Free Market Necessarily Good for Books?

Since the NBA disappeared, 500 independent bookshops have closed. Borders has swooped on to our high streets – and then ceased trading. Dillons is a distant (bad) memory. The market has narrowed. The shelf life of most novels is far shorter, as are the careers of most writers. Statistics tell us that more books are published – but most of those are self-published or sold by tiny firms with next to no marketing push. The real story of the industry is the slashing of lists, mergers, collapses, buy-outs, sackings and losses on a scale never before witnessed.


Now, instead of a cartel, we have a virtual monopoly. An agreement that enabled dozens of publishers to set prices for thousands of booksellers has been replaced by a system that allows two or three big organisations to dictate all. Waterstone's book buyers, rather than the book-buying public, decide whether a book succeeds. Supermarkets tell publishers what price to sell at, how many copies to print, what to put on the cover, what to call books and even what to put inside them.

The Net Book Agreement, put into place in 1899 in the UK allowed publishers to set the retail price of books, but in the 1990's the agreement was torn up to allow free market forces to take over. But Sam Jordison in The Guardian asks whether this was a good thing for the book industry in the long term.

Times' Mega Book Fair

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happened up at Times Mega book sale in BSC after finishing at the hairdressers, and ended up spending way too much. 30-90% discount on books and some very good titles.

Bookshop Just for Women

So what do you think of this idea - a bookshop especially for women?

Elizabeth Tai writes that MPH Bookstores has introduced Malaysia’s first “women concept” store which is at The Curve :

To begin with, the outlet’s books will be chosen for their appeal to women. There will be everything from women-centric business and management books and autobiographies on prominent female leaders to chick-lit and cookbooks. EspresSOUP is a little corner where you can relax with a cup of coffee and a good book. ... There will also be other products with female appeal, such as wedding stationery, to name just one. Brides-to-be will be glad to know that stationery specialist MOOF will be bringing in its exclusive designs, which will only be available at The Curve outlet.

I think it is a clever marketing strategy, especially as The Curve already has a big branch of Borders and the branch of MPH does need to differentiate itself.

Bookshops also do need to reinvent themselves as destinations which customers associate with a pleasurable experience, if they are to survive especially as we move towards the age of ebooks.

This sounds like a place where women might go to treat themselves and get away from the pressures of the day and that's good and I like the idea of the books club, talks and workshops:  it's bookstore "squidginess", for sure.

But, I do have some reservations.  First, I personally don't like segregation of the sexes. Men need their spaces to relax and hang out too.  

And secondly I don't like the cliched assumptions that women should like certain things whether in terms of decor (usually frilly, flowery pink things) or in the choice of  books.  The concept of women's bookshops is nothing new, but around the globe most have been independents which promoted feminist and/or lesbian thought.

Furthermore, it seems to me that there is an increasing de-emphasis on selling books and a move towards the store becoming a gift shop that also sells books. 

I will go check it out the next time I go shopping at The Curve ... and I hope the EspresSOUP corner serves decent coffee!

Anyway, what's your reaction to this?

The Death of Independent Bookshops

The death of independent bookshops is just one symptom of a much wider crisis in publishing. Discounted books, online bookselling and the advent of ebooks are destroying old patterns of reading and book buying. We are living through a revolution as enormous as the one created by Gutenberg’s printing press – and authors and publishers are terrified they will become as outdated as the monks who copied out manuscripts. How this happened is down to ambitious editors, greedy agents, demanding writers and big businesses with an eye for easy profit. Combine that with devilishly fast technological innovation and you have a story as astonishing as the credit crunch – and potentially as destructive.

Sameer Rahim in The Telegraph mourns the loss of yet another independent London bookshop, and wonders whether the writing on the wall for literature in a piece aptly called Apoca-Lit:

We are living through a moment when all the balls have been thrown in the air and no one is sure where they will land. In the digital age, will publishers and agents survive in their current form? Derek Johns argues that “authors need agents as first readers and financial advisers” and someone will have to collate and distribute books whether in bound or ebook form. But will they? How long can it be before Tesco (which already has a 10 per cent share of the book market) stops dealing with fussy publishers and brands its own books? The ebook is also changing things dramatically. The iPad arrives in this country next month and looks set to put the Sony Reader out of commission. Perhaps more significantly, ebooks will allow writers to bypass agents, publishers and bookshops by launching their work on the web or exchanging it quickly among themselves. The extra costs involved in manufacturing books will inevitably come to make them seem a luxury and make the bound book as obsolete as vinyl. ... Without some form of institutional support, there is a risk that only the trashy and the brilliant will thrive. That might sound like a bracingly efficient way of doing things, but the wonder of books is that no one can ever be sure how important they might be – or who might start slowly and then turn, eventually, into a genius. The careers of many authors show that the mercurial and the eccentric often take a long time to be appreciated. Abolishing the gatekeepers – however excessive or peculiar they may be – will not help reveal all those hidden talents to public view. Instead, the danger is our bookshelves will come to resemble a long line of branded baked beans.

