Opinion

The one important lesson history teaches us is that 'history teaches us nothing'. (I guess the big guy also needs to laugh and entertainment himself now and then. Look at those fools ... look at 'em shooting themselves... look at 'em.)

Wal-Mart started by offering upcoming hardcover releases of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and John Grisham's Ford County, amongst others at US$10 with shipping.

Amazon.com matched it. Wal-Mart took its offer to US$9. Next morning, Amazon.com also had US$9 books.

Richard Nash, Indie publisher and literary tweeter, says "Since Amazon/Walmart/Target prices lower than wholesale @kashbk suggests indie cancel orders from pblshers & order them from giants!"

Absolutely!

In the Klang Valley in November alone, some half a million books will be available at warehouse and remaindered prices with (rumour has it) a third from local publishers and distributors including a substantial quantity from Singapore. Yes, its called dumping. It is probably illegal. As far as we know there are strict laws governing 'sales', although anything can be 'arranged'. This is kow thim country. But, what's really going on? Is someone big going down? Sure sounds like a closing down sale to me, even if it is done by proxy.

Meanwhile, if you are a book retailer, you should know where you need to be.

Most people think that the current form of the book industry has been around forever. Actually no. The Net Book Agreement in the UK was ruled illegal only in March 1997 and, and by 2009, 500 independents closed down as a result. (Dillons and Waterstones actually started offering books on discount in 1991 -- still, not all that long ago).

The book, then, officially became a shoe in the UK, and thus entered the McBook.

Book retailing once used to be seen as an interaction of a consumer with a specialist shop. That model is, largely, not applicable anymore. By the late 1990s only 45% of sales were by specialists whose core business was bookselling.

I looked at history and dug up some interesting facts, that it always takes a crisis to inject some sense into the industry. The current pattern of the book trade was, more or less, defined in England at the start of the nineteenth century -- publishers injected the risk capital, wholesalers distributed and retailers sold the books to the public. (The practice of remaindering also began around then, in 1790, to clear old stock to make way for the new.) But the industry was bedevilled by cash flow and undercutting, particularly, at the booksellers end. In 1829, in the aftermath of the banking crisis of 1826, a group of major publishers and booksellers tried to impose some sort of stability into the system with the Bookselling Regulations, which fixed trade and retail prices. Unfortunately, the committee that formulated the Regulations did not fully represent the industry. Then in the expanding economies of the 1830s, these Regulations were deemed no longer necessary. (Talk of short memories.)

There was another attempt at reviving the Regulations in some form in 1848, but the protesters (who included Charles Dickens and Alfred Tennyson) won the day. The times were too good. Free trade and laissez-faire were the buzzwords of the period. Unfortunately, but predictably, this defeat was extremely bad for the industry. By 1880, it became a major crisis for booksellers, with publishers threatened with the prospect of being cut off from the market due to a shortage of retail outlets.

Then in 1890 Frederick Macmillan, who inherited his well-established family business, proposed that books should be published with 'net' retail prices with a discount to the bookseller to ensure a reasonable margin. Retailers who broke the rules were cut off. Despite initial protests, this 'net agreement' spread through the industry ensuring stability and growth. The industry could not ignore the enthusiasm for Macmillan's initiative. A London Bookseller's society was formed around then and, in 1895, the society became the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland (which later became the Booksellers Association).

The Net Book Agreement survived up to 1997.

Biblio: A History of British Publishing by John Feather.

Labels: Bookshops, Publishing

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(We launched our all-Malaysian online bookstore on the 1st of August. And we have been surprised. In the first month of operation -- and without including bulk sales to universities, libraries and bookshops -- Malaysian books made up over 70% of our retail sales! We hope this is the sign of things to come, and that we are seeing the signs of the blossoming of the Malaysian book industry.)

