Silverfish - Writings

A recent story in iStockAnalyst, Amazon.com to Acquire AbeBooks, sent a chill down my spine. Jeff Bezos wants nothing less than world domination. So, why am I surprised? Looks like everyone wants to dominate the world these days: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Dewan Bandaraya ...

According to the report, Amazon.com, Inc. has announced that, subject to closing conditions, it has reached an agreement to acquire AbeBooks. Those who are familiar with it, AbeBooks is an online marketplace with (reportedly) over 110 million titles, primarily, used, rare and out-of-print books that are listed by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world or, in other words, the only credible online competition for Amazon.com. One will be able to find pretty much any book that has been printed on Abebooks, and buy it if one is willing to pay the price. From our survey, the prices are very reasonable. But the main cost, due to our geographical location, will be the postage. (I still haven't decided if I want to spend USD25.00 -- not including postage -- for a mass-market paperback edition of John Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.)

I understand that the operative word in business today is no longer monopoly. It is hegemony -- the little guys can set up all the bookshops they want, but we are going to take a cut from it all ... mwahahahaha.

Both the companies are making the customary 'best experience for customers' noise. Russell Grandinetti, vice president of books for Amazon.com says, "AbeBooks provides a wide range of services to both sellers and customers, and we look forward to working with them to further grow their business ..." Right. And Hannes Blum, chief executive officer of AbeBooks is quoted, "This deal brings together book sellers and book lovers from around the world, and offers both types of customers a great experience ... We are very excited to be joining the Amazon family." Right again.

The report says that AbeBooks will continue to function as a stand-alone operation based in Victoria, British Columbia. Let's see how long that will last.

Meanwhile, Richard Cohen in his Washington Post blog, The Book on the Shelf, laments the death of the book as we know it. He writes, "What Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon's founder, wants more than anything is to do away with the book as we know it." He further says that according to Steven Kessel, one of Amazon's 'top guys' in charge of 'digitizing everything in sight', Bezos once said that 'he couldn't imagine anything more important than reinventing the book ...'

Does Bezos read? I mean seriously read? Does he know what a book is?

Richard Cohen goes on, "The book is warm. The book is handy. The book is handsome to the eye. The book occupies the shelf of the owner and is a reflection of him or her ... The book is always there, to be reached for, to be thumbed and, too often, I admit, to wonder about: Why did I buy this? My bookcase is full of mysteries."

It is at this point that the sitcom laugh track goes, "Aawwww ..."

But yes, I know how it feels. I feel so comfortable in my little room (into which I crawl when I want to be by myself) surrounded by my books I have acquired through the ages ... some are fifty years old ... no, more ... I inherited some from my father, and he got some of those from my grandfather. Bezos wants to replace all that? Surely, there are better things to replace.

(Am I just being over-sentimental here? Did I not feel something similar when my collection of vinyl records became obsolete? Was that the same?)

Richard Cohen further writes, "Bezos will win. Amazon has this device that downloads books. It is called the Kindle, which must be one of those focus group words. Sounds like the German word for children. Sounds like kind. Sounds innocent. Of course, it is not. My friends, book lovers all, have bought Kindles. At first, I was shocked: You? A Kindle? It's like discovering some sort of secret perversion."

Sigh. Are we simply being nostalgic? Soft? Is the Kindle really only a perversion?

Please, tell me that it is.

iStockAnalyst

The Wasington Post

Labels: Bookshops, Reading

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We wish we could sing that (20 years ago today, that is), but no ... we turned nine on the 25th of June. Yes, that's right. We are now into out tenth year. We let the milestone pass more in sober reflection rather than in celebration though. To be honest, we are still trying to wrap our heads around it.

What does nine years mean? That it has been a good fight and we are still around? Or, 'Oh my God, has it really been that long?' Or, is that all? Feels like we have been at it forever? Actually, it feels like all of that, at the same time.