In case you think this is an alarmist view look at what Simon-Peter Trimarco, manager, of the Kilburn Bookshops says about the business shutting down:

I'm trying to put down my thoughts about where I see the industry going, and realize that I think the whole industry is going to fail in the next couple of years. Dillons, Ottakar's, Hammicks have all gone; Borders went bankrupt in December; Waterstone's has obviously been struggling for ages; most independents have closed, or will do soon; and those stalwarts and new shops which (we are told) are "thriving" are situated in out-of-the-way places and in very affluent neighbourhoods with no competition for the mass market.

Soon there won't be enough shops for publishers to get a new title stocked and sold - then they'll start failing too. We’ve had to suffer the online folk like Amazon and the big chains and supermarkets demanding huge discounts in order to discount themselves to oblivion. 

And he foresees that :

... once almost all the bookshops have closed, Amazon, or some similar mega-company, will start opening little Browsing Bookshops. It'll be like TescoMetro or Starbucks: first put all the other shops and suppliers out of business, then go in there yourself and tell everyone what a great job you do, a great service to the "consumer", that we‘ve never had it so good.

Previous posts about Independent bookshops here.

The Damaging Irony of Big Time Bookselling

Foyles is still the acceptable face of bookselling, probably because it is still unlike the predators that are now quietly consuming the book trade throughout the world. Conquering giants now want commissions of 60 per cent or more from publishers and then they ask a sum again to display the titles prominently. They strike bargains that enable them to sell three books for the price of two, like lavatory cleaners in a discount store, and much as they draw crowds to their jangling tills, the trail that they leave behind is of closed shops and hand-to-mouth publishers and unknown but probably good writers that do not have the pull of Dan Brown or Harry Potter. This is the damaging irony of big time bookselling; that it consumes the very trade it is meant to be promoting, and many, many books from small publishers never get to be read by the wider book-reading people. So who stands to gain, who stands to lose in this dog-eat-book world? Remainder books are big business now, big enough to have their own book fairs. Testimony surely to the growing value of shelf space in the bookshops that have to be cleared as quickly as books are being churned up by the big boy publishers.

Following the closure of Borders in Charing Cross Road, Wan Hulaimi (our Awang Goneng) writes a passionate piece about the demise of bookshops thanks to ruthless and ultimately short-sighted business practices. I love his description of the eccentric way Foyles used to operate. It brings back memories of when I used to make a pilgrimage down to London as a teenager, to visit what was felt by many to be the best bookshop in the world. (Pic on right - Charing Cross Road)

A Bookseller's Responsibility

Bookseller Abby Wong writes an interesting piece in today's Starmag about how Malaysians :

... are reading more and better books but are still dependent on booksellers’ recommendations and unbiased selections.

And she talks about an role of the bookshop, beyond just having the products available :

Indeed, booksellers – or rather, the book buyers who work for the booksellers – are readers’ readers, and they have a responsibility to love books, to read them and to make sincere recommendations to the public. ... Furthermore, I feel it is the lesser known books that bookstores must bring to their customers’ attention because while their authors might not produce commercial best-sellers, they are often better writers than those who shift thousands of titles at a time.

And then she goes on to list some reads that may well have slipped beneath the radar of local readers (and there is a 30% off voucher in the print edition, in case you decide to check them out.)

Her message to booksellers in general :

Instead of dreading the competition, why not start buying passionately to make Malaysian bookstores as attractive as candy stores to customers of all ages?

What's Big and Bad, but Actually Very Good?

It's BookXcess' Big Bad Book Sale, of course!


I was invited along to the preview yesterday, but couldn't make it, so decided to go along today.


It was a very weird Thursday anyway - the traffic was terrible for a weekday, and it took me a while to realise that since tomorrow is Hari Raya Haji and it's school holiday besides, many people had taken time off work to enjoy an extended weekend. A marvellous bit of timing for mad keen book buyers.

(Above - one indulgent dad with a pile of books for his daughter - and there was another full box at this feet!)

When I got to Amcorp Mall, and made my way up to the third floor where the sale was being held (in a huge double shop-lot next to the bookshop), I could not believe the long queue of people waiting to get in to the already packed space. I needed lunch (at my favourite Korean restaurant) before I could even think of braving it.


