The Fair remains the premier International Book Fair. It was busy – very busy – with 25,000 delegates, half from overseas, attracted by the 1,500 exhibitors from 57 countries. The Bookseller suggested that the USA DoJ ruling on the Agency Model (eBook pricing) had dampened the mood considerably for rights sales.

I am very much against this ruling as it simply hands yet more power to an already menacing monopoly. I applaud those Publishers who have decided to fight this rather simplistic ruling. Amazon has already done considerable damage to our High Streets, and not just to Bookselling. It’s quite foolish to view Amazon as a consumer champion.

China – this year’s Market Focus - with their visually stunning Fair Pavilion (designed by Yang Liu). The Market Focus logo was in the shape of a hand-fan as used by the Royal Family in China 1500 years ago. LBF reported that China had sent 1,200 people (including 50 authors) representing 180 publishers – quite a commitment! So why China? Well, English and Mandarin are the two dominant world languages and China is a vast country with a 1.3billion population speaking over 50 dialects. It’s projected to overtake the USA as the world’s largest economy within the next 20 years or so, and yet paradoxically it’s still 90^th on the GDP index despite its recent spectacular economic growth.

The sheer size of the country with its many regional imbalances and huge social challenges is overseen by the pro-business centralised Government. For the Western creative industries, protection of Intellectual Property and Copyright remains the pressing issue. Good quality translation skills remain scarce.

There is the inevitable controversy over issues of censorship when judged by the ideals of liberal democracy. Indeed, the Fair’s impressive China and Europe Publishing Forum attracted a goodly number of silent placard waving protesters; ‘Free speech is not a crime’, ‘Stop literary persecution’. The London Evening Standard ran an interview this week with the Chinese author of Wild Swans in which she stated that, in her opinion, ‘Censorship in China is worse than it was 10 years ago’.

The Chinese Government oversees all media output through GAPP and it is this body which issues the requisite ISBN’s. Since 1949, China has published around 34,000 titles of British books within China. Apparently, ¼ of all books imported into China are from the UK! Through its 600+ Publishing Houses and with a workforce of nearly 57 thousand employees’, China has the largest publishing output in the world by volume (300,000 titles in 2009). It’s a mature and self-confident market set to generate revenues of $9.5billion in 2012. China is poised to take over from the USA in levels of scientific journal publishing.

There are 167,000 bookshops across China, with some state-of-the-art seven-story bookshops in the largest cities. The number of bricks and mortar shops is growing by almost 5% per year! The state-run chain, Xinhua (new China) has 6,483 outlets.

Why is this of any interest to us Brits? Because there are more people learning English in China than anywhere else in the world and more English speakers in China than in the rest of the English speaking world. Language learning is paramount. For publishers, this obviously represents a huge market and a pressing opportunity. There is a very attractive market for educational and English language publishers!

I was very struck by Pearson’s almost evangelical mantra, ‘Not just touching people, but transforming lives through learning’.

Islam – I was forcibly struck by the number of large and impressive Islamic publishing stands at LBF. These were in stark contrast to the mainly small booths of the Christian publishers, aside from the usual welcome presence of Lion Hudson PLC. Islam clearly has plenty of financial backing, is investing heavily in literature and is clearly committed to book distribution in a way that some Christians seem to have forgotten.

Print still dominates, at around 80-85% of the UK market and much smaller elsewhere in the world. We should keep the eBook ‘hype’ in perspective. The digital presence at the Fair was actually quite small, tucked away in one smallish zone. Interestingly, KOBO eReaders have said that 10% of their eBook sales are now for self-published authors. In China, authors are uploading self-published works in instalments, books which are then picked up by publishers and eventually making their way into bookshops; the reverse of our model in the West!

UK Publishers do increasingly view their role as ‘Content Providers’ delivered via various platforms but print currently continues to dominate their activity.

LBF 2012. Quite an event, and yet again, another reminder of just how quickly our world is changing. The tide of globalisation and digitalisation continues to alter the way we all do business yet the basic desire to read remains.

In his summing up, Lord Powell of Bayswater said, ‘The English language is the highway to bring the world to China’. I suspect that China is actually finding her way to the rest of the world!

View more LBF photos here.

