Independent Booksellers Week Debate in London puts onus on politicians

By Paul St John Mackintosh

The promised Independent Booksellers Week Debate ?The Perfect Storm: Why Bookshops are in the frontline in the battle for the High Street,? held as part of the UK? Independent Booksellers Week, took place midweek at London?s South Bank Centre (though unfortunately, it passed off without a recording). And high-profile comments by participants put the pressure on politicians to provide the solutions for Britain?s struggling independent bookstore sector.

?We have to take a more political view of what is happening,? said panelist Lindsay Mackie,?a consultant for the New Economics Foundation who is also on the board of English PEN,?as reported in The Bookseller.?The answer has to be a political one, which involves not accepting that the market is the ultimate arbiter of where we should be.?

Some speakers did engage in the now-customary Amazon-bashing though, including at least one whose own interest group might not be best served by such activities. ?There are some things authors can do and the first thing they can do is take that button off their website which says ?buy from Amazon,?? asserted Anne Sebba, chair of the Society of Authors. ?It doesn?t need to be there.?

Now, this whole issue has been rehearsed before, with many concluding that authors can make a personal decision, but hardly have an obligation, to support independent booksellers when their own often meager livelihood is at stake. However, Sebba did concede that there?s ?no point in making people feel guilty about buying on Kindle?.

Much time was also spent on the challenge posed by ?showrooming??browsing in bookshops but buying online?although less was apparently devoted to the reasons for the differential pricing that makes people wait rather than buy what?s in their hands. ?But showrooming is just one of a variety of pressures bookshops are facing, with other issues such as rising rents, high business rates, lack of town centre parking and the unfair tax arrangements of multinationals, also playing a role,? asserted the Booksellers Association?s Meryl Hall.

Nick Bottomley

As also previously discussed, the most critical threat of all to independent booksellers indeed seems to be business rates and rents. That again puts the ball firmly in the politicians? court. But unfortunately, without a high-profile rallying cry for booksellers singly or en masse to picket Whitehall, call for Kindles to be banned from the UK, or other quixotic exercises, there was not much solid in terms of actual recommendations or initiatives to come out of the debate.

I?m not sure how many independent booksellers would be comfortable with the recommendation from Nic Bottomley, bookseller at Mr B?s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, that what the bookselling experience needs is: ?sexing it up, pimped for the 21st century.? Others called for ?extreme customer service.?

Neither approach seems to me to demonstrate much faith in the value of a bookshop, or appreciation of its special atmosphere. I do think there?s a real debate to be had. I?m just still not left convinced that it?s really started yet.

?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/_g4VIM69KKo/

pauly d project adrienne rich autism cesar chavez day raspberry ketone ron burgundy millennial media