Sunday, August 26, 2007
Hobby horses

I suppose we all have hobby horses. Some independent booksellers who comment on this blog regularly seem to be obsessed by Amazon's discounting policy and the thought that publishers are encouraging it by granting bigger discounts. I cannot speak for other publishers (and it would of course be wrong to discuss such matters between ourselves) but we grant the lowest possible discounts to all distributors and retailers. It would be madness to do otherwise. Of course, we could choose not to do business through certain channels which use discount to their customers as a marketing tool but that would result in our turning away around 80% of our business. I imagine our authors would be less than pleased at a reduction of 80% in their sales and their omission from best seller lists and they would abscond. That would leave us with a reduction of sales of 100%. Not a great way to run a business but at least we couldn't be accused of failing to support small independent book shops.

However. my hobby horse is public libraries and their apparently unstoppable demise through lack of investment in books. Major parts of Macmillan's business operate in a town called Basingstoke in the county of Hampshire 'rolling green hills, tranquil villages and ancient forests'). It is a relatively prosperous part of the UK. The library service is the responsibility of Hampshire County Council through its Libraries and Discovery Centres department. They have set up a Library Review Panel to:

  • Assess progress of the service in meeting the challenges

  • Gain current perspectives of national professional organisations

  • Discover how other library authorities are meeting challenges and/or reversing trends

  • Assess progress with the 'Discovery Centre' approach

  • Inform future thinking

All well and good but they might save a lot of time and money if they simply looked at their own audited accounts sent to me by the industrious Tim Coates.

The number of books held in stock has declined by 24% over the last eight years.

Spending on books has fallen by 35% before taking into account anything for inflation.

Total library spending has increased by 43%.

Spending on books as a percentage of total spend has fallen from 13.6% to 6.23%.

The cost per visit to to libraries has increased from £2.03 to £3.28.

What does this mean? The libraries under their management stock fewer books and thus attract fewer visitors. At the same time they have been spending more money on the management of the libraries. The result is that they have become less efficient at what they do and cost the taxpayer more than they should.

What should the Library Review Panel recommend? Transfer responsibility for individual libraries to well-qualified, knowledgeable and committed librarians, cut out the local government (and central government for that matter) back-office strategy committees and bureaucracy, and spend more money on books and clean and safe buildings. Abolish themselves. I'm sure it's much more easily said than done but we need action now not words.

This excellent piece by Katherine Rushton in The Bookseller  tells the national story much better than I could. I've just spotted this great piece in today's Observer by Rachel Cooke and I reprint just one paragraph to give the flavour:

'It would not be exaggeration to say that this piece of wimpish guff makes me feel physically ill. The person who made it clearly has no idea how parlous the situation is. I do not have the space to go over all the closures, recent and mooted, here. So let me give you just one recent example. Earlier this month, a man called Yinnon Ezra, who is head of leisure services at Hampshire County Council and also, more interestingly, a recently appointed board member of the MLA, blithely announced: 'We have to ask whether fiction should remain in libraries when most people buy books.' When asked whether it disagreed with this statement, the MLA (the central government quango with responsibility for libraries) refused to do so.'

 

#    |  Comments [8]  | 
8/26/2007 10:30:16 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard

Many thanks-- last week your adjective for me was 'rude' and this week I am 'industrious' - that is progress with which I am well pleased.

Nevertheless the public library service in the UK is not making any progress at all.

What is frustrating is that the idea of putting books in large buildings is worthwhile is not a social theory-- we have both seen a time when, with frightening courage, people who became famous like Tim Waterstone and Terry Maher, and others just as clever but less public, like John Monk and many more, realised that if you put books in large attractive public buildings, people will use them.

This was not do gooding, or inclusivity-- it was the simple observation of a huge public need-- and those stockholdings satisfied what people of all kinds and means and interests wanted.