Cross posted by Eddie Olliffe.

But I also hate what they’re doing to this trade of ours, drawing suppliers and customers alike down, down, down in ever decreasing circles: will the time come, I wonder, when, like a black hole sucking in everything in its orbit, the whole thing implodes? Not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but a singularity at the end of ecommerce? Or more prosaically, like used bathwater down the plughole to the ocean’s oblivion…

Amazon Offer - House Rules reduced from £7.99 to £4.99

This week, they sucked me in again: an irresistible offer of Jodi Picoult’s House Rules at half-price — except, as you can see from the screenshot, it wasn’t half the current £16.99 hardback price, it was almost half the forthcoming £7.99 paperback price. I clicked through… only to find — as you too will find if you succumb — the actual offer was £8.38, just under half the hardback price.

“What’s going on?” I asked them. “You’ve offered it to me for £4.99, but the online price is £8.38.”

Their first response came within 24 hours and was simply a stock reply as if mine were a generic stock enquiry, explaining that they sometimes run out of special offer items due to high levels of demand, yadda yadda yadda…

Being the awkward customer that I am, I contacted them again with a request to read and respond to my specific enquiry; and they did — again within 24 hours — with an apology and instructions on how to obtain the book at the emailed offer price. But then they went one better: rather than take off the difference, £3.39, they took off the £4.99, leaving me with only £3.39 to pay. That’s what I call customer service!!

As for what this has to do with us as booksellers and as Christian traders in particular: are not we the ones who should be setting the standards that other businesses aspire to? What, I find myself wondering, has gone so badly wrong with our trade — with, dare I say, the Church of which we are assuredly a part — that so often it’s the world that sets the standards that we must aspire to?

Our price £11.99 - RRP £14.99

What has gone so badly wrong with a company like Kingsway — a company that excels in so many other ways, whose employees are all, as Melanie has rightly pointed out, “wonderful people … friendly, polite, considerate and try[ing] to do the best they can…” — that its leaders/marketers seem to regard comparing their own so-called RRPs to their own actual selling prices as a reasonable business practice? In the case of brand new albums, such as the Very Best of Kendrick album, the so-called RRPs are prices that have never been charged anywhere, let alone by themselves — with nothing even to suggest that this is an introductory price: it is, quite simply, Kingsway’s “Our price” v/s Kingsway’s RRP.

STL say 'Tell Us What You Think!'

On a more hopeful note, however, the new STL seem determined not only to offer us the best possible customer service but have also invited us to help them work out exactly what standards they should be aspiring to. If you haven’t taken their Customer Service Survey, please do consider it. It will probably take a good half an hour or more to work through the 30 questions, but if enough of us do it and STL take our feedback on board, it will surely be time well spent.

• All posts tagged ‘Kingsway’

"The short-sightedness of helping an industry cause its own collapse is staggering" — Frank Pope

It’s an excerpt from an article about overfishing of bluefin tuna, which begins:

Two weeks ago a single bluefin tuna sold in Japan for a surreal £111,000. The price of this fish, which ends up in the best sushi restaurants, will carry on rocketing so long as the tuna population keeps plummeting.

It struck me as remarkably apposite for the book trade too: not just the Christian trade, but the wider trade. This week we’ve been having a lively debate about the pros and cons of publishers promoting Amazon in their advertising: A Polite Request to Christian (and other) Publishers: Please don’t do this; and I’m delighted to say that the Evangelical Press, whose posters gave rise to the discussion, have acknowledged their gaffe and apologised.

But I still find myself looking at Amazon askance as publishers seem to cave in to their ever more extortionate demands, supplying them at terms that allow them to sell at below trade or wholesale prices. Did someone forget to put up the warning sign: “Do not feed the troll”? Or are most publishers really that short-sighted that all they can see is the immediate sale and not the long term future?

Of course, it’s not just Amazon and the publishers: it’s the buying public. I’ve long since lost track of the number of people who wander into my shop, tell me how much they enjoy being able to look at a book before buying it — then promptly go off to purchase it online. Hello? Wakey wakey, people: how long do you think your local bookshop will survive if you treat it as nothing more than a showroom for Amazon?