We opened for business in Desa Sri Hartamas on the 25th of June 1999. At that time there were no mega bookstore in KL (MPH Mid-Valley only opened about nine month later). The scene was pretty bleak. There was, of course, Skoob Books -- the only bookstore that could provide us with the type of books we wanted then. The concept for Silverfish Books was pretty simple. We wanted a bookstore with the types of books we personally would want to read, with places to sit and browse through our selection without having to balance them precariously on tiny little horizontal surfaces available in between bookshelves, and possible have some coffee as we sorted them and decided which to buy. It was not based on any bookshop we knew (except maybe one in Melbourne we liked, that had played classical music at low volumes for ambience -- not muzak, not extra loud pasar malam 'One, Two, Three o'clock, Four o'clock, Lock'), it was just something we wanted. But, people have told us that Silverfish Books is like this or that bookshop in other parts of the world, and we'd go, "Oh?" (Two of the best compliments: a gentleman who came in for the first time said, "Oh, this is a real bookshop," and another said "This looks just like a bookshop in India." Wahhh!!! We were really flattered by the second comment. If you have ever been to a bookshop in India, you will understand.)

But book retail in KL is, of course, crazy. 'Dah-lah, we started in the middle of a recession, then mega stores started opening up all over like nobody's business, in a city where no one reads, with thousands upon thousands of imported books (while Singapore was going through a period of consolidation). This is a bizarre country.

We started publishing in 2001 with Silverfish New Writing 1. There was a real buzz around that one. We decided to make a go for it (against the advice 'publishing in Malaysia got no future-lah') in mid-September 2001, sent out the emails end-September requesting for submissions by end-October. We received 200 stories. Amir Muhammad volunteered to do the selection and editing, a whole host of people volunteered to proof it, to do the illustration, to design the cover and everything, and the book was out before Christmas. (There must be a record in there somewhere.) To date it is our favourite.

The rest, like they say, is history. To date we have published 29 titles of which 25 are still in print. Have we made a difference, a dent? We think so but, of course, we could be accused of being a little precious. It will be for others to decide. We have stopped doing the Silverfish New Writing series, as you know, but that's because we want to move-on to the next level. We want to focus on book-length prose from now on. (We already have six authors with previously unpublished books lined up, and they all live in the country.)

Then we have organised two International Literary Festivals -- in 2004 and in 2007 -- with writers from a dozen different countries. It was exciting, it was stressful, it was a little audacious, it was niggly, but ultimately, we have been told, it was fun. (Sometimes, we are too tired to notice).

So, how has the first nine years been? We have been flattered and flamed and called all sorts of names, but we guess, okay-lah. At least, we have not been ignored.

Labels: Bookshops

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I wrote a story in this column a month ago called Independent bookshops fight back (you can still read it below if you want). Then recently I came across a story provocatively called Do bookstores know how to sell books? by Priyanko Sarkar in the Times of India online.

Do we indeed?

The story starts: "It's a familiar sight. At the entrance of every celebrated bookstore in the city, you are assaulted by international bestsellers or new Indian arrivals, many of them mediocre works. If you ask for something else, you'll hear, Sorry, we're out of stock ..."

That sounds familiar. For small independent bookstores, the main constraint is money and space. How we wish we had infinite resources to stock every book we want. But, unfortunately, no brick-and-mortar bookshop in the world is big enough to stock every book that is available, even if they had all the money in the world. The closest one gets to a truly mega bookstore is Amazon.com, but even they don’t have on their list several hundred titles we have in our tiny little store. (We have about three to four thousand titles in stock at anytime.)

"All bookstores are retailers and they have to be profitable. Real-estate prices are touching the roof."

Same here. The bookstore must be profitable enough to pay the rents and the staff salaries, at least. For the past three decades the story has been familiar -- large chains eating up independents for breakfast at an alarming rate. But now there are signs that things might be changing. We have been reading of trouble Borders UK has been having, and now a recent report from Publishing News, new CEO Phillip Downer talks about them consolidating before further expansion and a re-look at their business model. Another report in the Guardian Bookblog says "sales are tumbling at Waterstones ..." further talking of how the chain, now, has "a new focus on novels, cookery and children's books at the expense of the humanities ..." (All of which is good news for independents). And there are rumblings at WH Smith (a 3% decline in growth this year). And on the other side of the coin, the number of independents both in the UK and US increased in 2007.

