Post by Patrick on Mar 21, 2010 15:39:10 GMT
A link to this was "tweeted" by a friend of the owner....
UK: Kilburn Bookshop closes
Nowadays, when a 'high-street' bookshop closes it is not big news, except when the closure is a major independent bookseller. Although the Kilburn Bookshop, in North London, is primarily selling new books, anyone who wants to know what might happen at some point in the future to our side of the trade should read this excellent and thought provoking observation. What happens in the new book trade will eventually affect our side of the trade. Simon-Peter Trimarco, the manager, reflects with passion and anger on the state of the book trade. Simon has spent some twenty-two years selling books and is one who welcomes PCs and technology.
The Kilburn Bookshop's owner, Steve Adams also owns the Willesden Bookshop which he intends to keep open, blames a rent increase and the disruptive effects of lengthy local engineering works as factors exacerbating the trends that already make life tough for independents. Let's hope his efforts prevail.
Simon writes:
The Kilburn Bookshop is closing its doors for good on 31 March, 2010, after 30 years' service to the good folk of NW6.
I'm gradually de-stocking the shop, but it's vile working in a not-very-good bookshop, and the shelves are starting to look pretty ropey. I'm was trying to put down my thoughts about where I see the industry going and realized that I think the whole industry will 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, or in very affluent neighbourhoods, with no competition for the mass market and people with money to burn.
Since the destruction of the NBA (Net Book Agreement) we’ve had to suffer the online folk like Amazon and the big chains demanding huge discounts from publishers in order to then discount themselves to oblivion. Idiot publishers have just rolled over saying “yes, take it all." Backlist titles are now coming in at silly money prices - £14.99 for a Penguin Classic anyone?
Now, as the independents close, we have supermarkets stocking - at a loss making price - the "top twenty bestsellers" that, somewhere, got mistaken for books; soon there won't be enough stock-holding shops for publishers to get a new title, let alone a back-list one, on the shelves and sold - then they'll start failing too.
What will happen? If publishers can't afford the small print-runs for those few stock-holding shops left then it just leaves e-books and print-on-demand. Various multinationals have been trying to hive off these awful "reader" things, Kindles, iPads etc. We have Apple and the like demanding all manner of things from publishers (oops, I mean "working with"), even before the actual launch of their sorry attempts. You can tell these products are no good by the desperation of them trying (and failing) to be as much like a book as possible. If you've invented something to replace another product, surely it should be a better alternative to the original, not a poor copy?
It's a backwards step: none of these readers is anywhere near as good at being a book as a book; none of them is capable of being the myriad things a book is. How do you annotate an e-book? How do you
lend an e-book (free)? How do you turn down its corners, throw it down in annoyance? How do you not break your reader on the Tube when you stuff it into your pocket? How do you browse for something to read when you don't know what you want? How do you come across a biography of someone you didn't know existed when you were vaguely looking for a novel? How do you pass it on?
But if Big Business, the money men, want us to have something, then that is what we‘ll have. No - that is all we'll have! Weird how Apple is somehow seen as above the fray, a collection of holy men, when in reality it’s just another multinational corporation out to make as much money in as short a time as possible. And if it has to destroy the book trade to get its way, well, that's the way it goes, buddy! And now Google (Don't Be Evil) has come up with their master plan to bypass all copyright laws, to hold everyone, author and reader alike, to ransom; how long will it be before the second hand and exchange trade has all gone too and the upstart Oxfam shops are left with the same books going round and round...
My guess is 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.
Am I bitter? Yes! I hate what’s happening to the whole trade and I’m so angry that we independents could do nothing about it - look back to the demise of the NBA and read the letters and arguments published against its abolition. We were right. But things turned out not just as we predicted but worse than we ever thought.
I am accused by some as being an old fogey but I refute that: I have a science background, I love technology, I think the computer has helped me do an infinitely better job than before. But we are being funnelled into a dead end. Where did this idea that all information should be free, all research should not be charged for, all the nonsense given an equal billing with hard won knowledge come from?
One of the only things that I agree with Rupert Murdoch about is that Newspapers should charge for their online content. So should publishers, so should anyone whose hard work is available to use or enjoy. Why do we accept that the workers: the writers, musicians, journalists, editors, the endless list, no longer have the right to be remunerated for their work? If all is to be paid for by 'advertising' then from now on nothing can ever be trusted.
I’ve been at Kilburn Bookshop, on and off, for 22 of its 30 years and God knows what I'm going to do now. Vaguely, I look at anywhere that has jobs advertised but they all seem to want Dynamic! Forward-Thinking! Planners! Who Work Well In A Team! and Thrive On Challenges! What on earth does it mean, and would I want a job that demands that anyway? Mostly I have no idea what these employers are asking for, or even what the actual job is, other than someone who will work endless hours for no money and be damn grateful. None of which am I able or willing to do. Anyway, I'm not going to think about that now.
So goodbye from Kilburn Bookshop, and goodbye to the book trade.
Simon-Peter Trimarco, London
At the risk of making some of you scream, Regardless of the internet competition, I put the blame firmly on the lack of regulation of the supermarkets. I was wandering through a town I knew well recently and dismayed at the devastated state of their High Street, I said to Best Beloved - "I bet there's a new Tesco at the end of this....."