There are notable exceptions, customers who call in, tell me that they know they can get a book cheaper online but they appreciate the service I provide; my thanks to them: you know who you are, and I salute you.

Then we have the rise of the ebook. They still occupy a relatively small sector of the marketplace: I’ve yet to see more people on the train with their ebook readers out than with paperbacks; but with Apple’s rumoured iTablet on the horizon, the tide may be about to turn and all those books we’ve buried in the sand may be sucked out to sea, where, with the bluefin tuna, they’ll be fished to extinction.

Or if not to extinction, to the point where they’re so rare that the only bookshops left will be like those top sushi restaurants, selling paperback books for £111,000…

EP Books on facebook - order at amazon.co.uk

I know it’s tempting. I know they’re probably your biggest outlet in today’s world. But really, truly, Amazon don’t need your help to boost their market share: they’re taking it from the rest of us anyway, along with the supermarkets with all their cut-price paperbacks.

Kudos to Evangelical Press for launching a national railways poster campaign:  it’s great to see a Christian publisher prepared to invest in this kind of marketing:

Posters for the book ‘Who made God?’ are being put up on Febraury [sic] 1st at the following major train stations: Bristol Parkway, Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff Central, Doncaster, Glasgow Central, Liverpool Central, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Victoria, Peterborough and York. Keep an eye out.

But why the big Amazon push? Amazon aren’t interested in promoting a Christian ethos: they’ll just as happily sell your prospective customers Dawkins’ God Delusion and tell them what a fantastic book that is.

Fair enough, I guess, if Amazon are sponsoring the posters; but if that’s what this is about, surely a better way to raise funds for a poster campaign would have been to approach the Christian book trade? I’m not in a position to bankroll this sort of campaign; but if I’d been approached I’d have gladly blogged it to the trade and encouraged others to run with it.

But I’d be very surprised if Amazon are sponsoring the posters. So — assuming it is free publicity for an online bookseller that everybody knows about already — why not publicise a Christian online bookseller such as eden.co.uk?

I raised that question on their facebook page — here’s the conversation so far:

Phil Groom: I guess there wasn’t room on the poster to say “Order at your local Christian bookshop”??

EP Books (Evangelical Press): We want to get this one into every bookshop Phil. Christian bookshops have had a five month head start and all the advertising in the Christian media pointed to them

Phil Groom: Thanks for coming back to me. I hear what you say … but if that’s the case, why not, “Order at your local bookshop”? Surely that would be more helpful to the wider trade? Do amazon need you to help boost their market share?

We’re all in this together and whilst amazon are not the enemy, they do nothing to promote a Christian ethos. If you wanted to promote an online seller, why not eden.co.uk as a fellow Christian outlet? Just my thoughts for what they’re worth…

I’m hoping they’ll come back to me again, that that’s not the end of the conversation; but in the meantime, what do you think? Are we ready to stand together as a trade to support something like this, retailers and publishers working together? Isn’t this essentially what the Stronger Together – Weaker Apart campaign is all about?

Imagine hundreds of Christian retailers standing together and saying, “Here’s £xx towards the publicity drive: we’ll commit to stocking this book.” Imagine the publisher responding in kind and offering us the trade discount they normally reserve for Amazon and their ilk. Imagine that poster saying, “Order at your local Christian bookshop: www.christianbookshops.org.uk” — what an amazing boost for all of us! What a way to start a new decade!

Following through on Amy’s request: authors, artists, agents too: what do you think? Are you happy to see publishers promoting your books on Amazon or would you prefer to see them promoting sales through the shops? Is there any reason not to promote both?

Publishers, I urge you: please don’t do this! Unless, of course, you’ve already decided that bookshops are history; because the more you promote Amazon, the weaker we become and the more Amazon will demand from you. Continue to let the tail wag the dog and one day that tail’s liable to turn into a serpent that bites your head off…

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to thank those publishers and suppliers who are supporting us: thank you; and in closing, h/t to Melanie Carroll for flagging this up on twitter:

unicorntreebks RT: @EPBooks: Posters for the book ‘Who made God?’ at major train stations:… http://bit.ly/6Zg9Bs another publisher not supprting shops 19/01/2010 from Echofon

Anglicanshop.com Closing Down

After only two years of trading, the Kevin Mayhew online initiative Anglicanshop.com is now closing down with a half-price sale in a bid to clear all remaining stock.