It is too early for independents to be celebrating just yet, of course. But methinks that the writing is on the wall. The idea of the mega bookstore is a leaf taken from the supermarket (and the hypermarket) business model. The model is simple. Buy in large quantities. Buy it cheap. Sell it at the lowest possible price and undercut the competition. (If one bought large enough quantities of a particular consumer item, one could push the price down to ridiculously low levels, which would then, in turn, allow one to sell the items at extremely low prices to the consumer. (It will also run the same consumers out of work, but that is a different matter.) When mercilessly applied (together with globalisation) what this means is that hypermarkets like Wal-mart and Tesco can (and do) source for merchandise from the lowest cost producer anywhere in the world (from Vietnam or China or wherever) and compete at the expense of other players in the market, people's jobs or even whole economies of nations. (Some would say that the sub-prime crisis in the US is simply one form of collateral damage.) This model, of course works, (if you want to call it that) with merchandise ranging from pressure cookers to pottery, and from dungarees to DVD's made available at the lowest costs.

When applied to the book industry, this is how the model will work. First of all the book has to be made a commodity. Let's forget about all that namby-pamby 'cultural goods' bullshit the Europeans like to whine about. (Though we may have our own opinions on this, let us just go along with the 'commodity' premise for argument's sake.) Buy the books at the lowest prices possible, which means you have to buy titles in truckloads. Squeeze the publisher for discounts, and kill the competition by undercutting them. But, unfortunately, there is a problem. Firstly, there is no low-cost manufacturer for books. (Yes, you could buy Harry Potter in truckloads from China at rock-bottom prices but you could, also, end up in jail for that.) If the retailer wants a particular title by an author there is, normally, only one source. And prices are pretty much controlled. A hyper-mart might be able to get a pair of jeans made by near-slave labour in Laos or Cambodia for two dollars and sell it for a hundred (I have been told by a supermarket operator that those are the type of numbers in the garment trade. I know of someone who bought an intricately hand-embroidered saree -- all six yards of it -- in India for fifty rupees, a little over one US dollar. How much do you think the embroiderer who did the bead-work was paid?) Even if the book supermarket buys large enough quantities and swings that huge discount, the story is not over. What discount is he going to offer the customer? Fifty percent appears to be the norm these days for bestsellers and new arrivals. (Not in Malaysia.) If he does not offer the discounts, others will. What about his overheads then? The rent is not about to go down, nor are the wage packets. Taking all that into consideration, and assuming that he actually manages to sell all the books he buys, there will really not be very much left. So, Borders looking for a new business model is about right. (Note to Malaysian mega bookstores still griping about the Harry Potter deal: You are in supermarket territory. They invented the rules. You are a mere Johnny-come lately. So you can't complain when the local Tesco undercuts you. After all, you do undercut others.)

What is happening is not surprising. The big boys are fighting one another to death. One can pretend to defy gravity only for so long, especially when every store looks the same, and they all sell the same products. (But unfortunately, or fortunately, they don't 'get it'.) It is time for the independents to make a comeback.

Sarkar’s report further says: "Small bookstores usually have owners who are booklovers themselves. They stock books that the impersonal managers of chains do not stock. That's why, while small bookstores in the country have distinct personalities, the big chains that reek of coffee, don't."

Interestingly there was another story I read this last fortnight in Springfair.com Marketplace entitled Queen of shops claims service is the future of retail. The story starts: "Mary Portas, star of BBC TV show Mary: Queen of Shops, suggests that in future retail "... would be led by expertise and customer experience, rather than price and product ranges."

"Portas said that independent stores can build up their services and differentiate themselves from multiple retailers by creating efficient, good-looking stores that shoppers will enjoy visiting and by providing the service of expertise."

The other point she is making is about getting customers to go to a shop at all, given the internet craze and all. Maybe shops as we know it will cease to exist. Anyway, they have been predicting the death of books since television was invented. Resilient little buggers aren't they, books?

Interesting.

