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Tuesday 7 February 2012

There's bookshops and then...

Thursday, 26th November 2009

So Borders is the first. The bookshop chain went into administration today, after rumours flew and were denied and flew again. Given the present state not merely of the economy but of the book trade in general it would not be surprising if within 5 years there are no bookselling chains on the High Street at all. Waterstone’s may well be the next to go, after which I predict the not unhappy state of affairs in which the survivors will be the newly re-energised and lively good small independent bookshops, the supermarkets merely for the popular paperbacks at large discounts – and Amazon.

In my recent mini-author tour I went to four small indie shops, each of which, in very different ways, was a model of what they should be and will have to be, to survive. They did not bother to stock the latest celeb memoir or the glossy Christmas cookbooks because they could not discount them as do a W.H.Smith across the road, or the online giant. Every one of them had something better to offer – enticing selections of hand-picked books often from out of the way publishers, good backlist stocks, wonderful art, photography and travel sections. Their children’s book corners were all particularly well-stocked and arranged, enticing to both children and parents and often with fat bean bags, children’s art competitions – winners up on the walls- sample copies for reading, toy boxes for the toddlers.

Such shops sometimes have small coffee areas, stock other book-related items and greetings cards, audio books and even music CDs. But their main strength lies in their having knowledgeable, friendly, well-read, interested staff who are experts at guiding, say, grandparents or aunts who do not know what a 9 year old boy might like reading, have the titles of the last three novels by Alexander McCall Smith off by heart and are delighted to share their own reading enthusiasm and recommendations and run an in-store book club. These are the shops whose author events are attended by a loyal local audience. At each of my talks I answered a wide-range of questions from the informed and attentive people there, who afterwards bought a great many books. I don’t think anyone went away empty handed.

All of this is helping them to survive in a difficult market - because the one thing these small shops cannot afford to do is to join in the suicidal discounting war with the chains or the internet giant. Publishers have allowed themselves to be held to ransom over discounts, which can be up to 75%. It is well-nigh impossible to make a profit with such tight margins.

There are plenty of other things wrong with the trade. Far too many books are published – over 120,000 new titles in Britain in the last year and even excluding academic and text books, most these will sell comparatively few copies. At one time, libraries bought a lot of books, now they buy few. A sale of 2,000 copies in hardback used to be average for a first novel from a major publisher. Now, most sell fewer than 500 and non-fiction can be worse. Out of interest, I have been following the fortunes of a handsomely produced, well illustrated history title from a large and very good publisher. It is not written for scholars although it is by an expert and its subject is of more than minority interest. Published a month ago, it had sold 48 copies when I checked on the Book Database this afternoon.

For the last thirteen years I have run a small publishing company and we recently stopped bringing out fiction other than for children, because we cannot make it pay even modestly. I run the business from home, employ only freelance staff on an ad hoc basis and do not take any salary myself. There is no other way I can so much as break even. How large firms with staff, office overheads, rents and rates can survive is a matter of concern but many are doing so at the moment by making employees redundant. That cannot go on.

Perhaps the biggest concern for us all is the e-book. These have their place, just as audio books do but publishers are rushing like gadarene swine over the cliff to predict and even encourage the demise of the printed book. They want to replace real books with e-readers and downloads whereas they should be thinking of those as additional means of reading books which are useful in certain circumstances. But ordinary people who are passionate readers love the physical book. That is what they buy. The book is a perfect piece of intelligent design. Bookshops, especially the best of the independents, are a joy to visit and long may they be so.

This is not only a matter of aesthetics though. I do not think that anyone in the trade who is pushing electronic readers and books so enthusiastically has stopped to think of the worst and the most immediate consequence of the demise of the printed book which is unemployment on a huge scale.

Book shops, publishers, designers, printers, paper manufacturers, binders, librarians, distributors, warehouses, wholesalers, shippers, packagers, delivery services – all of them will be redundant, all over the world. This is still a huge industry. The number of people needed to manufacture e-books is tiny by comparison.

Borders bookshop chain is only the start unless those of us who care about literature and reading, owning, loving the physical book in all its many and wonderful forms, start fighting for its survival now. By all means let us have e-readers and e-books, as well as, not instead of, real books. After all, recordings, by whatever means, have not made live music redundant.

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Jeremy

November 26th, 2009 11:37pm Report this comment

There is no substitute for the physical book. Why? Because you associate a particular book with a particular time, a particular place and particular emotions. The book becomes both the repository and the reminder of these things for you, and if you wish to re-experience them and remember....then all you have to do is pluck it off the shelf.

No so-called "e-book" can replace the relationship one has with a particular, physical book.

THX1138

November 26th, 2009 11:56pm Report this comment

Who cares? . My local Borders in Islington was crap, surly staff, crap CD's and half the store was taken selling PS3's ..I buy everything on Amazon, huge choice, cheap and next day delivery.

