Are you mourning the loss of 'real' bookshops?

[Paulie Tandoori]

The willingness to stock local books is a great plus. I used to take my small-press magazine around various shops in London, including Compendium, Housemans, Centerprise, and the Freedom Press shop. Chains wouldn't touch them.

Centreprise has gone off the rails a bit from what I've heard (although I must admit to not having been there for a while). Freedom Press is just round the corner from where i work and it's great to have a nose through there when I can.

 

[kyser_soze]

It's not consumerism buying books though is it, it's buying intelligence and imagination which are priceless.

OK, whatever, remain in denial. Buying books is a consumer activity PT - is someone who buys Mills & Boon buying 'priceless intelligence and imagination' or shite?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

OK, whatever, remain in denial. Buying books is a consumer activity PT - is someone who buys Mills & Boon buying 'priceless intelligence and imagination' or shite?

Denial

Mills and Boon - imagination innit. I wouldn't sneer at anyone reading them, would you?

 

[Crispy]

Consumerism is the equating of personal happiness with the purchasing of material possessions and consumption.

Doesn't matter where you buy things.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Centreprise has gone off the rails a bit from what I've heard (although I must admit to not having been there for a while). Freedom Press is just round the corner from where i work and it's great to have a nose through there when I can.

Is Centreprise (sp correct?) still there? I would guess that it has been or soon will become a victim of the gentrification of Dalston. It used to let you have a free PO box if you ran a not-for-profit mag - exactly the kind of community resource that is disappearing in Kyser Soze's brave new world of consumer choice.

 

[Brainaddict]

You can get good service from big shops but I often wonder what choice I am missing out on.... Will the big shops take a risk on unknowns authors or obscure subject matter? Little shops often have the flexibility to offer something different...

It's a nice idea but in reality have any authors become known through local bookshops stocking them?

And my experience has been that it's the big chains that stock books on obscure subjects - because they have the space and are making enough profit to keep a few less profitable lines.

Also, unknown authors can put their books on amazon and get a much bigger potential market.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Buying books is a consumer activity

Yep, that's all we are now, vehicles for the transfer of money from one place to another.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Also, unknown authors can put their books on amazon and be completely ignored by the whole world.

I've corrected this for you.

 

[christonabike]

I have started going into the bookshop on Clapham High Street, every Saturday

I enjoy the fact that I have to choose from what's there, there and then

However, on asking to order a book that was to be published some time in the future I was told that it would be quicker if I use Amazon

A truly WHAT THE FUCK moment!

Still, I am getting Raymond Chandler novels on a weekly basis

 

[perplexis]

There's still an excellent independent bookshop in Crystal Palace. I used to work there, and I was damn knowledgeable, I'll have you know (6 years of experience working in a public library prior to that certainly helped). The owner is extremely knowledgeable and approachable and always has something to recommend. I go there every time I go back to the Palace, and he's always got something good for me to read, and he can order anything.
Visit, and be impressed brainaddict.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I briefly worked at a children's bookshop in Fulham. All the staff there were extremely knowledgeable - it is the only way small places like that can get by as they have to charge cover price for books.

 

[boohoo]

It's a nice idea but in reality have any authors become known through local bookshops stocking them?

It would really depend how the author and the bookshop market their product. Have an writer event which even if it's just authors mates would increase footfall in the shop and probably sell a few more books...

 

[elevendayempire]

 

[kyser_soze]

'Fuck off, we don't sell books here!'

 

[Lea]

I buy most of my books on Amazon. It's so much better browsing on Amazon so you can read other readers comments on books and get better idea what the book is about and if it is any good. Ocasionally I like to wonder into a book store such as Borders or Waterstones to browse but I rarely buy there as it is cheaper online.

 

[Brainaddict]

I've corrected this for you.

As opposed to the enormous market they'll get by having a few copies in the local bookshop?
If you want to sell more than a few copies you need to publicise it, and that's easier to do on the web than from a local shop.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

As opposed to the enormous market they'll get by having a few copies in the local bookshop?
If you want to sell more than a few copies you need to publicise it, and that's easier to do on the web than from a local shop.

There won't be an enormous market, but they may manage to sell a few copies. Put a book on Amazon without publicity and it will sell precisely 0 copies.

Considering publicity is a separate issue.

 

[rutabowa]

there's a little independent in Broadway Market in Hackney that only opened not long ago and appears to be thriving... it goes along with the expensive organic market etc. i go there maybe once a year, i only really buy second hand books normally.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Is Centreprise (sp correct?) still there? I would guess that it has been or soon will become a victim of the gentrification of Dalston. It used to let you have a free PO box if you ran a not-for-profit mag - exactly the kind of community resource that is disappearing in Kyser Soze's brave new world of consumer choice.