Labels: Bookshops

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A report in the Twin City Daily Planet says that independent booksellers are not going to take it any more. They are fighting back. In a story titled Independent booksellers fight chains with community and character, correspondent Taylor Cisco says that after decades of assault by corporate giants that offer 'sweeping discounts, multimedia merchandise, coffee, snacks and other non-literary goods ... a few indies (are) looking to give the big guys a run for their money.'

[A bit of trivia: Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, the oldest independent feminist bookstore in North America -- which had by then been in business for thirty years -- filed a suit against Amazon.com for trademark infringement in 1990. They ended up 'signing over the rights to their own name, then licensing it back from the corporate website'.]

The formula appears commonsensical enough: focus on 'hard-to-find niche materials and a truly personal shopping experience'. One indie bookshop differentiates itself by 'offering titles by local authors as well as titles by those who regularly top bestseller lists' with 'shopping environment (that) was warm and social'. When customers were asked why they picked a particular indie bookshop instead of Borders or Barnes & Noble, the most common answer was: '... customer service that is well above average, a unique selection, and a neighbourhood focus'.

"You know, I have always wanted to open a bookshop," has to be the most popular comment we have heard since Silverfish Books opened eight and a half years ago. (One customer told us a story of how her friend wanted to open a bookshop and call it Silverfish, and didn't know what to do, now that the name had already been taken. The customer said she helpfully suggested an alternative name: termites.) There is no shortage of people who want to open their own indie bookshop. So what is my advice?

First of all, be prepared to give up your life as you know it. (If you don't have a life, it helps.) Absentee bookshop owners almost never make it. The bookshop is about you. It should reflect your personality, your tastes, your niche and your work. Trust your instincts. What do you really know a lot about? Don't try to fool your customers. You will be found out fairly quickly. Be prepared to dedicate your whole life to it – ten/twelve hours a day and six/seven days a week until it stabilizes (which can take several years), and don't expect to employ staff to do all your work. Don't curi tulang from yourself. Work hard and do it yourself, and save the money until you can't squeeze anymore out of your body. Dig in for the long cold winter, which can last several years. The ability to sustain is everything. And don't expect to make a lot of money. Diversify (into related areas) to supplement your income (and pay the rent.)

Still interested?

Okay, then you have the customers to deal with. That will be the best part. Bookshop customers are generally quite a fantastic lot. They will be friendly, helpful and a joy to serve. Help them. Some will be shy to ask, others will be forthright. Good recommendations are mostly appreciated. Offer to help but don't insist. Don't bluff. And, you know what? You will learn as much from your customers as they will learn from you.

Customers are your best friends. No, seriously. I have made more friends in the years at the bookshop than at my previous career of twenty-five years. I make new friends every single day. There will be so many who will come in and tell you, "I'd rather give my money to you then to one of those mega bookstores." And you know they are being absolutely sincere. They are not unreasonable. (We don't sell cookbooks, because we know nothing about cooking. So when they want something like that, they know where to go.) Then you will have customers who walk into the shop, look around as if for a supermarket cart, run through the shelves, pick up two-dozen books, or more, and deposit it on the counter, all in twenty minutes. All this, without saying a word. The only exchange will be, "Will that be cash or credit?" and, finally, a smile and a thank you. And they will be back again and again. You will still not know who they are although you would have progressed to acknowledgement nods, smiles and, even, exchange of niceties. Many book people are very shy. Not everyone will want to be hugged. Respect that.

There will be those who become friends enough to drop by for a chat and a drink while they browse. There are those who will insist on bringing you goodies from the local delis -- and not cheapo ones, either. Sometimes you will have entire families of customers, leaving with books for mom, for dad, for abang, for adek and for the baby. That is really quite a heart-warming experience. (Who said reading is dead in Malaysia?) But you also get parents coming in with such badly behaved children that you want to slap them. (The parents, I mean.) Watch out for these children of parents from hell -- you will have to learn how to handle that without killing one of them (disposing of dead bodies can be quite messy, and might even ruin more books) even as you worry about that child spilling Coke on a perfectly good Peter and the Wolf pop-up book, or another smearing ice-cream on the new encyclopaedia, because the parents don't seem to care or bother to control them. (One father looked on indulgently as his two-year-old daughter ripped up a perfectly good book, but refused to buy it when asked. He simply grabbed the child and ran out the door and down the stairs. We thought that was the last we would see of him. Good riddance. But he came back! A few days later. This time without the child, but still refused to pay for the book, pretending not to know what we were talking about. Instead he tried to smooth things over by turning on his nauseating charm. If ever we came close to manslaughter, that must have been it.)

