Your Bookshop: Use It or Lose It

Thanks to everyone who came to Blackwells in Oxford last night for my talk on Paul Nash. I thoroughly enjoyed myself - great to see some old friends and meet new ones. It was also wonderful to be surrounded by so many books. We were in the Norrington Room, which is a Tardis-like underground space, vast and absolutely packed with books. Apparently it held the Guinness world record for longest bookshelf until some even larger shop opened somewhere in... was it South America? Perhaps someone can help narrow it down!

All those books gave the room a wonderful acoustic and even though the space is vast it felt intimate. But then a good, well-stocked bookshop does tend to feel intimate, however large it may be. Insulated by books, the browser can forget the outside world for a while and relax. Well, that's what I've always done.

Books too are intimate. On the way home to Bristol last night I sat opposite a man rather older than me, who had his nose in an old, battered copy of 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' by Alan Sillitoe. He was completely absorbed, not even taking his eye off the page as he nibbled at his flapjack. I once read a similarly battered copy of the same book, as have countless other people, but what really struck me about the man on the train was his absolute immersion in the world of the book - a world that opens when you first lift the cover, and to which you can return whenever you like, for the rest of your life. This chap might have read the book for the first time when he was young, perhaps when it was originally published, and was now rereading it for the tenth or fiftieth time; Sillitoe (who died last year) might have been a lifelong companion...

Blackwells at sale time...

I visit quite a number of bookshops to give talks, launch new books, etc, and I've chatted with lots of bookshop owners and managers. Many are struggling in the new world order of online retail and deep discounts. Others seem to be prospering and these tend (in my limited experience) to be the shops that muster a decent audience for a talk. These are businesses that devote enormous amounts of time and effort into winning not just customers but supporters. They run their own literary festivals or have comprehensive programmes of lectures and readings; they double as art galleries; they host book groups.

The Norrington Room - cosier in real life... and less green

They work, I think, on an important assumption. If you make your bookshop a place that is integral to people's lives, then they will stand firm against the temptation to 'buy with 1 click' and support you. It's not as if books, even at full price, are particularly expensive - how does a paperback compare with a round of drinks? Or even a couple of lattes? We go the '1 click' route out of laziness and that perennial (and very British) desire to get things cheap, irrespective of the cost in other terms. We may think of a favourite writer almost as a friend but will still choose to buy his or her new book at a colossal discount. What happens when I buy a book listed at £9.99 for £4? The writer's modest royalty, which is based on the actual price paid for a book, shrinks away almost to nothing. The publisher takes a hit too and is forced to cut costs, perhaps moving production to China (another British printer out of business), reducing staff and turning down books that won't sell sufficient numbers.

Much Ado Books, Alfriston - read this

A bookshop manager described to me recently the common phenomenon of people coming in, examining books on the shelf and then popping out to order online on their phone. These non-customers were enjoying the facilities offered by the shop - freedom to browse, attractive displays, carefully-chosen stock - and then taking their business to a cut-price rival who offered none of these things. The manager was planning to start accosting people and explaining to them that if they didn't buy books in the shop, the shop would soon be gone.

I once worked for an artist and gallery owner who would pursue customers down the street, refusing to leave them alone until they agreed to buy something. She knew that her survival depended on making sales, that no one was going to help her if she didn't, and that a certain proportion of people would give in and buy something. It's probably a good thing that bookshop people are less aggressive, but in fact the same principles apply; they either sell books or go under.

Toppings, Bath - the perfect bookshop?

Booksellers have found an array of solutions: selling rare books online; specialising in a particular subject; transforming their shop into an arts centre. Writers (and artists) can do their bit too, giving talks or encouraging people via social networks to support their local shop. But in the end what matters most is where and how we choose to buy books. We're consumers! We have freedom of choice! It may seem our God-given duty to buy everything for the lowest possible price, but it isn't.

By the way, I'm giving a talk at 6.15pm on Tues 6th December, at Foyles in Cabot Circus, Bristol. It's on Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash and you can expect lots of pictures to look at, the odd glimmer of humour and even a glass of wine. And it's FREE!

Paul Nash in London, Oxford, London again &... Bristol!

 

Thank you to those who came to Sotheran's on Tuesday evening for the launch of 'Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream'. A few people mentioned that they had read this blog from time to time, and it was fun to meet them - you, I should say. Well, the whole evening was fun. How could it not be, in such fantastic surroundings? If you have bookaholic tendencies I would be very wary of 2-5 Sackville Street, Piccadilly, unless you're a bookaholic and proud! I was surprised by the range of books, which varied from the terrifyingly expensive to the surprisingly affordable. Marvellous.

One thing people rarely tell writers when they start out is that the hardest part of the job is not coming up with the idea, or pitching it, or negotiating with publishers, or researching the book, or writing it or even - though this can seem like torture - editing it. The hardest bit is catching the attention of people who might like the book, so they can think about buying it.

The oldest antiquarian bookshop in the world...

Where, after all, do you hear about books? Each week there are a few pages of newspaper reviews and a couple of radio programmes, and these tend of course to be dominated by one or two Books of the Moment or, at any rate, by the products of big publishing companies.

I think the situation is probably hardest for writers who are snapped up by big companies then neglected, their books published but not marketed. Anyone who is published by a small press knows the score: if you want anyone to know about your books you have to jump up and down crying 'Look at my book what I wrote!' like the worst kind of B-list celebrity. In this respect Amazon, not always an institution that writers call Friend, is quite helpful: your book might occupy the slenderest of niches, but if its ISBN is registered it will most likely have some kind of presence on Amazon. You can get helpful friends to review your book and give it five stars and, should anyone buy it, it will appear on 'People who bought that, bought these' type of lists. Of course someone might also review it and give it no stars, but hey ho.

Otherwise you're reliant on word of mouth, the odd plug here and there, and shameless self-promotion. Which reminds me... Next Thursday evening (24 Nov) I will be at Blackwells bookshop in Oxford, giving an illustrated talk on Paul Nash that will include his paintings from the local area - 'Totes Meer', 'Pillar and Moon', 'Landscape of the Vernal Equinox'... - and other favourites. I'll be leaving the art-speak locked up at home and trying to match the enthusiasm levels of your hero and mine, Dr Fox (no not that Dr Fox, this one). So, if you fancy spending an evening getting to know a fascinating artist and his work, tickets are on sale at the remarkably reasonable price of £2.

Then the following Thursday (1 Dec) I'm back in London again, taking part in the Paul Nash evening being held as a fundraiser at the St Bride Library (see above). This should be a real treat, with Alan Powers and Brian Webb speaking as well as David Heathcote, and it will probably sell out. The St Bride Library has a devoted group of friends and they will no doubt turn out in large numbers as they did for a Ravilious Evening a couple of years ago.

Not the oldest antiquarian bookshop...

And then it's home to Bristol on 6th Dec, and the new Foyles bookshop in Cabot Circus. I'll be giving a free - yes, not even £2! - talk on Nash and Ravilious, which I hope will appeal to Bristol's large artistic community. Quite how I'm going to tell them all about it I haven't worked out yet, but I'm hoping a few hours walking around Clifton with a sandwich board and a loudhailer will do the trick.