million books. And every additional £20 that is donated equals another 5 books that can be given away.
It may just be that The Edinburgh Bookshop is the only participant in this project and that’s fine. But because each event is being run by an individual bookshop, it’s scalable and could be adopted as a model nationally or even internationally – nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see bookswaps and giveaways of this type happening far and wide. And let’s do it on the same day for maximum exposure – how does Saturday 3rd March 2012 sound? It’s a good time for retailers as we’ll have had time to recover after the Christmas rush and comes at a time when trade can feel a bit slow.
We’re not making any claims of being a global movement; we’re talking about local bookshops and their communities of readers reaching out to the wider community. It’s local, sustainable and inclusive and can fulfil those criteria whether it’s just our bookshop that does this or many. And it can make a real difference – imagine if even half the independent bookshops in the country took part…
Why not visit The Great Big Book Swap site and sign up to the mailing list so that we can keep you informed? Likewise if you’re a bookshop or an author who’d like to be involved.
* We’re holding our next Edinburgh Bookshop Book Swap on 31st May
Comments
13 Responses to “The Great Big Book Swap – Read It, Love It, Share It”
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May 4th, 2011 @ 9:39 pm
I bow at your feet. x
May 4th, 2011 @ 10:03 pm
And if I give away my favourite book, I will have to come to you to buy another one – genius!
May 4th, 2011 @ 10:03 pm
Excellent!
May 5th, 2011 @ 10:12 am
Sounds like a great idea, but are there any legal implications in all this? If you’re taking ‘donations’ from people and using those to pay for books that you then give away, doesn’t that mena you’re profiting as a business from other people’s charity? I’m not casting aspersions, I’m genuinely interested to know how the financial side of this works as I think it’s a really interesting idea.
May 5th, 2011 @ 11:16 am
Hi Jo,
Sorry – I’ve not been clear. We will make nothing on the books we give away. If we raise £1,000 for example then that’s what we’ll spend on books. At trade, not on the cover price – no profit for us. The point of doing this from a business point of view is that we widen awareness of our shop and hopefully garner some positive publicity. Any profit comes from increasing our customer base.
I suppose if this takes off then we’ll have to look at appointing trustees or something to oversee things, but at the moment I don’t think there’s a need. Do let me know if you have any more questions though as we want to be as transparent as possible. And I hope you’ll get involved.
May 5th, 2011 @ 3:28 pm
This is a brilliant idea!
May 5th, 2011 @ 3:54 pm
Vanessa
Once again i support your viewpoint and quest to find a more sensible route than ‘carpet bombing the world with the same books and gaining little stickyness from the exercise. Its easy to give stuff away it a lot hard to sell it and reward those who created it.
I like the community feel and approach
Martyn
PS my blog of support http://bookseller-association.blogspot.com/2011/05/great-big-book-swap-alternative.html
May 10th, 2011 @ 9:15 am
Absolutely onside with your aims. Happy to help in some way. Let me know.
May 10th, 2011 @ 1:13 pm
Still a great idea, and that’s without a bottle of wine…
May 31st, 2011 @ 8:46 pm
A great idea, I would love to join the mailing list but your link did not appear to work.
June 7th, 2011 @ 11:35 am
Hi Vanessa
I’m a librarian, not a bookseller, so I’m looking at your idea of a Great Big Bookswap from the perspective of the public library service. I can find no mention of public libraries anywhere on your website which may indicate an indifference to them or frustration with them, or resentment of them on your part. Collectively across the UK the public library service does have a large purchasing power and I appreciate, no doubt to the utter frustration of independent booksellers, that little of our materials budgets goes your way, in that we are tasked by our local authorities and the Government with ensuring “value” for money, which invariably means buying books and book-processing services at the cheapest price. So the bulk of our materials budget is spent via library suppliers and not on the High Street. But we try and work closely with our local independent bookshops and involve and promote them as much as we can. The one thing we certainly have in common is our vulnerability in face of the prevailing ideology of what constitutes value in society and in the market place!
We need to work together and we can add value to each other’s core offer by doing so. I would urge you not to lose sight of this when exploring your very good ideas around the operation of the Great Big Bookswap. When I hear you talking about buying collections of books to give out to hospitals, prisons, sheltered housing residents and reading groups it occurs to me that this is what public libraries do day in and day out, regularly swapping collections of reading material throughout the year. If you are in an elderly people’s home you don’t want one static collection of a handful of books from which to choose your reading material for the rest of your days; you want one that is regularly changed, bringing an endless stream of joy into your life.
I live miles from Edinburgh, down in Bristol, so there is no good trying to engage me in your excellent work but do try and involve the powers that be within Edinburgh’s public library service in developing your plans. If they don’t play ball they will be doing a disservice to you as well as the whole of the public library movement.
Very best of luck to you and your enthusiastic colleagues with the Great Big Bookswap and especially for your work in promoting a love of reading and access to the widest possible selection of books.
Michael
July 8th, 2011 @ 12:36 pm
Pity you didn’t think of your own global book night before the official one. It looks mean-spirited and spiteful. You’ve managed to generate lots of publicity for your bookshop and yourselves since high-jacking World Book Night. I don’t see mention of a single book or writer in your post. Nothing about writing and everything about you. Clever – almost murdochian
July 8th, 2011 @ 5:00 pm
and that’s a pretty mean and nasty comment to leave don’t you think Janette? You speak as though generating publicity for a bookshop is a bad thing – you know, these are the places that have promoted writers and writing and, hang on, books to the wider public for years and years. Hardly worth the effort was it.