In an email announcement sent out to customers and Anglican clergy this afternoon, Abbie Goldberg, the shop’s manager, writes:

It is with great sadness that we announce the closure of Anglicanshop.com.

We have compiled all currently held stock into our sale categories and are offering a clearance sale discount of 50% off the marked product price while stocks last – just add the product to your basket to see the savings deducted.

We thank you for all your support and custom over the 2 years we have been open. If you have any queries please contact our friendly sales team on 01449 737978.

Best wishes.

Abbie Goldberg
Manager of Anglicanshop.com

Somewhat ironically, this announcement comes on the same day as The Bookseller reports on Amazon “fighting off the recessionary blues” with profits swelling by 68% and international sales up by 33%.

Whereas Anglicanshop.com sought to specialise in a niche marketplace, Amazon have continued to diversify, offering an ever increasing product range with books barely even featured on their front page. Is this what we as Christian booksellers also need to do, not simply to survive but to serve our customers to the best of our ability?

• Blog Announcement from Kevin Mayhew Ltd: Farewell Anglicanshop

There were a few personal interests I wanted to look up. I always like the bookstalls, but resisted this year. Partly that was because I have several books piled up from the sabbatical, partly it was because brutally in an Internet age the deals weren’t that good. I know that will sound awful to some Christian booksellers who will rightly point out that Amazon is not a ministry, but a minister whose wife is not in paid employment only has so many pennies and cost becomes a real factor for us. (And I do support the local Christian bookshops whenever possible: the Diocesan Resources Centre is a mine of information; the other bookshop is the local agent for IVP’s Leadership Book Club, so they get some orders from me, too, when the good books aren’t too Calvinist!)

I replied:

Amazon — us booksellers need to stop moaning and rise to the challenge.

Dave responded:

Thanks, Phil, I’m sure you’re right. The Chelmsford Diocesan Resources Centre rises to the challenge by the quality of advice, knowledge and service by the woman who runs it. They are in one small room, carry very little stock, but Jo the manager is priceless. She has put me onto titles I wouldn’t have found in an ‘ordinary’ Christian bookshop and wouldn’t have known to look for on Amazon. Particularly she has done this w.r.t. school assembly material. When I arrived in Chelmsford, all the local ministers I spoke to, of whatever theological hue, recommended this place.

Today’s questions: how are you rising to the challenge in your bookshop? Are there other ways that we, as bricks and mortar retailers, can do better than Amazon in serving our local communities?  Join in the conversation — here or over at Dave’s place.

As for me, next on the agenda: add Chelmsford Diocesan Resource Centre to UKCBD: constantly amazed as I discover more and more shops that have somehow slipped through the net. Any more lurking out there?

Run by the brothers Philip and Mark Brewer (also known as J Mark Brewer, Principal of Texas law firm Brewer and Pritchard), this organisation purports to represent the Orthodox Church here in the UK and has an express vision of “Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage” by taking over and reopening redundant churches. In pursuit of this vision the brothers acquired the ailing chain of bookshops, seeing them as potential Orthodox mission outposts in strategic locations across the UK and, in particular, in the country’s Cathedral Cities, as outlined in an email from Mark Brewer to Archbishop Nicolae of the Romanian Orthodox Church in America:

The Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (England), an Orthodox missionary charity, needs energetic Orthodox people to volunteer (as they do in Project Mexico or IOCC) to come to the U.K. for important missionary work; i.e., selling Christian books in England. 

England is a land full of surprises to modern Orthodox Christians: Saint Augustine of Canterbury established his episcopacy in 597 and Orthodoxy flourished for over 450 years (until the Norman conquest in 1066). One of our shops is actually inside the former medieval kitchen of the great Durham Cathedral. There lie the holy relics of two renowned Orthodox saints, Cuthbert and Bede!

Having taken over the chain of 23 SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) bookshops from the Anglicans in November 2006, we are now transforming them into shops where Orthodox literature, icons and the like are readily available to England’s tourists and the broader public. 

