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You are here: Home / Archives for bookselling

Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to.

September 10, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

This Slate piece explores “the shifting sands of physical bookselling, where the biggest losers are not—as was once assumed—the independent booksellers, but rather the large book chains”:

Slate

Independent bookstores never had to answer to the dictates of public markets. Many of their proprietors understood, intuitively and from conversations with customers, that a well-curated selection—an inventory of old and new books—was their primary and maybe only competitive advantage. In the words of Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, “The indie bookselling amalgam of knowledge, innovation, passion, and business sophistication has created a unique shopping experience.”

Teicher is hardly a neutral observer, but the revival of independents can’t be statistically denied. Not only have numbers of stores increased, but sales at indies have grown about 8 percent a year over the past three years, which exceeds the growth of book sales in general. One of the strongest categories last year and into this year is hardcover nonfiction, and that has not been the most robust area for Amazon-dominated e-books. Amazon’s sales have been strongest in mass-market fiction. No independent bookstore could thrive on mass-market softcover sales.  Instead, they do well with hardcovers, illustrated children’s books, cookbooks, and the like. And while indies cannot compete with Amazon’s inventory, Amazon evidently cannot supplant indies as shopping and social experiences.

via Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to..

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, bookshop, bookstore, independent, indie

Halls Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells handed over to new owner | Kent and Sussex Courier

May 19, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Sabrina Izzard, owner of Halls antiquarian bookshop in Tunbridge Wells, is retiring after over 30 years as proprietor, having succeeded Elizabeth Batemena in 1983. The new owner is Adrian Harrington, who is currently carrying out refurbishment work on the shop.

courier

“SOMETIMES I hear people saying they’d like to open a bookshop when they retire,” said Sabrina Izzard.

“But that idea’s a complete non-starter – it’s far too energetic for that.”

Looking back on more than 30 years as proprietor of Hall’s Bookshop in Chapel Place, Tunbridge Wells, she said: “I’ve crawled through rafters where the dust was an inch thick, climbed up wobbly steps into attics to lug down box after box of books, and been into cottages where the lights were so dim you could hardly see.”

http://www.courier.co.uk/Halls-Bookshop-Tunbridge-Wells-handed-new-owner/story-21108005-detail/story.html

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: antiquarian, bookselling, bookshop, Halls, second-hand, Tunbridge Wells

Independent bookshops call for government to crack down on Amazon’s taxes

May 16, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Danny Van Emden, of West End Lane Books, West Hampstead, said: “We have to pay our taxes so why shouldn’t they? We sometimes get customers browsing, asking for recommendations, and then say they’re going to buy on Amazon instead because it’s cheaper.

“It’s incredibly frustrating. But the longer this kind of thing goes on the more I think customers become fed up of feeding the beast that Amazon represents. We get sentiments of solidarity from our customers now.”

Michael Goodwin, owner of Highgate Bookshop, Highgate High Street, also felt frustrated. “Amazon is 
undercutting businesses in a dramatic fashion so it’s incredibly unfair that it doesn’t pay the same level of taxes we pay,” he said. “We’re lucky – we have many loyal customers who understand that you can’t have a local bookshop and shop at Amazon. But we still need a level playing field.”

via Independent bookshops call for government to crack down on Amazon’s taxes – News – Hampstead and Highgate Express.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: Amazon, bookseller, bookselling, bookshop, indie, indpendent, taxes

400 My Independent Bookshops Launch in the UK

May 8, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

goodereaderMy Independent Bookshop is a new initiative in the UK that allows any reader to set up their shop with twelve books at a time on their shelves—changing the display as often as they choose by season, genre or simply their mood. The owners of the shelf can earn a 8% commission from their favorite indie bookstore.  Today the service gets out of beta and over 400 bookshops are opening in the UK.

via 400 My Independent Bookshops Launch in the UK.