When I came back much fortified (by kimchi and bulgogi) the queue was gone, but there was scarcely room to move inside. Whoever laments that Malaysians don't read, don't value books, should have seen the heartwarming sight of folks with huge piles and boxes of books.

I really hadn't intended to buy much but soon accumulated a huge bag full of good stuff. The coffee table books were going for RM20, and pretty much all the rest - even hardbacks - for RM8 each. The adult fiction selection wasn't amazing (or maybe all those other eager poeple had beaten me to the best), but I ended up with plenty of non-fiction choices. (My bag full only cost me RM139!)

No matter how hot and uncomfortable it got, or how long the queue for the tills, there was a great feeling of camaraderie among the book lovers. There were new-friends to make along the way, much surrepstitious peeking at other people's book choices.

And of course a few old friends to find. Raja Ahmad is at every cheap book sale I go to!

And Daphne Lee was there too helping out.

I was hot and exhausted by the end, but very happy indeed with my swag. I'm too tired to list everything I bought but might add a note tomorrow.

The sale runs till 2nd December and there's still plenty of good stuff.

Discounts at Borders

Bobbie at Borders sent me news of some very welcome discounts - Dan Brown readers are sure to be overjoyed! (Click poster up to size to read.)

Postscript :

Shirley added this in the comments :

Hi Sharon, thanks for putting this up! Just a note - there are more than 250 specially selected bestselling titles on 25% discount in stores.

I'm gonna title-drop here... Malayan Trilogy, Evening is the Whole Day, Lovely Bones, Graveyard Book, Fahrenheit 451, Atlas Shrugged, many local titles including Robert Raymer's Lovers & Strangers ... so there is definitely way more than Dan Brown here.

Last day on 31st Aug. :)

Bookxcess Turns 2

Sunday is the day to visit Amcorp Mall - the flea market is tremendous fun and provides a great excuse to visit BookXcess to buy a guilt free pile of books.

The shop boasts 100,000 titles ranging from fiction to children to self-help to business and prices are about 50-70% lowers than regular bookstores so the store's slogan Read More for Less! is entirely approriate.

Now the remaindered bookshop is celebrating its second anniversary this coming Sunday: 20 titles priced are going for only RM2 each, others are included in a Buy 2, Get 1 Free, and if you spend RM200 nett in a single receipt, you will be entitled to a RM20 cash voucher. BookXcess’s director Andrew Yap says :

We hope our anniversary promotions would entice the general public to pick up more books as we want people to shed their wariness to read the pages of a book.

BookXcess has also launched its own book blog in conjunction with the celebrations with book-related news, book reviews by staff and invited guests, promotions, contests, freebies and more. You can also become a fan of BookXcess on Facebook.

I was there on Sunday with friends Rob and Elaine, and managed to pick up a good haul including Ian Rankin's short story collection A Good Hanging, Oliver Sacks Musicophilia : Tales of Music and The Brain, J.M. Ledgard's highly acclaimed first novel Giraffe, and the first (huge!) volume of Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula. It was also good to bump into other book-loving friends who haunt the place on Sunday ...

Book Clearance Sale

Times is closing a branch :

- Up to 90% discount
- 3 for RM10
- Daily specials @ RM1
- 11am – 8pm
- 2nd Floor, CapSquare Centre (Map)

+6.017.375.4223

Book Buffet?

We all love the great buffets in the hotels which turn ordinary Malaysians and foreign visitors into gourmands. And now the buffet concept has come to kid's books. Neat marketing idea!

Donald On BFM

Another podcast from BFM 89.9! This is time it's Donald Kee of MPH Bookstores talking about the company's commitment to improving the country's readership.

Times - You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Times has had something of an image makeover and Leowania was kind enough to send me a photo of this tasty window display at Pavilion. What other bookstore has the Donatella Versace home collection setting off the book display very artfully?

They also have some good things happening this month, including discounts for World Book Day. (I'm smiling because MPH always celebrates this in April along with UNESCO. What can be better than two days to celebrate reading!)


And then there are some interesting author appearances. (Do click the posters up to full size for the info.)


This is one I must not miss! Tarek Fatah on March 11th. (Read more about his book and listen to a broadcast here.)


Adeline Loh will make you laugh with her crazy adventures on March 14th.


You can catch writers from Urban Odysseys collection on March 21st.

Raman's Dire Prognostications

In his Silverfish newsletter Raman makes some predictions about coming shake-outs in the book trade in the light of the current economic situation, particularly with regards to the situation locally. It would be very interesting to get some feedback to this piece from others in book retail ...

