A postcard from Sydney - John Dougherty

I'm on holiday in Sydney. And something I've noticed is: they have some fantastic bookshops here.

I
I popped into one of them - Better Read Than Dead, near my sister's house - and asked one of the staff a bit about the bookshop scene in Australia. This is what I found out:

There isn't a big chain dominating the market. There are some little indie chains; shops like Berkelouw (whose Rose Bay branch is pictured) have maybe 6 or more branches (in fact, a quick web search suggests 10), but they're still indie chains, with a single owner - a bit like Foyles in the UK, I think. There were one or two big chains some years back, but they went under during the financial crash.

You do get the occasional customer saying "I can get it cheaper on Amazon", but mostly people don't seem to mind paying proper prices for books - and 'proper prices' in Australia can be more than in the UK; one book I checked at random had a UK retail price of £12.99 but an Australian price of $35, which at current exchange rates works out at almost £20 (though of course the pound is weak at the moment).

Indie bookshops are thriving in the cities and doing well in medium-sized towns; they don't tend to exist in small-town Australia. The woman I spoke to told me that she does sometimes get customers visiting from the smaller towns who leave with an armful of books to keep them going till the next time.

Just as in the UK, there's an issue with supermarkets using bestselling books as loss-leaders - selling them below cost, at a price bookshops can't compete with.

But still, bookshops in Australia seem to be doing well. I asked my friendly interviewee what she attributed this to, and while there were a couple of connected factors - regular late opening hours, till around 9.00 or 10.00pm, for instance; or the events that they run - she put it down to one reason: the support of the community. Bookshops are valued here. People - readers - see their value and want to support them.

Any ideas how we can raise the perceived value of bookshops in the UK?


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John's first poetry collection, Dinosaurs & Dinner-Ladies, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones, will be published in early August by Otter-Barry Books.

The latest in his Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series, illustrated by David Tazzyman and published by OUP, is Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers.

First Draft, the author band featuring John, Jo Cotterill and Paul and Helen Stickland, will next be performing at the Just So Festival in August.

World's End - Eve Ainsworth

When I was thirteen, something quite amazing happened.

Prior to this, I had been scribbling ideas at home. I had even sent a children's story - Muddles the Mouse - to Penguin, typed on a second hand rusty typewriter, to which I'd received a glowing letter and several paperback books. But my inspiration was drying up. I was young and no longer felt inspired by either books or my writing.

But then I found a bookshop - World's End. This was an age when I was first allowed to trek to town by myself or with friends and it was during this time that we discovered the shop, tucked away in the back streets. It was an unassuming building, hardly the most exciting thing to see - but when we wandered in, we found the thrill of books overpowering.

To be honest, it was pretty intimidating. The back of shop was full of comics and graphic novels. Teenage boys filled the aisles, leafing through the boxes and glaring at us skinny, nervous girls as we slipped in.

I remember rows of new shiny books, stacks of crime journals which pricked my curiosity. And then - on a bottom shelf, in the far corner - was a shelf marked TEEN.

We crouched down and pulled out some battered second-hand gems - the majority of them American. My eyes darted across the text. Christopher Pike, Lois Duncan, Lois Lowry.

My first purchase was Christopher Pike -  Gimme a Kiss. This book kept me up at night. It was pacy, thrilling, daring.  I never looked back.

Every week I would be in that shop, ignoring the boys at the back - just leafing through my new inspiration. Some days I could afford to buy, others I would just plan my next purchase. I particularly grew to love Pan Horizon books and gained an impressive collection.
The owners got used to seeing me, as I took away another book encased in a crisp paper bag. Inside my head was buzzing with ideas. I knew now that I wanted to write just like these authors.

It was a sad day when the shop finally closed in the late 90's, but of course by then the teen market was expanding rapidly. Things were changing. But I missed my backstreet shop, the smell of old books, the rough carpet against my legs as I sat reading, the gentle bell as the door was opened.

And I'll never forget it.

Perhaps even stranger - I ended up marrying one of those intimating teens that lurked at the back - so at least we can reminisce together.





 

BOOKSELLER SUNDAYS: An invitation to writers from Meryl Halls at the Booksellers Association

This is the first in our new series of guest blogs by booksellers. These blogs are designed to show life behind the scenes of a crucial but neglected relationship – the one between writers and booksellers. Here Meryl Halls shares news of some exciting initiatives and invites writers to participate in the events such as ‘Strictly Come Bookselling’ during the fifth Independent Booksellers Week, which this year takes place between 30th June and 7th July.

