| Rumours
of the secondhand bookshop's death are greatly exaggerated Readers
Comments
Form:
Stuart Manley of Barter Books 31.10.05. (also sent as a letter to the Independant.) The
facts are very different from the Independent article and it is quite deplorable
that a newspaper with some pretension to integrity should publish such a poorly
researched piece. In
1995, Drif gave the number of active used/antiquarian bookstores (as against 'appointment
only' outfits) as around 900. As Drif, uniquely, actually visited each bookshop,
it is a much more accurate guide than Sheppards. In addition, Drif listed around
60 shops that had closed since his previous guide (1992), which we can take as
the normal attrition rate at the time. Mike
Goodenough in The Book Guide currently lists over 1,000 active UK bookstores,
so this 'decline' is a bit of a myth. Sure, bookshops close (it has always been
so) but others open and despite the grumbles of some, many flourish. We have had
a year on year increase for fifteen years and although we also run a flourishing
website too, the bottom line is that the web is only around one fifth of our overall
business. Enough to give four full-time jobs, but that means that four fifths
of our business continues to come from our traditional bookshop. That proportion
has remained steady for a few years now, both sides of the business increasing
in a uniform manner. Yesterday
I was phoned by a reporter from our regional newspaper to comment on the Independent
article (which I was unaware of at the time) but once he told me the gist of the
article, I did my best to correct the blatant inaccuracies and point out that
the Independent research was both sloppy and plain wrong. Figures like '1,200
down to 600' stick in peoples minds - fine when it is true, but damaging when
it is untrue. The Independent should be ashamed of itself.
From:
Robert Brown of The Winchester Bookshop 06.11.05. Clive
Keeble gave me the link to your rebuttal of the Independent article about the
"death of the bookshop". I think your response was absolutely right, and it is
impossible to have absolutely accurate figures about shops opening and closing.
However what I think is clear is that the trade as we have known it for the
last half century has and is changing very quickly. In particular there do seem
to be less and less of what I would call old-style antiquarian bookshops. We run
a middle of the road shop which we try to fill with as much antiquarian as opposed
to "second hand" as possible. However if I want a day out to compare prices/business
with other dealers then I now have to go a long way....
Portsmouth and
Southampton, Reading and Basingstoke (ie most of Hampshire and south Berkshire)
, a population of about 3 million, don't have an antiquarian bookshop between
them. Guildford has lost Traylen and Thorpe's, Alresford has lost Laurence Oxley,
Salisbury has lost Beach's, Winchester has lost Gilbert's. I can't think of any
which have started which match these.
It's good to see and read of new
shops opening, but the trend still seems to be down. I have just come back from
3 weeks in the US, and the story seems pretty much the same there.
Barry
Shaw in the Bookdealer quotes figures saying that the amount of secondhand books
being sold is increasing every year, but as much of this is on the internet and
of relatively inexpensive books it doesn't surprise me. But most of us didn't
go into bookselling to sit in front of a computer all day, nor to deal in bulk
sales, I suppose.
I won't go on (although I could) !
Keep up
the good work.
TheBookGuide’s reply
06.11.05.
I certainly agree with you
that the trade is changing very fast but I think that the decline of the traditional
"Antiquarian Bookshop" has its roots in the growth of book fairs in the 1980's
and commercial property valves in the 1990's. I think that many of those who in
the past would have opened a shop, saw easier money to be made at fairs and then
(at least in the early days) on the net.
From what I can ascertain, book
fairs, particularly the monthly fairs, now seem to having a harder time than shops.
This is due in large part I feel to their move to out-of-town locations, where
there is little chance of attracting passing trade. The demographics of our customer
base has changed dramatically in the last ten years, with a lot less dedicated
collectors and far more single purchase customers. The out-of-town move, which
made perfect sense in the pre-internet recent past, now puts the exhibitors books
out of the reach of many potential customers.
The internet has developed
a huge new market for old books of every flavour and it seems that many of these
internet bred customers now want to physically browse books. There are also some
signs that younger booksellers see the bookshop as a viable way of reaching this
market and preferable to sitting in front of a PC all day or dragging their books
around the country.
We shall see :)
Mike
From:
Gordon Hill Bowdon Books 09.11.05.
Thanks
for putting this quasi-evidence of book shop decline - ie., '50% of shop closed
in the last 3 years', into context. I had something similar reported to me about
an article in the Telegraph, making a similar assertion. If only those writing
would contextualise their remarks, by saying something like "According to one
book trade directory compiler.....". We
are undoubtedly going through a process of transformation with respect to ways
of obtaining secondhand books, and some shop keepers are finding trading life
difficult, both in terms of buying and selling, ourselves included, but it does
no good at all to make things sound worse than they are, by making such unconsidered
comments in the press. Thank you for
your efforts in challenging this unhelpful and potentially demoralising information.
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