Yeah, supermarkets have more say because they buy more stuff from you. I don't have any clout so I have to be a mouthy bugger to get any attention!

And my comment was actually a kind of agreement with you! Maybe I wasn't too clear but I was thinking about your MTV comment and how it took a long time for record companies to come to grips with the young upstarts.

And £25 is still too much for the Adam Phillips and £26 is still a weird price for the new Sir James Oliver (unfair to you though as they are both Penguin books but you know what I mean) and our customers don't mind paying a fair price, they're not always looking for the cheapest option but some new books are just a rip off.

Thanks for the shout out though. I don't think too many of our customers down the 'loo read your blog (or ours) but, hey, all publicity is good right?

A part of the solution to the first part of your post would be for publishers to deal more honestly with wholesalers. I have just finished a conversation with one such who tells me that whilst they give Bertrams 50% Amazon ask and get 55% for their Advantage program.

As to the second part of your post, I have read it four times and still don't understand it. You appear to be saying it's hard! and not much else.

I would endorse the valid point made by Jonathan Main : its time for a little more honesty in supply terms and recognition that terrestial wholesalers are as important as, if not more important than, internet consignment merchandisers.

The seduction of low prices leads inevitably to the countryside being covered in large warehouses while town centres become ever more dreary and dull places to shop.

I predict a backlash against internet shopping soon as people start to appreciate the importance of lively, interesting streets in town centres.

PS I'll leave the last words to the lady who just bought JL Carr's A Month in the Country (Quince Tree Press Edition) and an Alan Hollinghurst pb (money coming your way there Richard)

"It's lovely to have a bookshop like this in Waterloo".

Jonathan

As to the second part of your post, I have read it four times and still don't understand it. You appear to be saying it's hard! and not much else.

YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Not much else to say. It's work in progress.

Jonathan

As to the second part of your post, I have read it four times and still don't understand it. You appear to be saying it's hard! and not much else.

YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Not much else to say. It's work in progress.

Richard
I heard you the first time :)

Matthew, I don't think people work that way. They'll keep buying stuff where it's cheaper AND complaining about the demise of the neighbourhood. Why? Because they know what they do as an individual is unimportant: it's the masses that matter, and no one controls them. In economic terms, "lively, interesting streets in town centres" are public goods: you can't force people to pay for it, and you can't leave those who don't pay out. So everyone decides not to pay and leave the burden to the next guy.

I do think independents bookstores have a future, but it depends on giving the customer something they're not getting at either Amazon or Waterstone's: good advice, good coffee, football night, something. You know all this way better than I do. But I also don't think internet shopping is in trouble: they'll keep striving, and it's the big chains - who can't beat the internet on discounting nor the independents on football night - who will suffer.

Lucas - I think you are right...

...but I also dream that one day it will be possible for people to realise that "the masses" are made up of individuals and that it would, could and should be possible for people to avoid falling into the trap you so eloquently describe.

Most people who patronize a mom and pop operation do so to socialize. They just happened to buy a few things while they're at it. Really, when it comes to an independent bookstore being able to fulfill requests the big people can't, can make all the difference.

Locally there's a speciality bookstore known as Mysterious Galaxy. Horror, mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy are their focus. And they go out of their way to foster a community with book signings, a weekly book discussion, and a presence at all local science fiction conventions and the San Diego Comic-Con. (Google for the Mysterious Galaxy web site.)

The people at Mysterious Galaxy know the field. They know the people in it; who's good, who's not. Who sells, who sells consistently, and who tends to be a flash in the pan. Knowledge any bookstore proprieter needs to know if he's to have any chance.

Having customers who know the field helps too. Helps form and sustain a community when your regulars know what they're talking about. A long time customer who leads a new customer to a first class author does more for the business than most advertising campaigns ever run.

But you have to work at it.

One thing that saddens me is that newly published books seem to have a much shorter lifespan in the public's attention these days. The latest CD is expected to hit the top ten, if not the number one spot immediately, otherwise it is deemed to be unsuccessful.

In the new outlets for books that are gaining great force, e.g. Tesco, if you don't grab the novel off the shelf when you see it, you can forget it, merely weeks later, sometimes just a couple of weeks, it seems. And those novels are just those expected to do extremely well, with a huge marketing budget attached. Reliable, plodding midlisters, who may be tomorrow's "big reads" don't get a look in. (I'm sure I'll be corrected, if wrong here.)

Advancing technology has brought with it the predominance of immediacy and nothing else, it seems to me. As a more general point, I don't think that's healthy, but I'm also sure that that is also partly due to me turning into "grumpy old woman".

It's a shame that it's a time when you will buy a novel because it flashes before your eyes for five minutes and hooked you only within that time. Luckily there is still some worth in word of mouth.

The main reason why customers patronise my bookshop is because I carry a very "catholic" selection of interesting reading : most in-print titles that are not stocked can be sourced within 24 hours. The nearest chain stores are nearly 20 miles drive away ; I carry a diverse inventory, mostly non-fiction. The fact that some customers from the larger towns visit my bookshop shows that I must be doing something right with my stock range.