My main responsibilities lie in working with independent booksellers, and over the last five years we have established a thriving Independent Booksellers Forum, which organizes events and campaigns for the 1000+ indie bookshops still operating in the UK and Ireland.

I’ve always been a book-lover, and my earliest and most vivid childhood memories revolve around our annual trips from Scotland to visit family friends in Meldreth, near Cambridge. A trip to Heffers Children’s Bookshop was the highlight of every trip (for me, if not for my brother!). I can hardly put into words the excitement of walking through the door and smelling ‘that’ smell.

As a teenager and student, I worked in the local indie bookshop in my small Scottish home town, though it is now sadly long-closed. Whenever I am home visiting family, one of the biggest pleasures for me, my husband and my two teenage children is to visit the wonderful Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells. So, you could say I have the perfect job – and you’d not be far wrong!

At the BA, our umbrella brand for our indie activity is IndieBound, a marketing campaign begun in the USA, which focuses on the importance of shopping locally, shopping independently and creating a strong community. When we introduced the campaign into the UK, it immediately resonated with UK booksellers and it has provided both the BA and our members with opportunities to start a meaningful conversation with customers about how important their consumer behaviour is in keeping retail areas diverse, bookshops thriving and high streets healthy.

We have migrated our IndieBound messages about community engagement and shopping locally into our more recent ‘Keep Books on the High Street’ campaign, which is currently entering a new phase, and is reaching out to authors for support. You can see more here.

We will be back in touch with SAS members about the campaign, but in the meantime if you are interested in providing us with a quote in support of indie or high street bookselling, or – even better – if you are prepared to record a short spoken piece on the same subject, we would love to hear from you – email us here. The American BA has just launched a very similar initiative called ‘Why Indies Matter’, and you can see some of your fellow authors talking about indie bookshops on this link to the US IndieBound site.

The main reason, though, that I’m delighted to be writing this blog, is to bring SAS authors news about Independent Booksellers Week. The Week is in its fifth year, and is designed as a celebration of independent bookshops on the high street.

There are many opportunities for authors to get involved in IBW, which this year runs from 30th June to 7th July and which includes National Reading Group Day on 30th June – we have 310 bookshops signed up to take part this year, a record number, and many of them will be holding events in the bookshop during the Week. They are always looking for local authors to run events, or to participate in our ‘Strictly Come Bookselling’idea, where authors work behind the till for a couple of hours, and create a great bit of local press and PR! Or sometimes just a signing session, or to take part in a reading group discussion.

The 310 shops signed up are all over the UK and Ireland, and you can see a list of the participating shops by visiting our site. Many bookshops also run ‘authorless’ events, such a quizzes or reading groups, but most are looking to involve authors in their plans. If you are an author or illustrator and would like to get involved in IBW this year, check the website above for any UK bookshops near you and get in touch.

You could also use the BA’s author-bookseller service, AuthorBound UK, to connect to bookshops year-round – if you upload a profile, your details will be available to bookshops whenever they are searching for you, or for authors in your area. Visit the site to see more. If f you need help getting set up, then email anna.clarke@booksellers.org.uk

We’d love to work with authors more and more often. In this fast-changing book world we all love, nothing stays the same for long, and the more collaboration and shared creativity we can foster, the better. For a good overview of what the BA is up to, and to get ideas for how you can get involved, here are a few sites to visit:

http://www.booksellers.org.uk/


http://www.independentbooksellersweek.org.uk/


http://www.indiebound.org.uk/


Hope to hear from you soon!

Meryl Halls

Head of Membership Services, Booksellers Association

6 Bell Yard, London, WC2A 2JR

direct line 020 7421 4692 - switchboard 020 7421 4640

http://www.booksellers.org.uk/

BOOKSELLER SUNDAYS: On selling more Mary Hooper than Stephanie Meyer and more Penny Dolan than J.K. Rowling – Katie Clapham at Storytellers, Inc.

One of a series of guest blogs by booksellers who work with children’s authors. We’re posting this one today by way of a ‘Happy Birthday!’ to Storytellers, Inc., who are just about celebrate the completion of their first incredible year, during which they have dared and done many brave things, always on a ‘handmade’ and human scale. Bookseller Katie Clapham describes some of Storytellers, Inc’s innovations, including their single copy policy, their ‘Cool Books in School’ campaign and their child-sized secret reading den.

