As both publishers and booksellers we get a lot of books (or to be frank, “books”) that people would like us either to publish or sell. The quality varies (understatement), but what I find most astonishing is that sometimes I open a book to find that it seems….familiar. There’s a fine line between “influenced by” and “flagrant breach of copyright”, and it’s one I obviously see differently to the person who sent me a near-perfect rendition of a Spike Milligan poem. Copyright has been a controversial issue in the sphere of printed books – the Ian McEwan debacle and the numerous Harry Potter trials spring to mind – but social media and self-publishing has knotted it into a morass of confusion.

People have written whole books on this subject, but it strikes me that a number of salient points seem clear:

1.       Whilst there is no copyright on ideas, as soon as you write something down, it’s yours, and no one else should be able to use it without permission;

2.       Unless someone else has already written it down, obviously;

3.       In which case: if you didn’t know that someone else had written it first, then tough, the copyright still isn’t yours;

4.       There are some exceptions, such as fair use;

5.       If you are going to send me a picture book with really, really ugly illustrations, at least make sure you aren’t sullying Spike Milligan’s poetry in the process.

The reaction to Judith Griggs and Cooks Source has been extraordinarily vitriolic and I think it’s partly because of the unspoken recognition that writing is both personal and powerful. I am neither a novelist nor poet, but even in this blog post I am writing down part of myself – this is what I think, and my writing testifies to that. No one else should be able to steal it, or twist my words into something I didn’t intend. Authors have spurred political movements; made and destroyed figureheads; put into words that feeling you have always had but never knew how to describe, and the law acknowledges their achievement, courage and right to be compensated when their work is reproduced by someone else. Copyright recognises that writing has value, and for that, I am grateful.

The neighbourhood of Edinburgh where our bookshops are – Bruntsfield – is largely made up of independent businesses ranging from cheese shops to a hardware shop to boutiques to restaurants to delis to florists to bakeries and a sports equipment shop.  We have some chains of course – the pharmacy, the bank, the ubiquitous branch of Subway – but overall it’s a vibrant community where the quirky rubs shoulders with the practical and turnover of premises is comparatively low with vacant properties being snapped up.  It’s an area which attracts students, actors, writers and artists as well as the usual Edinburgh inhabitants such as lawyers and bankers and the Indiebound ethos should be a perfect fit.

In the next month or two, the Booksellers Association will start rolling out Indiebound among its independent bookseller members and most people I’ve spoken to have been quite enthusiastic.  It’s also something we’ve been advocating since last summer’s pathetic attempt to develop bookaholism as an industry-wide marketing concept (see how we suggested using the Eat, Sleep, Read slogan here).

However, the ABA’s campaign is uncompromising in it’s attitude that independent is good and chain is at best bland and at worst unethical and it will be interesting to see whether the BA can manage to maintain an ‘Indie is Better’ stance when they also include members with diametrically opposed views – WH Smith, Waterstone’s, Tesco etc.  And those members are powerful; BA membership subs are calculated according to turnover so Tesco and Waterstone’s will be paying an amount which gives a lot more clout than those of us at the lower end of the scale.

I really want IndieBound to work and I firmly believe that we’re seeing the beginning of a resurgence in the fortunes of the independent bookseller but whether indies can thrive as part of a trade body which is trying to represent everyone or whether we need an organisation that is solely concerned with the needs of independent booksellers is something that will be need to be considered as we see how successful IndieBound UK is.

So have a lovely festive period and we’ll see you next with our predictions for the book trade in 2010.

I made my own LOLcat: the only time bad grammar is funny...

In fact, someone could probably do an interesting anthropological study on the types of bookshop customers. For example:

1. Those who do not know the difference between a bookshop and a library: we don’t mind parents and children reading a few picture books to see which ones they like. We don’t even mind if they do that and come back a different day/week to buy one. We do mind when they a) read a pile of books bigger than their child, b) let him or her roughly bend the pages and make the books grubby and c) come in every single week and never buy anything.

2. The phone detectives: we have number of people calling to ask for book recommendations. Which we are more than happy to provide, but not when they use the phrase, “thanks, I can order that from Amazon now”. Amazon are cheaper for a reason: they don’t have shop overheads. We do.