Yes, the cafe and the bookshop are still there. The problem as i heard it was that most of the old "alternative" materials had been gotten rid off and there was a mainly new stock of publications carrying Nation of Islam stuff and related content. To me, it's not that this type of material should never be stocked but that it was at the expense of anything else that may carry an alternative political view-point. And this extreme material had put people off going into the shop. As i say, this is second hand knowledge - in fact, i might have a pop along in next few days to see whats what there with my own eyes.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

i buy most of mine from amazon too, it does open up a load of books I would probably not have heard of so it's very good in that respect.
I like Book Mongers in Brixton, I bought an enormous hard back anatomy book inthere not long ago and it should have cost loads if money but i got it for about eight quid, I was so chuffed with it. I also buy quite a lot of poetry books from there and think they are quite cheap too. I dont buy novel and biographies and things like that so maybe thats why I dont think they are expensive. They are not unfriendly in there, I've had a couple of chats with them, stop being such moaners will ye?
I like clapham books too, they've got a good kids section and are really friendly and helpful. I too dont know why they've opend up a bookshop on kennington road, maybe they are hoping people will pop in after they've been to the deli and cafe? I never thought it was a moneyed area but all the shop owners seem to think so. Maybe i will pop in there one day to have a butchers

A friend of mine has decided to get out of selling books, just couldnt make it work anymore such a shame really because I would much rather buy a book form someone with passion knowledge and interest that someone who simply scans the barcode and asks if you want chocolates with that.

 

[Brainaddict]

As an aside, I've often thought that it could be easier for second-hand bookshops to make money from selling books cheaper and in larger quantities, rather than charging over half the cover price for a paperback and selling like, ten books in a day. I guess there are reasons no one does it though - storage space perhaps? I'm surprised there isn't at least one place in London doing it though.

 

[Crispy]

Lots of second hand bookshops now use Amazon's Marketplace to sell online.

 

[kyser_soze]

I think most of the remaindered and 2nd hand places around Soho (you know, the places it's possible to pick up Taschen books for a tenner) work to that premise BA, but yeah going for volume/low margin rather than higher margin would seem to be more logical to me...

 

[Crispy]

As an aside, I've often thought that it could be easier for second-hand bookshops to make money from selling books cheaper and in larger quantities, rather than charging over half the cover price for a paperback and selling like, ten books in a day. I guess there are reasons no one does it though - storage space perhaps? I'm surprised there isn't at least one place in London doing it though.

Like a sort of Lidl for books?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, the cafe and the bookshop are still there. The problem as i heard it was that most of the old "alternative" materials had been gotten rid off and there was a mainly new stock of publications carrying Nation of Islam stuff and related content. To me, it's not that this type of material should never be stocked but that it was at the expense of anything else that may carry an alternative political view-point. And this extreme material had put people off going into the shop. As i say, this is second hand knowledge - in fact, i might have a pop along in next few days to see whats what there with my own eyes.

That's a shame. I think brain rot such as Nation of Islam publications should never be stocked anywhere.

 

[Brainaddict]

Like a sort of Lidl for books?

Yes But it's a common business model. That's how amazon makes money (they can do all their discounts because they sell such huge numbers that they don't have to make a big profit on each book). I suspect it was Fopp's business model (okay it went bust, but because of expansion problems not because of that approach).

The reason it seems to make sense is that I know second-hand bookshops get most of their books very cheaply in house clearance sales and so on. Which would seem to lend itself to a high volume, low mark-up approach. But there probably are reasons it doesn't happen.

 

[kyser_soze]

I wonder if, given how absurdly cheap out of town shopping park floorspace is, you could open The Biggest Bookshop In The World and make money from the Lidl model...

 

[Crispy]

Yes But it's a common business model. That's how amazon makes money (they can do all their discounts because they sell such huge numbers that they don't have to make a big profit on each book). I suspect it was Fopp's business model (okay it went bust, but because of expansion problems not because of that approach).

The reason it seems to make sense is that I know second-hand bookshops get most of their books very cheaply in house clearance sales and so on. Which would seem to lend itself to a high volume, low mark-up approach. But there probably are reasons it doesn't happen.

Logistics I expect. Stock taking would be a nightmare

 

[Brainaddict]

I wonder if, given how absurdly cheap out of town shopping park floorspace is, you could open The Biggest Bookshop In The World and make money from the Lidl model...

I think Borders in the US mostly operate from out-of-town big boxes don't they?

 

[kyser_soze]

'Brainaddict's Big Box Of Books'

Altho obviously that alliteration won't work IRL...hmmm...are there any book related words starting with the 10th letter of the alphabet? XXXX's Jumbo *something* Jamboree