Imagine a place where giant power authors, you know - the ones with their own signature font, are pushed aside for lesser known authors. A place where hand-written signs and friendly recommendations overshadow expensively produced online trailers and bestseller lists. It is your local independent bookshop – a magical enclosure where the bookselling playing field is somewhat smoothed (it will never be absolutely level, but that’s a good thing too).

At Storytellers, Inc. we generally stock single copies of everything. This was a decision we made during the initial stock of the shop nearly one year ago. Range was more important to me than filling shelves with multiple copies of the most popular titles - we’ve got a WHSmith in town for that. Of course this means we’re taking more responsibility for the stock but that’s a power I’m glad to wield. I delight in finding hidden gems and sharing them with customers who are excited to take the risk. Of course there is no getting away from the fact we get more requests for Julia Donaldson and Jacqueline Wilson than Kazuno Kohara and Reinhardt Jung but it’s also true that our bestsellers include Alan Garner’s Weirdstone of Brisingamen (we’ve got generations of recommendations and personal ties to the story’s location), the beautiful Madame Pamplemousse series which have dazzled lots of little girls, who’ve then come back to buy copies for friends, and Chris Ridell’s stunning Ottoline series, which a local school picked up as a class book.

We can’t afford to pay authors and illustrators to visit us in the shop yet so we’re gratefully accepting tour dates from publishers and booking school visits for the authors. They’ve paid off; we’ve sold more Mary Hooper than Stephanie Meyer and more Penny Dolan than J.K. Rowling. The children who heard Penny talk about her book were coming into the shop for weeks after, desperately asking for their MOUSE books with worn-out parents telling us how they’ve heard of nothing else since the talk. Having an author come to the school is a real treat and as the personal investment in the book and its author is sealed, the financial is guaranteed to follow.

As a business we’re trying to find ways of drawing this mass attention to new titles on a more regular basis. I’ve recently written a new scheme for schools that takes a brand new title and develops a term-length feature on it for local schools. The Cool Books in School campaign was launched in September with four local schools taking part. I have selected two new books (one for primary years 3 and 4 and another for years 5 and 6) to work with. The term started with a visit from me to introduce the book and read the beginning as a class storytime (repeated in as many classes as I could until my tongue dried out). Later this term I will return with a creative writing session loosely based on the text (theme or form etc.) and we will finish the term with a schools-wide writing competition. For the duration of the term the chosen books are offered at a promotional price to the schools and pupils taking part. I also wrote to the publishers of the chosen books demanding to know what they were going to do in return for my relentless promotion of their books.

I am planning to repeat this campaign three times a year, getting new releases into schools, raising awareness of current authors and sneaking some creative writing into classrooms. My personal goal is that with each term I will win another school over (some are proving very stubborn!) Author visits within the term’s campaign would increase the appeal even further and I’m really hoping this will form a part of the future model. Should my own children’s novel ever find a publisher, school visits would be top priority on my agenda. I truly believe they are the most useful and exciting way to get children to try new authors.

On the smaller scale we blog, we tweet, we facebook and do everything we can to get on first name bases with authors and publishers. Promotional material can really make a difference – a few extra Department 19 POS packs meant I could chop up some posters and make a window display around the new title; we sold more HB copies of Will Hill’s debut than any other teen novel.

Sometimes it can feel like a hard-sell. We email our regulars with newsletters and offers and I write to the head teachers and telephone their exasperated receptionists but it’s all worth while when a delighted parent comes to the shop telling us that this was the book that created an interest in reading that wasn’t there before, or a child who previously restricted their reading to one genre (or author!) decides to explore the literary landscape. We’ve made an effort to make our shop a place that encourages these discoveries, there is seating and storytimes, coffee and baby changing facility (no, you keep your own baby). We’ve got our child-sized secret reading den and creative writing workshops in the school holidays.

We can’t compete with the prices online and in chain shops so like everyone else we’re trying to stand out in all other areas. It’ll be our first birthday on the 1st of December and we’ll be celebrating the fact that there is a market for the independent bookshop, particularly for children who want to see and touch and smell and maybe chew the book before they buy it. They also want to hear how great it is and for you to look excited and congratulate them on the book they have chosen, they want to come back and tell you about it when they’ve read it. As adults we are so fond of our booky memories, it is such a charming privilege to be part of these new memories in the making.

Caption: photograph of Katie Clapham with her homemade dump bin.

Storytellers, Inc website