My only computer knowledge when I first started on the project about two months ago, was how to use word processors and spreadsheets, basic Photoshop, and some Illustrator. I have built and maintained a website for ten years with the help of NVU and Serif Photo Plus, both free downloads from the internet. In other words, I knew how to use a computer, like a lot of regular Joes, but not how to write any code. (The last time I did any of that was in the university over 40 years ago when I learnt Fortran 4 using punch cards.)

Like I said, I did have a website, but since I have always used wyswig HTML editors, my knowledge of even that was minimal. (I new how to do italics, bold, line breaks, paragraphs, tables, that sort of thing, but I didn't even know what

Labels: Bookshops

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A story in the Publishers Weekly says that Borders has agreed to buy titles from HarperStudio on a non-returnable basis. The average book buyer will ask, "So what's the big deal?" But to people in the industry it is a radical shift, perhaps the sort of change that is required for the industry to survive and bring back some sense into it.

I will start with a primer on how the book industry currently operates. (Okay, this is how it operates in the US, the UK, Australia and Malaysia -- we think it's cool to ape everything they do in the US and UK without understanding why.)

In a simple world, publishers publish. Then the distributor's undertake to distribute the book for a fee of, say, between 50-60% of the RRP. They then sells the books to the bookseller for a discount of, say 30-40%, usually depending on volume. (The actual discounts vary, but this is an example.) The publisher meets the printing cost, royalty payments and overheads from his portion. The distributor costs are warehousing, transportation and administration. The bookstore has to pay his rental and his overheads. Not much meat in there, really.

Then comes the first distortion. The distributor sells the books to the book retailer on an SOR basis, that is, on sale-or-return terms. So books that are not sold will be returned to the distributor who will then issue a credit note. And the distributor likewise will return the books he cannot sell (including the returns he gets from the book retailer) to the publisher. The publisher then pays the author a royalty on what has been sold and then pulps or remainders the rest. (It costs more to pulp it than give it away or sell it cheap.)

There is a huge trade in remaindered books with many book retailers practically specialising in it. The general rule in this business is that the less you are allowed to choose the cheaper the books cost. Of course, the author earns no royalty from this type of sale (and this trade might even be in violation of the fine print on the copyright page that says 'no reselling'.) One problem with the SOR model is that bookstores can order 100 copies of a title even when they know they can only sell 25 because they can return the rest. (The rest are used to decorate the shop to make it look good.) Returns in this country are normally allowed within a period of one year, but it is usually done within six months. Some do it in three, just when the payments are due. After this most books are considered dead because few are reordered, except by independents and chains specialising in back lists. (The real bookstores.)

The next distortion came with the advent of mega-bookstore and supermarket chains. These stores started ordering books in thousands (and in the case of Harry Potter, hundreds of thousands) demanding huge discounts of between 75-85%, and bought their books directly from the publisher. This put a lot of pressure on the latter because of the high printing costs and, God forbid, probable massive returns within three months. The only way a publisher could handle this was by raising the marked price on the book. (Now you know why books are so expensive.) Books became commodities like rice, sugar, or shoes. People who sold books this way knew as much about them as hamburger-flippers.

In Malaysia right now, book distributors are holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop -- with the holiday season over, the returns are going to start soon. If the returns are as big as many people think they will be the repercussions to the industry could be serious. If it is larger, the effect could be catastrophic, and some people could go under.

Multiply the above a hundred fold and you get and idea of what they are facing in the UK and US. Add to that the past leveraging power of the mega-store chains that took out huge loans to expand ruthlessly, to stock up with huge inventories that they knew they could return, and sell them at massive discounts to kill the competition (and, to a certain extent, themselves).

Sensible people have been warning about this for two decades (just as they have been warning about the hubris on Wall Street). But reason has no answer for unmitigated greed, until the latter blows up in the face, that is.