Anne Wotana Kaye

November 27th, 2009 11:19am Report this comment

I love book shops and welcome my visits to Bath, a city where civilised book shops still exist. I do not really regret the passing of Borders, indeed most of the chain book retailers are miserable places. They only find their equal in the modern public libraries, which are traversities of their original purpose. Coffee shops, breast feeding mothers, disgusting yelling children. all blend with the garish collection of chick-lit, cookery and 'famous' personality books, plus the usual misery issues, all about sexual, physical, mental and unusual and extreme abuse. No I won't miss Borders, or indeed any chain book shop that decides to slide away. I am sick of only books that were published very recently being available. No chance of getting earlier works of a writer who has attracted one's interest. Any crap on TV will find the book or book version there leering at you in the front of the shop windows. No, give me the quiet, slightly dusty sanctuary of an old-fashioned books shop. The smell of leather and furniture polish, the yellowish haze as the sun peeps in through and sends specks of dust dancing over the well-laden shelves. Heaven, to me, is a book shop set on several floors, each new floor revealing a treasure house of volumes. Rather like a child's dream sweetshop, crammed with all the old favourites, and yet always something exciting and new to discover.

Philip Ralli

November 27th, 2009 12:13pm Report this comment

My own experience with e-books is that they work very well on long distance flights because the screen is lit. Short stories like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s that you can read in one sitting are particularly adapted. Briefer moments like waiting for a bus can be used to remind oneself of a poem. Plus you can change the font size if you forgot your specs. Finally, they are unbeatable for reference: that Serbo-Croat phrasebook or to compare Bible translations.
But Anna Karenina? Forget it!

wolf

November 27th, 2009 5:28pm Report this comment

I bought two Colin Dexter ( Inspector Morse) nearly new paperbacks for £1.20 at my local charity shop today.

ndm

November 27th, 2009 6:16pm Report this comment

I have long thought Borders (US) to be in trouble if only because every week they send me coupons with 30% discounts. These discounts suffice to make Borders cheaper than Amazon - which, in the US, benefits from zero sales tax.

The problem of a Borders demise is that it is a much better large chain bookstore than is Barnes & Noble. It has a much larger and much more eclectic stock. Borders is much better than Amazon for books I need for work because being able to browse the text freely is useful in evaluating the book.

Sadly, I am not as upbeat as Susan Hill on the future of the small bookstore. Several highly respected bookstores near where I live have gone under recently. The bookstore closest to my house, even with a good reputation for childrens books, has suffered for years even as it tried the patience of loyal purchasers. It stocks almost none of the books I am interested in buying - and, once, it actually refused to order a book I wanted to buy.

I talked to someone who works in a used bookstore and suggested that his store must be struggling against the internet. He said, to the contrary, that the used-book business was better than ever since they were now able to get better pricing information and prices for many books. At least someone is seeing the benefit of the long tail.

And if you think bookstores are hurting you probably don't want to know about record stores.

Peter From Maidstone

November 28th, 2009 9:25pm Report this comment

Books can be printed on demand very easily, especially the academic niche theology books I tend to buy and which probably don't find their way into many bricks and mortar book shops in any case. And it is easy enough to browse a large proportion of the text of most books on books.google.

I am always in my local Waterstones because it has a friendly Costas. I quite often buy books, but it has none of the serious books I buy a lot of. I will buy some sci-fi, or a classic novel, or maybe a language or history book if I happen to be a bit flush.

I buy books from Amazon and they arrive next day for free. If I could easily do the same on the Waterstones site and pick up in store then I would do so, and would happily support the continued existence of the store.

BTW, Maidstone has two large Waterstones about 100m apart selling the same books. No idea how they can both keep going or why they have not closed one. Maidstone is not a huge town.

hadrian

November 28th, 2009 10:43pm Report this comment

It has to be said that the booktrade in general- both bookselling and the publishing side- has fallen on very hard times in recent years. One could attribute its woes to the hard-nosed decision to end the old Net Book Agreement whereby a uniform selling price across the trade had to be maintained and so precluded sharks such as the huge supermarkets predating the market, slashing all the big-sellers' prices and depriving the trade of its lifeblood income. Subsequent developments in on-line buying have only compounded the toxic mix for a high-street bookselling presence. It seems as a sophisticated culture we are determined to make literature as difficult to access and browse as possible.
The old Independents succumbed to the rise of the chains- first city sites with Waterstone's and then Ottakar's elbowing in to market towns. At least both these chains at least earlier in their existence were run by entrpreneurs who shared the old style booksellers' genuine love of the printed word but they and Borders still ousted and stifled many of the older establishments. What was gentlemanly- competing not on price but on individual approach- became ruthlessly cut-throat. The downward spiral in some ways was added to by the advent of the likes of Borders.
Still, all true booklovers surely will enjoy the browsing experience no matter how slick or delightfully 'dusty' presentation may be. Over the years my local Borders has introduced me to numerous gems I'd not otherwise have found. Likewise Waterstone's,which we must now devoutly hope will survive as the sole remaining major book retailer on the high sreet, has still the virtues of retaining at least some genuinely literate staff in its branches who still get a chance to order and push and recommend their own 'Discoveries' and quirky selections that would otherwise get missed.
As you say it may be the ebb-tide of the monopolistic chains may with luck see a resurgence of the Independents as well but I for one would lament the closure of ANY bookshop. Where there are books, there's wonderfully potential pleasure. Even W.H.Smith have served up some nice finds to me over the years! The real miss is in the disappearance of the local, dedicated, knowledgeable book-loving booksellers. Books are not just any old commodity to be flogged thoughtlessly.

