London Bookstores Are Going Up

It seems that some independent books stores have started in London over the last few years and, contrary to "smart" opinions, are having some success, according to a blog in the Guardian by one bookstore person:

Each independent has its own survival strategy. Ours has been to stock not just those titles our core customers would expect to find, but to second-guess those customers and offer books to surprise and excite them (what Gabriel Zaid calls "a fortunate encounter"). That in itself is not enough, which is why we set out from the very beginning to establish an involved community, both through participation in events and by opening the London Review Cake Shop, which has become a favourite haunt of writers, journalists, publishers, academics (it helps being in Bloomsbury) and, of course, customers.

Of particular note are the activities of the London Review Bookstore, including events, a revamped web site (with soon to be available podcasts of talks), catalogs, and signed first editions. Some of this actually sounds like marketing techniques used in New York's old Book Row (interestingly covered in a volume I've been reading, Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade). Sometimes what went around should come back for another tour.

Print While You Wait: Bookstores and Print-On-Demand

Blackwell's, a so-called high-street bookseller in London, will be installing book printing machines throughout its 60 stores in the UK, according to the Guardian. The current speed is 40 pages per minute, but a new model expected later this year should double the speed. Imagine wanting any of a million books and waiting 7 to 10 minutes to get what you want. It sure beats express shipping.

Destination Bookstores

The Seattle Times ran an article on unique bookstores in the US that so express the communities in which they exist that they qualify as tourist stops. One not on the list that I stumbled across on my recent trip to Manhattan is The Drama Book Shop, 250 West 40th St., between 8th and 9th Avenues. I noticed it as I was heading in to CUNY's graduate school of journalism to give a talk and stopped at the end of the day after I met with some editors. I made it all of 15 feet in when a title caught my eye and I ended up purchasing it and heading off to read. Next time I'm in Manhattan, I'll be heading back. Another favorite of my wife's and mine is in the town of Montague, Mass.. It's called the Book Mill, as it's situated along side a river in an old mill building. A used book store, it has a good selection, but what really stands out is its marketing phrase: books you don't need in a place you can't find.

An Evening of Harry Potter

We arrived at the World Eye bookstore in Greenfield, MA a couple of minutes past midnight - and, apparently, a long time after the crowds started appearing. This small storefront was packed with kids, teens, and adults that wanted first crack at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Most people were in street clothes, though there was a percentage in costume, including a young bow running about in a cape, pointing a wooden stick with a small start at the top (free wands the shop gave away), and yelling, "Blam!" It was like a young Emeril Lagasse taking up fantasy fiction with a vengeance. He also had on his hand an animal puppet, temporarily liberated from a store rack, and would alternate between the percussive onomatopoeia and "Make way for the magic otter!" That was still normal compared to the man in a costume that included some sort of veil for his face and and a coarse broom head mounted bristle side up atop his cranium.

It took maybe half an hour to get through the line, give someone my daughter's name, and then find out that the bookstore was charging full list price - not even a few dollars off. To think we went there in sympathy for the plight of the small shop. Blam. The magic otter has struck again. Somehow I think it will be a long time before I shop there again.

In the meantime, with this update, I just read that the book sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours of sale, or about twice the rate of the sixth. I wonder how many trees that translates into? And apparently some newspapers, trying to get a review into print, have hired speed readers. They should have called my daughter, who had it done before the end of Saturday.