An interesting article here.
What can I say? Nobody pays us to put things in the window! In fact it's full of art books from a local college at the moment.
Know what? We put art books in the window and sales last week were up by over a third on last year. (My maths is too crap at this time on a Monday to work it out exactly) Maybe We'resostoned should try acting a little less like money-making commercial hard men? They might just make a little more money...
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I don't read the article from the same direction as yourselves.
ReplyDeleteApart from a veiled comment about the projected supply terms for Asda-Walmart, I see this Thunderer piece as another wedge of Murdoch press attack on the terrestial booktrade.
What is new here, very little ; the same sort of "co-op promo" figures were bandied about last year. It is a fact of modern retailing that mega-sellers require a 'payment for premium placement' ; this applies within the store chains, in the supermarkets and also on the net.
The Thunderer - mirroring the shadow of it's former self - fails to mention the internet, and the Basin and their co-op promo terms.
I am greatly in favour of UK's bookchains ; in the provinces I believe that most indies work happily alongside Waterstone's, WH Smith and Borders because our opposition (and enemy) is the supermarkets and internet merchandisers.
It would be terribly nice to think that Crockatt & Powell were willing to join the unwritten alliance of the terrestial bookshops rather than making rather petty mischief against one bookchain at every possible cheap opportunity.
Clive - fighting the internet sellers is even more pointless than railing against Wanklestorms.
ReplyDeleteYes we're petty, yes we're dumb - but I get a kick out of winding up these idiots!
Remember I used to work for them. In the spirit of Christie Malry's Own Double Entry I feel the books are still unbalanced - they bugged the hell out of me for years...
"winding up these idiots". Really, what a pompous whiner you are. If your time at Waterstone's was so bad write one of those misery memoirs and get it out of your system - don't keep banging on about how dreadful they are in your increasingly ill informed posts. They're not dreadful, and you probably realise it, and they'll be there a long time after the bank has foreclosed on your shop (so, April next year, then?).
ReplyDeleteI wasn't born to follow boomer baby...
ReplyDeleteAnd what makes you think we owe the bank vast sums of money?
Get off your arse and do something. You might find you are happier and less bitter.
The thing is Clive is that Matthew and I are like bookselling cockroaches. In the coming retail armegeddon we'll just adapt and survive.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to get a little better handle on our attitude check out Oprah's Cormac McCarthy interview. We care, greatly, but we just so don't care either.
And who the fuck wants chains anyway - 'man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains' - gap, boots, tesco, smiths, starbucks... where is our twenty-first century Rousseau just when you need her.