Yankee Doodle Mandy

November 29th, 2009 3:11am Report this comment

Excellent article ! Here in the states we are experiencing much the same thing.

"Vita Sine Libris Mors est"

Charles

November 29th, 2009 10:12am Report this comment

Peter,

There is a good system that Blackstones are trialling (it may only be in London) called the Expresso Book Machine. Prints all those niche and out of stock books for you on site in about 5 or 10 minutes. Seems like a good idea for me, even if they do come out a4 rather than book sized.

Augustus

November 29th, 2009 1:06pm Report this comment

I see that Foyles is currently offering a 40% discount and free delivery.

Dave B

November 29th, 2009 2:20pm Report this comment

Since the internet came along, I find I get more books from my local library (you can search their catalogue online). When I do buy books, I tend to buy second-hand if possible, and almost always via Amazon's website.

(Amazon marketplace lets companies and individuals list their competing offers for a publication. For buyers, I think it's very good.)

Susan Stern

November 29th, 2009 6:26pm Report this comment

You ask us to fight for the survival of books and bookshops, Susan, but please, please tell us what we can do. It is a fight I would happily join, but where to start, and how to go on? A word to ndm-- I am often in Barnes and Noble and Borders (along with the few independents left in NYC), and my impression is that B&N are far superior to Borders. For 'literary fiction' at least, the B&N stock outstrips Borders every time.

Rhoda Klapp

November 30th, 2009 9:17am Report this comment

There is no long-term future for any shop hoping to sell products indentifiable by model number or ISBN solely from a retail location. People will come in and look at the product and will then find the cheapest price on the net. The High Street is doomed to become a place where only clothes shops, gift shops and jewellers can survive. The other shops will find themselves operating as showrooms for the net, which is an unsustainable position. It's a shame, for I like bookshops. But recently I've been buying new top ten hardbacks from ASDA. It's hard to predict anything getting better for the low volume trade.

Peter From Maidstone

November 30th, 2009 10:26pm Report this comment

I am sure that bookshops will survive, not least because not everyone is interested in niche books and finds them online.

For me, I will buy best sellers in the supermarket if they are cheapest, and will only find my niche books online or in specialist bookshops, but there is a whole middle range of books which I am willing to buy in a decent bookshop. And one of our Waterstones in Maidstone is a pleasant place to browse, and has a friendly Costas. The Christian section is abysmal, but it has quite a good history section, and quite a lot of science-fiction. I am sure I will continue to be tempted to spend money there.

Derek

December 3rd, 2009 11:29pm Report this comment

Your Panglossian account of how market forces work would be quite laughable if the reality were not so depressing. Amazon has used the Internet to drive both the large bookstores (like Borders) and the small independent stores out of business. Now that it has acquired a near monopoly, prices are starting to rise and delivery times getting slower. Books that would once have been dispatched in 2-3 days now take "between two and three weeks". Same story with CDs. A wonderful classical CD shop closed down in Canterbury recently - it will never be replaced.

Personally I like to have the option of mail order, but I don't want to have no choice but to use mail order. I also like to browse in a shop where I can physically feel the books or CDs, and possibly meet people with similar interests. The Internet is slowly but surely destroying all that. Over time it will damage tourism as our cities and towns become less interesting to foreign visitors because the high streets are all dominated by chains.

It doesn't have to be that way. Through judicious use of rent controls and deliberate government intervention to protect small businesses, France has managed to preserve huge numbers of eclectic, independent shops. Just go to Paris and experience the difference. But of course the French are not naive enough to believe that market forces always deliver the best outcomes for society in general.

It would be nice to imagine a bright picture for small independent bookshops or record sellers. But the statistics, which point to a steady decline in the number of outlets, don't support such an optimistic prognosis I'm afraid.

St Bruno

December 9th, 2009 11:03pm Report this comment

Sad to see book shops close, but a sign of the times I suppose.
In the 1950s and 60s I could spend all Saturday walking the streets and visiting my favourite second hand book shops, however, today just two Waterstones and one Borders, not that I go to Brum much these days. And, they are thinking of knocking down the Central Library, a bad move, a good opportunity to trash the books and archives.
My favourite bookshop: Borders in Orchard Road, Singapore.

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