I was right. It was almost as big as the town.
UK: Kilburn Bookshop closes
Nowadays, when a 'high-street' bookshop closes it is not big news, except when the closure is a major independent bookseller. Although the Kilburn Bookshop, in North London, is primarily selling new books, anyone who wants to know what might happen at some point in the future to our side of the trade should read this excellent and thought provoking observation. What happens in the new book trade will eventually affect our side of the trade. Simon-Peter Trimarco, the manager, reflects with passion and anger on the state of the book trade. Simon has spent some twenty-two years selling books and is one who welcomes PCs and technology.
The Kilburn Bookshop's owner, Steve Adams also owns the Willesden Bookshop which he intends to keep open, blames a rent increase and the disruptive effects of lengthy local engineering works as factors exacerbating the trends that already make life tough for independents. Let's hope his efforts prevail.
Simon writes:
The Kilburn Bookshop is closing its doors for good on 31 March, 2010, after 30 years' service to the good folk of NW6.
I'm gradually de-stocking the shop, but it's vile working in a not-very-good bookshop, and the shelves are starting to look pretty ropey. I'm was trying to put down my thoughts about where I see the industry going and realized that I think the whole industry will 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, or in very affluent neighbourhoods, with no competition for the mass market and people with money to burn.
Since the destruction of the NBA (Net Book Agreement) we’ve had to suffer the online folk like Amazon and the big chains demanding huge discounts from publishers in order to then discount themselves to oblivion. Idiot publishers have just rolled over saying “yes, take it all." Backlist titles are now coming in at silly money prices - £14.99 for a Penguin Classic anyone?
Now, as the independents close, we have supermarkets stocking - at a loss making price - the "top twenty bestsellers" that, somewhere, got mistaken for books; soon there won't be enough stock-holding shops for publishers to get a new title, let alone a back-list one, on the shelves and sold - then they'll start failing too.
What will happen? If publishers can't afford the small print-runs for those few stock-holding shops left then it just leaves e-books and print-on-demand. Various multinationals have been trying to hive off these awful "reader" things, Kindles, iPads etc. We have Apple and the like demanding all manner of things from publishers (oops, I mean "working with"), even before the actual launch of their sorry attempts. You can tell these products are no good by the desperation of them trying (and failing) to be as much like a book as possible. If you've invented something to replace another product, surely it should be a better alternative to the original, not a poor copy?
It's a backwards step: none of these readers is anywhere near as good at being a book as a book; none of them is capable of being the myriad things a book is. How do you annotate an e-book? How do you
lend an e-book (free)? How do you turn down its corners, throw it down in annoyance? How do you not break your reader on the Tube when you stuff it into your pocket? How do you browse for something to read when you don't know what you want? How do you come across a biography of someone you didn't know existed when you were vaguely looking for a novel? How do you pass it on?
But if Big Business, the money men, want us to have something, then that is what we‘ll have. No - that is all we'll have! Weird how Apple is somehow seen as above the fray, a collection of holy men, when in reality it’s just another multinational corporation out to make as much money in as short a time as possible. And if it has to destroy the book trade to get its way, well, that's the way it goes, buddy! And now Google (Don't Be Evil) has come up with their master plan to bypass all copyright laws, to hold everyone, author and reader alike, to ransom; how long will it be before the second hand and exchange trade has all gone too and the upstart Oxfam shops are left with the same books going round and round...
My guess is 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.
Am I bitter? Yes! I hate what’s happening to the whole trade and I’m so angry that we independents could do nothing about it - look back to the demise of the NBA and read the letters and arguments published against its abolition. We were right. But things turned out not just as we predicted but worse than we ever thought.
I am accused by some as being an old fogey but I refute that: I have a science background, I love technology, I think the computer has helped me do an infinitely better job than before. But we are being funnelled into a dead end. Where did this idea that all information should be free, all research should not be charged for, all the nonsense given an equal billing with hard won knowledge come from?
One of the only things that I agree with Rupert Murdoch about is that Newspapers should charge for their online content. So should publishers, so should anyone whose hard work is available to use or enjoy. Why do we accept that the workers: the writers, musicians, journalists, editors, the endless list, no longer have the right to be remunerated for their work? If all is to be paid for by 'advertising' then from now on nothing can ever be trusted.
I’ve been at Kilburn Bookshop, on and off, for 22 of its 30 years and God knows what I'm going to do now. Vaguely, I look at anywhere that has jobs advertised but they all seem to want Dynamic! Forward-Thinking! Planners! Who Work Well In A Team! and Thrive On Challenges! What on earth does it mean, and would I want a job that demands that anyway? Mostly I have no idea what these employers are asking for, or even what the actual job is, other than someone who will work endless hours for no money and be damn grateful. None of which am I able or willing to do. Anyway, I'm not going to think about that now.
So goodbye from Kilburn Bookshop, and goodbye to the book trade.
Simon-Peter Trimarco, London
At the risk of making some of you scream, Regardless of the internet competition, I put the blame firmly on the lack of regulation of the supermarkets. I was wandering through a town I knew well recently and dismayed at the devastated state of their High Street, I said to Best Beloved - "I bet there's a new Tesco at the end of this....."
I was right. It was almost as big as the town.