 

The ‘bookshops’ opening today, following a month-long invite-only beta period, include several high-profile authors and book lovers from Irvine Welsh to Simon Mayo to Carys Bray, many of the UK’s independent bookshops from South London stalwart Dulwich Books to the UK’s smallest island bookshop, Hayling Island Books, and hundreds of specially selected VIP readers.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: books, bookselling, bookshops, independent, readers

Why are booksellers afraid of children’s poetry? asks Mandy Coe

March 31, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

“The delicate machine which brings poetry books into the hands of children is in desperate need of repair,” reckons Mandy Coe…

No one doubts that a market for children’s poetry exists. Children relish it, parents appreciate its accessibility and infinite re-readability, and teachers who’ve unlocked its potential in the classroom swear by it. In 2011, children’s fiction and poetry editor Kate Paice summed up the dilemma of publishers when she told the Bookseller: “A lot of bookshops seem quite scared of poetry. They don’t know how to shelve it or how to sell it, and if we can’t reach our market through bookshops then we can’t sell to our market.”

The fight back began in 2008, when an alliance of publishers, booksellers, educationalists and poetry organisations founded the Children’s Poetry Summit. Now the writing school at Manchester Metropolitan University and Carol Ann Duffy’s Manchester children’s book festival have created an international children’s poetry prize worth £2,000. Philip Gross and Imtiaz Dharker have joined me on a judging panel, sifting through more than 2,500 poems to create an illustrated anthology for readers aged five to 12, to be launched during the festival at the end of June. All we need now is booksellers brave enough to stock it.

via Why are booksellers afraid of children’s poetry? | Books | theguardian.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, bookshops, contemporary, poetry

Daunt Admires Waitrose And Next But Says He Would Royally Screw Up Selling Frocks

March 18, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Extract from a long interview with James Daunt in Retail Week

RetailWeek

Clearly Daunt admires Waitrose. But could he ever see himself running another retailer? After all, if he manages to turn Waterstones around, Daunt will be a man in demand. “I have a great interest in the way other retailers work and I admire hugely what they do at Next and Waitrose, and I absolutely unapologetically go and steal what others do. But I am a bookseller.

“You could put the riches of the world before me to run the Body Shop or whatever it is, and I wouldn’t do it. [Next boss Simon] Wolfson sells frocks, that’s what he does. I expect he would royally screw up the bookshops if he came to run them and I would definitely royally screw up his frocks business if I was to take over that.”

Does Daunt have any regrets about leaping out of his comfort zone and attempting a turnaround on such a huge scale? Emphatically yes, he says. But more because he lacks the time to pursue his love of being a shopfloor bookseller than anything to do with the scale of the task at hand.

“And I don’t get home as early as I used to either. It’s a lot of hard work,” he says.

“My analogy is it’s like skiing a couloir – it’s very steep and very narrow and really fun, your legs are going like billy-o, and if you’re asked if you have regrets half way down, it’s, ‘oh shit’. But there are none when you get to the bottom – assuming you’re still standing.”

via http://www.retail-week.com/people/interview-waterstones-boss-james-daunt-turns-over-a-new-leaf/5058250.article?blocktitle=Entertainm

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, business, Next, selling, Waitrose, Waterstones

IoS Editor Katy Guest Called ‘A Tad Fanatic’ By Globe & Mail Editorial

March 18, 2014 By achuka 1 Comment

Canada’s Globe & Mail has had a go, in an editorial, at the UK’s IoS editor’s announcement that she will no longer consider for review books that come in gender-specific cover designs.

“A tad fanatical”, the editorial thinks.

The sins of undiscerning marketers should not be visited on innocent children’s books. Katy Guest, the literary editor of the Independent on Sunday newspaper in Britain, announced on the weekend that henceforth no children’s book that is marketed by the publisher as “for girls” or “for boys” would even be considered for review. That strikes us as a tad fanatical.
…
If there is a problem here, blame adults who know little or nothing about children’s literature (or literature), and just want someone to help them figure out what to buy for this or that child. Yes, a children’s book that is narrowly directed to one gender is probably not a good book. But the fault may lie in a publishing company’s presentation, rather than what the author has written. And is it so wrong for cover designers and dust-jacket writers to try to help buyers, by suggesting who might be most likely to enjoy a book? Ms. Guest’s promise to throw ostensibly gender-targeted children’s books “straight into the recycling pile” will cause injustices.