Virtual Tour of Charing Cross Road

One of my favourite haunts when I go back to London is Charing Cross Road with specialist bookshops the length of the street, the biggest and most famous of course being Foyles. Now crime, romance, sci-fi bookshop, Murder One, the only one of its kind in the UK, is to close its doors and the street may never be the same again.

Mark McCormick in The Guardian puts together an interactive guide to the area complete with map so you can take a virtual tour with photos and video.

I'm homesick!

Is Bargain Hunting for Books Destroying the Trade?

Lost in the hand-wringing over the state of the book industry is the fact that this is a golden age for those in love with old-fashioned printed volumes: more books are available for less effort and less money than ever before. A book search engine like ViaLibri.net can knit together 20,000 booksellers around the world offering tens of millions of nearly new, used or rare books.

But it's this very buying and selling of second hand books on the internet that is undermining the book industry writes Rodrigo Corral in the New York Times, with neighbourhood book stores the hardest hit.

*Sigh* I am an equal opportunity book buyer, and and unrepentent about buying on the internet what I can't easily or immediately buy from local bookshops (usually through Abebooks which has never let me down).

Tesco Undercuts on Beedle

Predictably, Tesco's is starting a Potter price war all over again. Beedle the Bard will be on sale at just RM28.99 Dec 27-29 (and after that at RM32.25), presumably, as a loss leader. (Meaning they will not make any profit from it but it will lure you into the stores to fill your trolley with plenty of stuff that they will make plenty of profit from.) The UK recommended retail price is GBP12.99 - so more than twice that.

Says Tesco's marketing director Paul Morris (left, and something of a Harry Potter lookalike) :

At the moment we are focusing on iconic books that capture the public's imagination.

I haven't been into Tescos since I vowed not to after the last Potter debacle (and certainly don't miss it!) so can anyone tell me if they actually have sold any other titles since then? It's my feeling that the hypermarket does does precisely zilch for readers for the rest of the year, and now pulls the rug from under the feet of the bookstores (who do plenty for readers all year round and operate one of the trickiest retail businesses) when it can take advantage of the situation.

All's fair in love and commerce, but this still gets my goat (or should that be Christmas turkey).

Bookselling in the Big Apple

Opening an independent bookshop doesn't seem like the kind of activity that will get you noticed by the New York Times. But when you realise 75 independent bookstores have closed down since 2000, you begin to appreciate the extraordinary leap of faith Jessica Stockton Bagnulo is making.

All I had was my ambition and my passion

she says. Now she has experience gained from working in the trade, a business partner and a whole lot of supporters. I really wish her luck and will be dropping by her blog from time to time to see how its going.

Oh, and hands up, how many of you also harbour a dream of opening a bookshop? I do.

(The pic above from the New York Times shows the opening party.)

The Reinvention of Popular

There's an interesting feature in Starmag today about how one of our biggest bookstore chains, Popular, is in the process of reinventing itself.

The store began life in Singapore, opened its first Malaysian branch in 1984 and now has 57 branches across this country alone. (For more on the history of the company, read this entry on Wikipedia.)

One of the biggest hurdles the store has to overcome is that of perception. As Elizabeth Tai says in the article :

Think Popular bookstore and chances are, you’ll think, “Oh, Chinese books, and a great range of stationery”.

But Executive Director Lim Lee Ngoh (right) explains how Popular is expanding in the English book-selling sector; how it has been opening mega stores to provide a one-stop service for book buyers; and how it is hosting the third BookFest@Malaysia event, which will take place from May 24 to June 1 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. (See picture of last year's fair above.)

Any bookshop that wants to widen its appeal needs to do more though than increase floor space and pile books up high.

Popular clearly needs to sex the image of the store up (and maybe the recently announced book prize is a step in the right direction).

And then of course, there's the squiginess factor to take into account. The bookshops that woo the customers best are those that turn themselves into a pleasant destination where you're happy to spend time.

As Lim says, it is a very tough line of business to be in!

What are you thoughts on Popular bookstores? Do you do much of your book buying there?

Pay Less in December

Ok, what you really want to know is not whether Asian and Western story arcs are different (and what does it really matter in the long run anyway provided that a novel is well written and we enjoy it?) but when you can get your next infusion of extremely cheap books.

Voila! (Click to enlarge.)

And talking about book buying, has anyone been to the huge new branch of Times at The Pavillion on Bukit Bintang? Like Animah I really am heartsick at the tearing down of a historical building (Bukit Bintang Girl's School) to make way for yet more retail space, but I have always had a soft spot for Times which has tempted me into too many unplanned purchases to mention.

Actually I think I'd better stay away!