Merry Christmas
Posted on December 27, 2009 by Vanessa
It’s been a frantic run up to Christmas in both shops and we’re delighted with how things are going – especially at The Edinburgh Bookshop which is hitting targets we didn’t expect to reach until next Christmas.
So have a lovely festive period and we’ll see you next with our predictions for the book trade in 2010.
Me Me Myerson
Posted on December 12, 2009 by Vanessa
Since Borders went into administration there has been a flurry of newspaper articles considering the future of bookselling. These have ranged from talking heads romanticising the Tim Waterstone days at the eponymous chain, to features about boutique-style shops in posh areas of London to trying-to-be-controversial pieces telling us that bookshops and the dead-tree media that they purvey are an anachronism destined to disappear as we download all our reading matter from t’interweb.
But one thing leapt out. In the Observer print edition, accompanying that second article about the Lutyens and Rubinstein bookshop in West London was a sidebar in which Julie Myerson was quoted as saying:
“I buy all books on Amaz*n now because of the huge price difference. But I still use bookshops as places to go to first – to remind me of what’s out there and to look at and touch the books.”
This is Julie Myerson - Guardian columnist of the ‘all about me’ type, Newsnight Review contributor – writer of lit-fic novels which generally don’t get masses of attention beyond positive broadsheet reviews and being long-listed for various awards. Not that a Booker long-listing is to be sneered at, but it doesn’t usually translate into masses of sales. No, Myerson’s books are the type which usually rely on word-of-mouth and hand-selling by booksellers who are passionate about them.
Until her last book. The Lost Child is a lightly fictionalised account of her son’s drug-taking and subsequent ejection from the family home aged 17 and garnered many column inches (accompanied by pics of JM looking meaningful and some interviews with her understandably pissed off son) due to the dubious morality of exploiting one’s family situation for financial gain – is it really any different to Katie Price’s apparent inability to conduct her life without a film crew on hand? This publicity meant a huge increase in sales and Myerson probably feels that she doesn’t need to concern herself with independent bookshops any more.
I don’t mind people buying books from Amazon if they’re cheaper – it’s one of the reasons why we don’t waste space on glossy sleb chef cookbooks and we skip on much best-selling hardback fiction with its over-inflated RRP (to allow for the massive discounting that goes on), but I do object to people using us as Amazon’s shop window as Myerson is advocating. Come, browse, pick up the new Dan Brown on-line or in Asda if you wish (because they’ll be selling it for less than we can buy it in for), but spend some money with us and don’t just pay lip service to the fluffy, romantic idea of having a local independent bookshop. Especially if you’re a writer of less than entirely commercial fiction such as Myerson’s because you really should appreciate what the word of mouth of booksellers can do for sales – not for nothing is Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses our best-selling fiction title.
Myerson would have done well to remember is that when she’s no longer able to promote her books by prostituting her family circumstances she’ll be hoping that us indies are going to support her and embrace her efforts. Right. Think you might have shot yourself in the foot on that one Jules.
Entitlement
Posted on December 7, 2009 by Becky
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…
Bookselling after Borders
Posted on December 5, 2009 by Vanessa
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 26th 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…
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