It being market day in Ramsgate it’s far too busy to get on with much between customers, I have already put up a couple of vague postings, in a bookshop the diversity of peoples questions is very great indeed so it's easy to get off track.As I pointed out in a previous posting since the economic downturn started we have been a lot busier. This is mostly down to two factors, the first being that the person who wouldn’t have thought twice six weeks ago about buying half a dozen literary paperback at Westwood Cross for about £40 are coming here first where the same six books are going to be about £15, same with the person who regularly buys quality non fiction where prices are around the £30 mark whereas here I would say the average is around £7. The other thing is that people are selling their books to pay for food and fuel, so I am being offered a lot more good quality stock, meaning the prices have gone down and the quality up, the whole thing really being about supply and demand.
Having worked in both new and secondhand bookshops on the whole I would say that the secondhand customers tend to be more discerning, as they are pretty much always buying the books for themselves.
The question begged here is what is a quality book or what isn’t a quality book and for anyone interested I have written an illustrated web page to try and explain this click here to view it
As someone who has been buying books on and off from your shop since I was at school (quite a few years ago....) I would say that you cannot beat the feeling of browsing the shelves of a second hand bookshop compared to that of looking round national chains such as Waterstones - coffee shop or not. Long may you continue !!!
ReplyDeleteMr Friday sorry about the lack of a coffee shop, there really isn’t room with all the books, I am afraid with shop rents tending to reflect residential rents the writing is on the wall for most secondhand bookshops, which tend to be on the edges of town centres where planning permission for conversion to flats is easily obtained.
ReplyDeleteLooking through those images of the different books you have reminds me. It's my birthday soon and I think I might send family members in your direction this year.
ReplyDeleteHi Michael. The comment about coffee shops certainly wasn't meant as a criticism. Personally, I either go to buy a book or two or go for a coffee - never both. I don't really understand the growing trend towards placing coffee shops in bookshops but perhaps others can !!
ReplyDeleteMr Friday it certainly wasn’t taken as a criticism, the problem with the big chains is that they are profit and discount lead, the only way I could get them to stock the local books I publish would be to give them 60% discount sent to them post free. In the case of a £10 book this would mean £6 for the big chain £1 authors royalty postage about £1 this would leave me with £2 which wouldn’t pay for the ink and paper. I believe the coffee shop thing relates to the profit made on a cup of coffee, more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteSad note to this is that Albion Bookshop in Cliftonville closed on Saturday (aug 30) and owner Paul Kemp predicts it won't be long before he shuts his main Broadstairs outlet. He will keep his secondhand book store open though.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to compare styles for independent bookshops in this area. Michael has a large emporium filled floor to ceiling of books to interest anybody who cares to walk in there. In Sandwich, another excellent bookshop has taken more of a Waterstone's approach to interior (minus coffee shop).
In WHitstable a few weeks ago, another independent popular bookshop called time after 59 years. However, there still remains two other indy bookshops each occupying at least two floors.
Use them or lose them folks!
Michael, you may agree that it's not necessarily the likes of Waterstone's who have changed the market but nmore the supermarkets offering big discounts on new titles, that has hammered the trade in recent years.
12.50 We used to have a thing called the net book agreement which fixed the prices of new books so no one could sell them discounted, the result of this was we had the cheapest book prices pretty much anywhere in the world.
ReplyDeleteNow we have big chains getting huge discounts ridiculously high prices and the odd title sold on special offer, the special offer price pretty much equating to a fair price, it is just a scam.