3. Amazon listers: the same ilk as above, but who come in with a pen and paper. None of us came to bookselling by way of a turnip truck, yet they don’t seem to realise we know what they are doing!

4. Free stuff magpies: on our Birthday, we gave out balloons to all the children, and goody bags to children whose parent spent over £10. You would not believe the number of people aggressively demanding a goody bag (which included at least 4 free books, stickers, bookmarks, a whoopee cushion, pens, etc) when they had spent £1 on a bookmark. It’s obviously up everyone individually to decide how best to spend their own money, but it’s amazing the number of people who agonise over a £4.99 book for their child, when we see them spending £15 in Starbucks three times a week. 

5. Charity prize hunters with an air of entitlement: we are in a nexus of schools, nurseries, churches and universities. We are in general happy to give out prizes for raffles, tombolas, etc, not only because giving to charity is A Good Thing, but because we are part of the local community and should support community projects. However, there is a polite way and downright rude way to ask. For example, threatening to tell all your friends to “never, ever shop here” unless we give a good prize is most definitely a rude way.

As Vanessa mentioned in a previous post on the Fidra blog, we are knowledgeable: we are, in effect, a resource. People seem blissfully unaware we are a resource they will lose unless they are willing to spend money with us - they cheerfully write down titles then head off for their computer. I’d be willing to bet that if we didn’t exist they’d bemoan the lack of us, but wouldn’t twig the connection. Maybe it’s partly our fault – we need to market the value of what we offer better. But there does seem to be a culture – perhaps started by the ability to get a lot of things free online – of entitlement. The attitude that as long as someone does x or y, I don’t need to bother, I can reap the benefits anyway.

On the upside, we were talking only the other day about how we could all write a Black Books-style programme, but more about the customers than the staff. Frankly, the daily business of an indie bookshop could provide more than enough material…

Borders was a great chain of American bookshops when they first opened in the UK just over a decade ago. It was comfy sofas to slump in while you browsed and made your selection; it was hipper than Waterstone’s with their dated black ash bookshelves; it was Friends, lattes and Amazon hadn’t begun to flex their all-crushing muscles. Their Glasgow store and the Charing Cross Road branch in London were fabulous. However, in the last couple of years things have been troubled; they lost their direction, the supplementary products such as cds and stationery suffered from on-line downloading and a loss of originality respectively and even the efforts of former Channel 4 chairman and pizza supremo Luke Johnson couldn’t help.

A management buy-out a few months ago, funded by venture capital company Valco (whose parent company, specialist liquidators Hilco, were last year involved in the closing down of MFI and Woollies) led to down-sizing/asset-stripping and the selling off of some of the chain’s prime sites while book stock became less comprehensive and other stock became tackier (giant Barbie heads and jewellery boxes in the shape of chaise longues anyone?). In the last week WH Smith walked away from the potential purchase of some of the more desirable branches, the chain was advertised for sale in the Financial Times to no avail and finally, on 26^th November the administrators were called in. It’s a horrible time and although we’re independent booksellers and although we may well pick up some of Borders’ customers we’re really sorry to see this happen and have tremendous sympathy for Borders’ staff.

The demise of Borders (although that description may be premature and a buyer might be found) has changed the face of British bookselling. Now, there’s WH Smith for all your Katie Price, sleb memoirs and misery-lit needs; Tesco and Asda with a similar remit although lightly seasoned with Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver; Waterstone’s, who seem to be losing their way with the nightmare that is the Hub and the shrinking of their stock range; and independent bookshops ranging from small chains such as Foyle’s and Daunt’s to ambitious newbies such as ourselves by way of the boutiques, the radical and the specialist. It’s an interesting time to be a bookseller and I think we could see a renaissance in independent bookshops as customers realise that we can offer levels of service and a depth of range that can’t be found elsewhere on the High Street.

And that ‘interesting time’ is probably a good place to launch this, our new blog, State of Independents (geddit?). We’ve found for a while that the Fidra Blog, whilst widely read and a great way of marketing ourselves has been an uncomfortable mixture of information about what we’re up to in the bookshops and our publishing house coupled with pieces really only of interest to the book trade. So, welcome to State of Independents – we’ll be keeping the Fidra Blog up to date but now we’ll all be writing here about bookselling and the wider book industry as well where we can be as opinionated and outspoken as we like. And if there’s one thing we have it’s opinions…