Customers visit terrestial indie bookshops because they prefer to handle books rather than buying via mail order ; ambience is important but very low down the list of priorities. Every day a customer will express gratitude at my committment to the business.

I also purchase publisher's ends : both overstocks and end-runs when the publisher decides to liquidate the stock. It is now quite common to obtain liquidated stocks of hardback non-fiction where the title is only just issued in paperback. IMVHO there are many reasons for this development : the supply chain is a changing fast.

Indie bookshops rarely stock titles which are in the top 20 lists : we stock for the long-term.

Matthew

You need more stock: at least twice as much

Tim

I assume from Tim Coates comments that he must have visited Crockatt & Powell in order to come to the opinion expressed above. I get rather tired with non shopkeepers pontificating on what we indies should be doing.

Happened on Susan Hill's blog and there she is complaining that Amazon does not have some John Betjeman titles available for immediate delivery.

Ho hummph,thankfully the Basin does not have a monopoly on supply and many indies like myself would have supplies of all the John Murray titles released to celebrate the 100th anniversary of JB's birth.

Away from the JB anniversary, this week I have purchased 400 copies of one title, 61 copies of another title, 30 copies of another title - I could chunter on. I can tell you I would rather have high stock levels of the right titles (often at the right price for myself and the customer) than I would have thousands of (extra) titles which might be purchased on high days and holidays once in a lifetime.

Indie bookshops get excellent delivery terms from Bertrams and many publishers ; we shelve broad selections of unusual titles for discerning customers, and can get most titles delivered within a 24hr business day.

I have never visited Crockatt & Powell, but I would assume that they have the right stock level for the end of August. Jeezh they haven't been trading 12 months, it takes at least 3 years to get stock levels adjusted to know that you have the right (viable) formula.

Anybody who wants to tell me that I need to stock more titles will likely never purchase a book in my shop.

Clive

From your last posting: ' I get rather tired with non shopkeepers pontificating on what we indies should be doing.'

Now you know how I feel about your comments about publishing!!!

Best

Richard

Tim

It is very easy, as I think you know, to overstock a bookshop with somebody else's money. It's a bit of a different proposition when the loot's your own.

Clive

So now you know.

I am a shopkeeper (with my own money) I have been in to the shop (lots of times) and it needs twice as much stock. It is like the vegetable shop in which a fine calculation has been made that there is a need for one parsnip and two cucumbers, and that is all there is.

There is a stock level on the range of 1-5; Robert Topping famously works at 7 on that scale. But level 1 is too low. It's wasting the rent.

You can fill it with backlist (even some packaged publishing of which Paul Hamlyn would have approved) but give it some weight- you'll double the sales, easily. That shop is in a really good place.

Tim

Tim,

I think we need 20% more stock max. And it's not true that if you double your stock you double your sales, go ask Robert Topping up in Ely.

We had to start up when we did or we'd have gone mad! What were we supposed to do? Wait another 10 years trying to save up and miss the boat? Unfotunately neither of us had a hefty redundancy pay-out so we had to rely on the bank, some meagre savings and parents.

Also it was a conscious decision from the start to 'understock'. We have to define ourselves against the opposition and one way is to not appear to be a traditional bookshop - packed to the rafters. Most of our customers comment on how different we are and how much they appreciate it because they don't have to wade through piles and piles of stuff they're not interested in. I can speak, I think, for customers everywhere about the paralysis of choice. It tends to be people in the business who make comments such as yours.

And we're doing fine despite being 'understocked'. On saturday we passed a big sales target that puts us 2 months ahead of budget for the year.

However, as I look around thngs are looking a bit threadbare but as Clive said it is the end of august... but then again, on my regular recces around I rarely come away with a list of more than a dozen titles that we either don't have or would actually want. We are super-choosy and the customers now appear to trust our choices.

Ah- but it's not your customers you need to hear; it's those people who ought to be customers.

Market researchers rather cruelly call them "lapsed users". They are the people who come in and don't tell you why they didn't buy something. You've got to know what they think.

Of course there are more books you could be selling- and you are paying for the space and yourselves.

You may be doing very well, but when some cruel chain retailer comes along, you might be blown away. Just because there are none active at the moment, don't assume... ask Ian Norrie.

When I took up publishing a wise old publisher, a friend, said to me "how many books are you planning?" I said "Six". He said "Too many. Do one" It was very good advice. These old guys have picked up a trick or two.

No more advice. Tim

All advice welcome Tim et al...(Tim - why not say hello next time you are in? We can be quite friendly on occasion)

We are probably understocked just now - the perfect position to be in pre Christmas?

We are going to the pub tonight to plan x-mas strat. Stock levels will rise soon as, hopefully, will the profits...

We are learning all the time and this IS year one!

Although there are a few shop visitors who come straight from casting roles in The Monty Python Bookshop sketch, the indie shopkeeper becomes very adept at breaking boundaries and ensuring that somebody who is "just browsing" leaves clutching titles which will ensure that they will become regular customers.