Some publishers are not going to survive to see this, but firm sales could be a game changer. Some sanity could return to the industry, at last. Book retailers will only buy what they think they can sell if distributors will not take returns. Ditto with publishers. With no requirement to wallpaper the mega-chain stores premises with their books, publishers will not have to publish 1,000,000 copies to sell 100,000, and the subsequent lower overheads could mean lower prices for the consumer. It could also mean less carpet-bombing by publishers – less titles, but more carefully selected ones.

Of course, there will be fewer JK Rowlings. But that might not be such a bad thing.

Labels: Bookshops, Publishing

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No, I am not going to write about what an absolute annus horribilis the year two-thousand and eight was, enough people are doing that. I am going to confine myself to book matters, though some of the former could creep in.

2008 was a year with no Harry Potter circus; that has run its course. So, there was really no big book to carry the year and give the book industry an artificial high. In fact there were hardly any big books at all, except for Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, which I thought was one of the best books he has written in a long time, surely one of his most readable. Yes, some will quibble that it does not have the stature of his Midnight's Children (that was more than a quarter of a century ago, please move on). Some will complain about the way he is liberal with historical truths. So was Homer. It is a good story, a fun read.

As for Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, my current plans are to give it a miss -- "the story of two Indias" is such a cliche. Why are Indian writers (apart from Naipaul and Rushdie) not allowed to simply tell a story? But, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is still on my list. I am not interested in the rest. It was a pretty slow year for fiction. I am waiting for some translated works of Le Clezio to come out. Meanwhile, I will catch up on the classics.

In other international news, we all know about Borders selling off their stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In UK we have just heard that Euler Hermes has withdrawn credit insurance to their suppliers, which could mean that they will have to pay cash upfront for their merchandise. It appears they are a bit shaky in the US too.

In another story, Bertrams, one of the bigger book wholesalers in the UK, is up for sale after the demise of their parent company, Woolworth. Expect a major shake-up in the book industry next year. But Amazon.com did well over Christmas.

An industry shake-up is surely on the cards now. The book had been commoditised to absurdity, mass market merchants only understands what turns over or, in the bookseller language, "sells through". Books could be beans for all they cared. Perhaps now the real bookshops (indies or otherwise) will return to the fore, and publishers will focus on real books. 

Shelf Awarness puts it succinctly: "Now may be a good time to get back to basics and do business together again if we all want to survive. Mass merchants will likely cut back on book sections at the first signs of under performance ... (but) Bookstores will stay the course. As the restructuring goes forward, we can only hope that publishers will return to their roots and work with booksellers to enhance backlist opportunities and develop new authors."

Which is what we at Silverfish Books have been doing most of 2008: developing new authors. There was no Silverfish New Writing 8. That felt kind of strange, but also a relief. It was fun while it lasted. We decided to stop it when it became a chore. So in 2008 we published three books by individual authors: Tales from the Court by Matthew Thomas (who, ironically, is the only Malaysian writer to 'graduate' from the New Writing series to produce a whole book of un-recycled material), Poems Sacred and Profane by Salleh ben Joned (a reprint of a collectible classic) and Ripples and other stories by Shih-Li Kow, who simply keeps going from strength to strength. We were putting the final touches to her work end of last month when we received an invitation to submit an entry for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region. We thought, if any current Malaysian writer deserves the nomination it is Shih-Li Kow. We have sent off her entry but we hope they will receive it on time considering the year-end holiday season. We are keeping our fingers crossed for her.

It has been a very memorable year.

Happy New Year, 2009.

Labels: Bookshops, Publishing, Writing

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(Mexican author, Alberto Ruy Sanchez,  told me about an essay he wrote in defence of books titled, The Book is not a Shoe, over lunch some weeks ago, so it is with sincere appreciation to him that I write this.)

So Woolworth has gone bankrupt and Betrams Books, which it owns but is not under administration, is up for sale. I am sure that is not news anymore. The latest news to emerge from the publishing industry is that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has reported that the book sales for the month of October decreased by 20.1 percent at US$644.5 million and were down by 3.4 percent for the year. 20.1%!? That is almost a disaster considering the incredibly low margins the industry works on. One dares not even think of the December season.