There are a few other types of insufferable customers you will have to suffer. Some will spend hours looking through your shelves, and then come and ask you for an obscure book they are sure you don't have, just to look intelligent. (There was once when such a customer did that. I was sure we had the book on the shelf, though. I searched and found it in another location, left there accidentally by another customer. When I brought it to him, he turned red, stammered, "Actually I ... I am looking for the ... the .. er .. other edition ... the othe cover.” So there. (The print was either too big or too small or both.) There will be those who will come in and, before anyone asks, declare loudly (as if someone asked) that they did not read 'fiction', or 'non-fiction' -- presumably to establish his pedigree. You will be tempted to go, "How sad for you." Resist that temptation.

Though these customers seldom buy books either, you will still need to suffer them because they can influence others. They will then try and tell you that they have libraries in their houses bigger that your bookshop, just make you feel small. Smile, and breathe deeply. Similar, but not exactly the same, are those who will come in and try and talk your ears off to impress you with their knowledge. (Don't ask why). This type of customer doesn't buy books either, and you will feel like throwing him down the stairs. Don't.

In the early days in Sri Hartamas, I had this person come in and spend several hours in the bookshop, quietly sitting in a corner, reading, browsing through every shelf. He looked like the type who could hardly afford books. He was forty something, hefty, with a weather-beaten face, dressed in what looked like a work uniform. He didn't say a word, or even look at any of us, and left just before closing time. After he left I went through the shelves to see if anything was missing. He was back the next day soon after we opened shop and left just before we closed, again without saying anything, or buying anything. I noticed he came in on an old motorcycle. On the third day, I said, "Hello," which he responded to with a grunt and a nervous half-smile before striding off (as if afraid I was going to ask him questions) towards the bookshelves. But the brief exchange was enough for me to notice a sadness in his eyes. I became determined to talk to him. This I did as he was about to leave that evening. He worked at Tenaga. He said he loved books but he couldn't afford to buy them, and he said that we had all the books he liked. I felt so stupid and embarrassed for pre-judging him. I told him that he was welcome to the shop anytime and that he could read whatever book he wanted, for as long as he wanted, and that he didn't have to buy anything. He smiled fully for the first time.

He came a few times after that, and then I didn't see him anymore. (Maybe he doesn't know we we moved to Bangsar now.) But several others have taken his place. They come in quietly, browse, read and then go back. You can spot them quite easily from the way they, practically, caress the books. Once in a while they will buy something, and this will please you tremendously. You will love selling the book to them. Knowing how much books cost, that will be lunch money for a week for them. And that the books have found a good home.

And talking about the price of books, do be reasonable. I have had several customers come in and complain about the price of books at a certain mega-bookstore. While some bestsellers are heavily discounted as loss-leaders, others can be quite seriously marked up. (One customer was so glad he had not been tempted to buy a certain book the previous day at that place. A book we were selling for MYR69.90, was priced at the mega-store at MYR 99.90 -- MYR 30.00 markup! A difficult to find book, no doubt. But still, not quite ethical.) Book distributors generally fix selling prices and most bookshops adhere to this. Obviously, there are rouge elements. Don't be one of them.

Then, there will be customers you don't want to sell a book to because of the way they handle books, or because of something dumb they said earlier, and you don't think they 'deserves' to own a particular book because they are unlikely to appreciate it or likely to mistreat it. When that happens, force a smile and repeat this mantra: I need the money, I need the money, I need the money, I need ... Remember, you still have to pay the rent.

There will always be room for independent booksellers, just like there will always be boutiques. Remember James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and a host of other writers? All of them rose from independent bookstores. Can mega bookstores claim anything remotely close?

The TC Daily Planet

Labels: Bookshops

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