We aren't proposing better stocked libraries out of some academic desire for reader development-- we are doing it because we actually know for certain people want them. We've done it before. It's simple

Tim
tim coates
8/26/2007 10:37:33 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Tim, How about rude, industrious and right?
richard charkin
8/26/2007 11:37:34 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard, I live in the Scottish Borders and if this area is anything to go by then the councils seems to have just given up. There's no impetuous in the library service, no innovation and nothing to excite the public, nor entice them in. It's almost as though, we have them and we'll do the minimum to make them work.

What about authors doing library tours on a much bigger and better funded scale? Publishers holding 'book nights' to show off their wares? But most of all council's showing some excitement and commitment for what is a vital part of our national welfare.
Richard Havers
8/26/2007 1:39:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard

Although the mega-selling discounters might account for 80% of Macmillan's turnover on some titles, I would have though that this would be the excepetion rather the rule with most quality publishers.

I am not obsessed by Amazon's predatory pricing ; however, as a dealer who stocks for the long-term rather than short-term (hence my very hefty investment in quality 'bin ends'), I most certainly concern myself about what is happening in the sales jungle.

Much of the discounting on Amazon is deliberately predatory on their part - witness the manner in which the Basin offers all in-print New Naturalist titles at 30-34% discount when they are assured to sell at a premium as soon as the title is OOP. I'll still stock NN titles because I know that it is commercially viable for me in the *long term*

There is no assured future, in the manner of NN, for most titles : in many other instances the publisher is in effect remaindering the title by, such as Bloomsbury's recent 57% discounting of ISBN 0747565600 on Amazon, and assures the title of 'dog' status in the secondary market.

Remember Bloomsbury are the same company which recently in effect remaindered their "21's" series paperbacks by pre-stickering them with massive discount for Waterstone's. This manoeuvre was 'exposed' by a letter to TheBookseller from a fellow west country bookshop owner.

As an aside, today I have been asked for safety pins, porcelain thimbles and a calculator ; thankfully nobody has come in asking for a quarter of tea, or the Sunday papers (both of which has happened in the past).
Clive Keeble
8/26/2007 4:27:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Concerning the Library Review in Hampshire, all the 'expert witnesses' (of which I was one) have appeared and been questioned before a panel of county councillors. The report, and its recommendations, are now being compiled. So far, so good. But the finished report will then be passed to the head of libraries, Richard Ward, who works for Yinnon Ezra. Mr Ward has described the following reports as "flawed" : the House of Commons Select Committee report of 2005; the PKF-DCMS report of 2005; the Audit Commission reports of 1998 and 2002; and the report by John Hicks and Tim Coates called 'Who's in Charge'. He has also rejected the validity of a recent petition signed by 12,000 Hampshire residents objecting to the loss of librarians' jobs (his verdict: people 'didn't know what they were signing'). So what is the likelihood of his taking this new Review seriously?
Amanda Field
8/27/2007 6:35:05 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Amanda, It is just because local government has been so idiotic that Tim Coates has been moved to devote so much time, expense and energy on exposing this scandal. Who knows whether Hampshire Council will take the review seriously but if they don't there will be a lot of mud flung and a lot of votes lost as a consequence. But even that is absurd, they should take notice because people want, deserve and pay for a decent and cost-effective library service and all they're getting is waffle and costly consultancts reviewing strategy.Please don't give up. Richard
richard charkin
8/28/2007 7:38:07 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Clive, The 80% quoted isn't an audited figure. It all depends on how you define 'discounters'but I'd bet that I'm not far out for us and most other major publishers. I don't thinjk there would be much variation between mass-market and 'quality' proportions either because Amazon tends to account for a larger share of the 'quality' market because of its customer profile and the price/postage ratio.
richard charkin
8/28/2007 8:45:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard,

If I actually believed, as suggested by yourself, that Amazon and the other discounters had such a strangle hold (sales wise) on the quality market, then I would doubt my sanity at continuing to run an independent bookshop.

The picture is actually so very different when speaking confidentially to many publishers with whom I have a close and long-standing relationship.

That much said, the publishers who generally do the biggest discount deals with the mega-sellers are the first to dispose of their hardbacks when the paperback edition is published.
Clive Keeble