As you can see from our website, the book shops are situated adjacent to some of England’s most beautiful cathedrals and are themselves situated in historic buildings. 

England offers breathtaking scenery, mild summer weather and most importantly, the opportunity to live and work in an English-speaking environment hungry for the True Faith.

Could I respectfully ask Your Eminence to please extend an invitation to the people in Your Eminence’s Episcopacy, who have a missionary zeal for Orthodoxy (at least 18 years of age) to work for 2 to 10 weeks this coming summer? We can provide accommodation (in the homes of local Christians) and with the Lord’s blessing, a rewarding experience of a lifetime.

In Christ,

Mark Brewer

[Two postscripts follow declaring SSGCT's charitable status and explaining how to defray travel costs against tax]

Source: Orthodox Missionaries Needed in England, 30 Jan 2007
(Noted by Clem Jackson in Christian Marketplace, March 2007)

Sadly, as many visitors to this site will be only too painfully aware, this attempt to turn the shops into “Orthodox” mission outposts was never part of the agreement under which the shops were entrusted to the Brewers. If anything, rather, it seems to represent a substantial — and, since it appears to have been attempted behind the scenes, some might say duplicitous — violation of that agreement, two key undertakings of which were:

• To maintain a breadth of stock
• To keep the existing staff on the same terms under TUPE regulations

Source: Straight Talking from SPCK, 14 Aug 2008

(For the record, I should point out that I personally have no problem whatsoever with the idea of genuine Orthodox Mission or of bookshops carrying a wider selection of Orthodox material: had the Brewers’ approach been more honest at the outset and more carefully thought through, no doubt it could have worked. See How NOT to do mission and Avoiding mistakes in mission for some superb commentary and analysis)

Unfortunately those of us who have watched the business fall apart have become used to seeing such violations from the Brewers. It seems that in the Brewer version of “Orthodoxy” anything goes, especially when it comes to treatment of their staff:

Following the change of ownership, a new contract was drawn up increasing the working week from 37.5 to 40 hours with no additional pay, turning all part-time staff into casual staff with no guaranteed hours every week and taking away all rights to company sick pay.

Now, virtually all Usdaw members have been dismissed with no notice, some by email, and have received little or no information about what this means for their rights and their pay.

Source: Usdaw fights for mistreated bookshop workers, 24 Jun 2008

The latest violation is at least fourfold in the form of an All Shops Memo from Philip Brewer dated August 16, 2008. The memo — which may be read in full here — includes: 

• Instructions to staff to collect gift-aided “donations” in exchange for discounts
• Breaches of Amazon’s Associates Programme Operating Agreement
• Instructions to staff that require them to deceive and lie to customers
• A disregard for issues of customer privacy and data protection

4. On all purchases of 10 GBP or more, offer a 2 GBP discount if a donation of 1 GBP or more is made. They must also fill out a gift aid form.

5. Be sure that in all inquiries for books that you do not have in the shop, that you offer to order the item for the customer and have it delivered to their home. To accomplish this, log on to our site, www.thirdspacebooks.com, and process their order. To set up their password, use the last four of their phone number and their initials. Example would be 8524pwb. When completed, please tell the person that we have hired Amazon to ship their order and that if there are any problems, there will be a return label for them to deal with it. Also tell them that they can continue to order from thirdspacebooks for all book needs, not just religious, and that it supports charity.

Amazon’s Associates Programme Operating Agreement specifies: 

4. Referral Fees
You may not purchase products during sessions initiated through the links on your site for your own use, for resale or commercial use of any kind. This includes orders for customers or on behalf of customers or orders for products to be used by you or your friends, relatives, or associates in any manner.

8. Identifying Yourself as an Associate
… you may not in any manner misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you, or express or imply any relationship or affiliation between us and you or any other person or entity except as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including by expressing or implying that we support, sponsor, endorse, or contribute money to any charity or other cause. We will make available to you a small graphic image that identifies your site as a Programme participant. You must display this logo or the phrase “In association with Amazon.co.uk” somewhere on your site.

Amazon UK were informed of these breaches yesterday morning, 25 August 2008, but as this report is published no reply has been received and they do not appear to have taken any action to rectify the situation.