Like Sara Nelson of the Publishers Weekly, many have stopped reading their investment statements and even the business pages of their newspapers or listen to the news on television. It is far too relentlessly gloomy. Sara Nelson writes,"We all knew that publishing would not be spared; that feeling was palpable as early as last summer and certainly by Frankfurt -- when, if one more person compared going to the lavish Bertelsmann party to "dancing on the deck of the Titanic," I would have thrown him in the punch bowl. Still, while the news this week of massive layoffs and downsizing at Random House, Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was not surprising, it was, like any expected death, still a shock." Yes, there is no reason the publishing industry should be spared. It has been behaving as badly as the rest. Hence, the rub.

The book is a book, not a shoe. Real book people have been saying this for years. But with dollar signs dancing before their eyes everyone -- from contruction magnates to timber tycoons -- jumped into it. Hundreds of corporations with no idea what a book is, employed thousands who had never read one in their entire lives to run mega stores with hundreds of thousands of titles. From reports, Britain publishes close to 200,000 new titles a year, out of which 3000 make it to the main stores, with a handful remaining there for more than three months. What kind of industry is that? If any of the other industries worked on those numbers they would be closed by now.

A book is not a shoe, too, in many European countires which are strong about their heritage and culture thing. The last country to decide that a book was indeed a shoe was Switzerland, that despite valiant efforts by many to protect books as "cultural goods". In France, not too long ago, where retail book discounting is illegal, Amazon.com, which introduced free shipping, was convicted and made to pay a penalty when the booksellers association succesfully argued that 'free shipping' was indeed a discount.

In a recent International Market Comparisons: A Benchmark Study of Profitability by the Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom and Ireland (BA), comparing the market in the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, and the USA with the UK, the key findings were that the total UK market growth was one of the lowest, and the use of promotions and discounts created a 'vicious circle'. This despite the UK having a higher per capita book purchase than all markets except the US. In the Netherlands books cannot be sold at a discount until a year after release.

It could be (and has been) argued that the current problems in Britain arose with the demise of the national Net Book Agreement (NBA). The NBA was a British price-fixing agreement between publishers and booksellers which set the prices at which books were to be sold to the public that came into effect on January 1, 1900. Any bookseller who sold a book for less than the agreed price would no longer be supplied by the publisher. (Remember the time when we used to pay much lower fixed prices for our books in Malaysia?) The NBA enabled publishers to subsidise the works of important but less widely-read authors using money from bestsellers.

In August 1994 the Director General of the Office of Fair Trading decided that the Restrictive Practices Court should review the agreement. In March 1997 it was ruled that the Net Book Agreement was against public interest and was ruled illegal. So, what had been in place for a hundred years was dismantled only ten years ago, with nothing to replace it. The result has been chaos, ever since.

And the result? Bookstore chains benefitted. They were large enough to demand massive (and unreasonable) discounts, which the publishers provided by increasing the recommended retail price (RRP) of their books. The public bought bestsellers at reduced prices, but had to pay much more for other excellent books that were less popular. Buyers in smaller countries, without the benefit of volume, ended up paying more for their books. (This is made worse by the 'exclusive rights' agreeements signed between publishers and local distributors, but that is another story.) Large supermarket chains got into the business, mainly offering a limited number of best-selling titles at hugely discounted prices. After one hundred years of holding out as a 'cultural good' the book was finally reduced to a shoe, a throw-away consumer product alongside Kleenex and wipes for babies' bottoms. Many small independent bookshops were severely affected. Borders burst forth into high streets all over the world. (Their demise last year was probably the first sign that all was not well in the book-world.)

In Malaysia we continue to dance on the deck of the Titanic. How else does one explain the number of mega-bookstores in the Klang Valley, more than twice the number -- and retail area -- than in the whole of Singapore?

Labels: Bookshops

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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 en
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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