via The girl-boy thing and children’s-book reviews – The Globe and Mail.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, gender, stereotype, stereotyping

Independent Bookshop Of The Year – Regional Shortlists

March 2, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Regional shortlists have been announced for The Bookseller’s Independent Bookshop of the Year, sponsored by Gardners. Both he current shop of the year, Linghams Bookshop, and 2012’s winner, The Mainstreet Trading Company from St Boswells in the Scottish Borders, are listed again.
The 38 shops will now be hoping to win their respective regions, when the announcement is made on 14th March. The regional winners then compete for the overall prize, which will be awarded at The Bookseller Industry Awards at the Hilton, Park Lane, London, on 12th May. Award sponsor Gardners will present the winners with £5,000 to be spent on their shop.

IRELAND
1. Bridge Street Books Wicklow
2. O’Mahony’s Booksellers Limerick
3. The Blessington Bookstore Blessington
4. The Gutter Bookshop Dublin
5. Whyte Books County Cork
SCOTLAND
6. Atkinson-Pryce Books Biggar
7. Far From the Madding Crowd Linlithgow
8. Looking Glass Books Edinburgh
9. The Bookmark Granton-on-Spey
10. The Edinburgh Bookshop Edinburgh
11. The Mainstreet Trading Company St Boswells
NORTH
12. Bookends Carlisle
13. Linghams Bookshop Wirral
14. Storytellers, Inc Lytham St Annes
15. The Book Case Hebden Bridge
16. The Grove Bookshop Ilkley
17. White Rose Bookcafe Thirsk
MIDLANDS & WALES
18. Booka Bookshop Oswestry
19. Page 45 Nottingham
20. Rossiter Books Ross-on-Wye
21. The Bookshop Kibworth Kibworth
22. The Chepstow Bookshop Chepstow
23. Warwick Books Warwick
SOUTH-EAST & EAST
24. Chapter One Reading
25. One Tree Books Petersfield
26. The Wallingford Bookshop Wallingford
27. Chorleywood Bookshop Chorleywood
28. The Book Hive Norwich
LONDON
29. Dulwich Books London
30. Goldsboro Books London
31. Heywood Hill London
32. Pages of Hackney London
33. Stanfords London
SOUTH-WEST
34. Octavia’s Bookshop Cirencester
35. The Book Shop Liskeard Liskeard
36. The Borzoi Bookshop Stow-on-the-Wold
37. The Torbay Bookshop Paignton
38. Winstone’s Sherborne

via Independents vie for regional crowns at Bookseller Industry Awards | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, bookshop, independent, indie

Belgravia Books – Indie Bookshop Feature #5

January 18, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

belgravia_sm-101

Victoria is my entry point into London and usually as soon as I’m off the train and through the ticket barrier I’m striding across the forecourt aiming to catch a tube or bus into another part of the city. Consequently, I rarely explore the streets surrounding the station – with the exception of Vauxhall Bridge Road, if I am heading for Tate Britain or Walker Books, and Victoria Street, if I am headed for Westminster. I know it’s not much of a walk to Sloane Square and the Saatchi Gallery, but it’s only one stop on the tube and you’re there in a flash. Which explains why I had not ventured on foot in a westerly direction from the station for many a year. Not since Macmillan Children’s Books were based in Eccleston Place and hosted many a party in the 1990s, when Kate Wilson was at the helm.

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So I was unaware of the existence of Belgravia Books, an independent bookshop that opened in September 2011 tucked away in Ebury Street, until I noticed a tweet from Scott Pack sending out a general invitation to a launch of one of his Friday Project titles.

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If you’re a regular user of Victoria station, the shop is less than five minutes away. Best way to get to it is to go up the escalator to the upper shopping mall (currently undergoing reconstruction) and walk through to the upper exit into Buckingham Palace Road. Cross over into Eccleston Street (directly opposite), walk up past Eccleston Place then turn right onto Ebury Street. Voila, you will see the blue Belgravia Books shop sign.

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Belgravia Books is an adjunct of Gallic Books, a small publishing company founded (by Jane Aitken and Pilar Webb, committed francophiles and previous colleagues at Random House) with the aim of making the very best French writing available to English-speaking readers.  The bookshop, while specialising in books in translation, is by no means simply an outlet for Gallic Books’ own publications. They feature prominently in the window displays, but inside the shop itself they sit side by side with the wide range of other stock.