Update 27 August 2008: Amazon have now replied as follows:

Because of the number of participants, we cannot always get detailed information from every Associate. In this case, however, we will certainly take a closer look at the website of this specific Associate. Should there be a breach of the Associates Programme Operating Agreement we will not hesitate to close the associate’s account… We would like to thank you for bringing this issue to our attention and would like to assure you that this issue will be thoroughly investigated.

Third Space Books: Buyer Beware

Anyone trading with this company, in whatever guise, whether online or via any of the former SPCK Bookshops remaining under the Brewers’ control, is not so much “supporting charity” as helping to perpetuate a culture of bullying and deceit in the workplace, of mismanagement and gross violations of trust. Please do not go there.

A Petition

If the issues raised in this report concern you, please read and consider signing the SPCK/SSG: News, Notes and Info Petition to rescue Durham Cathedral Bookshop from the Brewers — and spread the word. Thank you.

Why should I buy books from you (or another Christian bookshop) when I can get them from Amazon at a significant discount?

Eddie admits to playing devil’s advocate in posing the question, but even so it’s a question that all booksellers — not just Christian booksellers — are acutely aware of; and if we want to survive, we need to tackle it. But for me, it’s about more than survival: I believe Christian bookshops have a vital role to play in Christian mission — as I observed a couple of posts back, a Christian bookshop is much more than just another business.

But not everyone, it seems, is convinced. In April I responded to Bill Kahusac praying for a Christian bookshop to be closed down and since then I’ve come across several others who don’t like what they’re finding. Phil Whittall — co-owner of Illuminate, Shrewsbury — posed essentially the same question as Eddie at the end of last year, albeit from the other side of the fence:

… do you buy from your local Christian bookshop? If not why not? If so why? Is the lowest price everything when shopping online? Is the presence of a Christian retailer on the high street something to be desired or not?

He received several responses: they’re all worth reading, but this, from Matthew Hosier, was perhaps the most telling:

… I have had a generous book allowance at the church I have been leading, but have spent it almost exclusively at Amazon. My reasons? 1. Yes, it is cheaper. 2. Yes, it is easier. 3. My local Wesley Owen doesn’t often carry the books I want.

Reason 3. is really the deal breaker. I’m sure Illuminate is different, but too often I find Christian bookshops very depressing – either they are dust-filled and stock little but browning copies of 1970s paperbacks, or their stock is all kitten posters, olive wood trinkets, and books reflecting the broadcasting schedule of the God Channel. For this reason, if anything I have actually discouraged people from shopping at these outlets.

Now that truly is depressing. Almost as depressing as being a web server trying to serve a missing page. And it’s a parallel problem: if we’re not delivering the content people are looking for — content that church leaders such as Matthew feel confident enough about to be able to recommend our shops to their congregations — then perhaps we do have our backs to the wall.

Or do we? Is that why we’re there, to serve the local churches? Or are we there to serve the local community as resource centres for their spiritual lives? Or are we simply there on a par with every other business, competing to make a profit? Can we do all three — serve the local churches, serve the local community and make a profit?

For Christian bookshops profit isn’t — or shouldn’t be — our driving force: we are called be a prophetic presence on the high street, not simply another profiteering one. And for that we need churches behind us, supporting us as part of their mission strategy, helping us to reach out to our communities, to be places where people asking questions about spirituality and faith can make their first tentative steps.

We exist to serve God’s kingdom: Amazon exists to make money.

That’s the difference and that’s why I say you should buy from us, Eddie. You too, Bill; and you, Matthew. We also need your help to become the places you’d like us to be. If you visit a Christian bookshop and don’t like what you find or can’t find what you want, don’t just walk away or go to Amazon: talk to us. You have a vision for God’s kingdom: so do we. Let’s work together.

Unless, of course, getting books at the lowest possible price really is the only thing you’re interested in…

Related Discussions

• Former SPCK shops must remain Christian bookshops
• Jesus loves you, too bad about the messenger…
• Why shop at Amazon?
• Women are Moabites (apparently)

Lessons from America

The Christian bookstore remains important because it keeps publishers in tune with their customers.

Verne Kenney, Vice President of Sales, Zondervan
Cited in Christianity Today, How to Save the Christian Bookstore