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The shop is managed by Andy, a bookseller with over 18 years experience, many of them spent working in various branches of Books Etc, until the Borders/Books Etc. collapse at the end of 2009. On the day of my visit he had just returned from a 3-week break. I told him how many books I was seeing for the first time. “Well, there’s no point being independent if you just stock what Waterstones and Smiths have.”  Andy is the only full-time person on the shop floor, but he is supported by three or four other part-time staff, including Emily, who had responded to my initial email enquiry, but was not working on the day of my visit. The Gallic Books office is immediately alongside the shop and Andy tells me that the publishing team are more than ready to help out on the shop floor at busy times.

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“Crime never goes away” was something Andy repeated more than once in our conversation. And crime is a particular strength in both the shop and the Gallic Books catalogue . Many of the titles that Gallic Books has translated into English come from the French crime genre. And the shop holds a series of Crime Month talks that are very popular and attract audiences upwards of 40, many of them regulars. Each panel talk is country-themed; there has recently been a Latin-American Month (with two people from the independent Bitter Lemon Press presenting), a Spanish Month (with a professor from UCL) and an Italian Month. Coming up next in this series is a Polish Crime Evening.

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The shop is also a favourite launch venue for Scott Pack (seen on the left in the image below), publisher at the Friday Project. Scott says, “Belgravia Books is the perfect place for our book events because it is easy to get to (right by Victoria station), is a nice space (not too big not too small), has a great team (Andy, the manager, always has a great display of the book set up by the time we arrive) and is one of those wonderful curated bookshops that it is impossible to leave without a pile of books you never knew you wanted. I am pretty sure most of the people who come to our launches return to the shop on their own at a later time and buy even more books!”

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For a slideshow of images from this particular launch event, click the next image:

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The shop has a mailing list that you can subscribe to via the website to keep informed of upcoming events, such as the crime evenings and book launches. Andy explained to me that the current bookshop web design will be changing in the not too distant future, to make it more responsive and mobile friendly. There will also be a different back-end system for book inventory and e-commerce.

Antoine Laurain introduces his novel, The President’s Hat [the first few frames show the author entering the bookshop from the street]

 

 

 

Filed Under: Belgravia, Books, Bookshops Tagged With: Belgravia Books, bookselling, bookshop, crime, French, Friday Project, Gallic Books, independent, London, Scott Pack, translated, Victoria

Book sales figures speak volumes – Yorkshire Post

January 16, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

There has been quite a bit online over the past couple of days about David Ford and his second-hand bookshop in Saltaire, Yorkshire. Ford complained on Facebook about the pitiful level of recent takings and as a result did a roaring trade at the weekend. In response, Andrew Robinson of the Yorkshire Post has put together a rather good report on the state of independent bookselling both locally and nationally:

[Ford’s] Saltaire Bookshop survives because he cut overheads by moving from rented premises into a property he owns in Myrtle Place.

“I can keep going,” he says. “This shop is not going to disappear, far from it. It’s about being clever to survive.”

Sadly, the number of bookshops across Yorkshire has fallen sharply and the number continues to shrink in the face of online competition and the rise of e-readers.

At the weekend the Barbican bookshop in York closed after more than half a century and a shop in Garforth, near Leeds, ceased trading recently after 25 years, citing online competition.

At The Children’s Bookshop in Lindley, Huddersfield, proprietor Sonia Benster is “cautiously positive” about the future, having seen trade hit “rock bottom”.

“We are not at rock bottom now – we are chugging along and waiting for the green shoots. It’s not doom and gloom but until I see interest from the buying public I have to be supremely cautious.”

Mrs Benster, whose customers visit from across the North, has been running the Lindley shop for 39 years.

In another 12 months, she may decide to sell up.

“I think 40 years could be my time to move on. I want the shop to continue and for the public to come and support us.”

via Book sales figures speak volumes – Yorkshire Post.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: bookselling, bookshop, Saltaire, Yorkshire

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