Supporting your Local Independent Bookshops by Jude Hayland
No doubt the dream of many independent writers – and fledgling writers, in particular, is to walk into Waterstones to see their book boldly displayed on one of the prominent tables, grabbing the attention of every browser and customer loitering in the shop. I must be a real writer – a professional! the feeling would surely be.
But the dream is entirely misplaced. It’s an aspiration that should be redirected away from the giants of the book trade and onto the independent stores.
After all, as an independent writer – the focus should be on the markets and outlets that best accommodate and reflect that status.
The independent bookshop is a place to treasure. And in spite of the difficulties of actually surviving financially, given High Street rents and associated costs with such a presence (let alone our current crisis), it appears to be thriving. And so it should. After all, who does not want to walk into a shop run by people passionate about books, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and welcoming? People whose working day is driven by a commitment to the stock they have selected and for whom the loyalty of their customers is key?
As independent writers, we need to value what these bookshops can offer us and in turn realise how we can serve them. A two-way process, as it were.
Recently (just before lockdown when we were still naively anticipating the seasons of spring and summer obeying normal rules of engagement…) I went to a local writers’ event at the wonderful independent bookshop, BrOOK’S in Pinner. Run by local residents, husband and wife team, Peter and Sarah Brook, the shop also sells coffee, snacks and wine in comfortable, relaxed surroundings so it is much more than just a business. It is part of the community where friends can meet, socialise, browse and share in the world of books. Although I am no longer local to Pinner, I grew up there and still have strong ties with the place and there are references in my two novels to the town – I was therefore considered sufficiently legitimate for inclusion in the local writers’ event!
And what a great evening it was – ten or so writers all of different genres, reading extracts, talking about our books, in a supportive and warm atmosphere, making connections with readers. The evening provided a platform for us writers to communicate in person – something that cannot happen with online sales, however riveting we try and make ourselves sound on our author profile.
For writers of non-fiction and local history, the independent book shop is, of course, a gift. What better place to seek out a readership than in the locality with which the book is concerned? And however long people have lived in an area, unless they are local historians, their knowledge of the region is so often woefully lacking, a vacuum that they may be all too willing to fill if there is a relevant book on the shelves.
Fiction writers too can exploit a local shop that links with the settings of their novels. People like reading fictional stories about places they know. There is even an element of flattery in seeing their village or town featured in a story and it provides the bookseller with a hook to encourage a sale. Last winter, I went to a book fair in Brighton and was among twenty or so writers marketing and aiming to sell our books. On that desperately wet and dark late November day, the author who writes crime stories set in the Brighton area was the one who gained the most attention and sales from the drowned rats of potential customers who came in to shelter from the torrential rain.
As independent writers, we know that writing our books is the relatively easy part. It’s finding outlets to sell them, to seek out and communicate with a readership that so often entirely baffles and bewilders.
That’s why we need to connect and befriend our local independent book stores. Surely, as writers and readers, we applaud everything they stand for – a love of books, a belief in the power of the written word to entertain and to communicate, a desire to reach out to the local community with more than just an eye on profit. Of course, as businesses, they have to make a profit to survive – no good being ingenuous about that. But if we as local writers can be part of that process, by offering to take part in author and reader events to increase sales, by befriending the shop and encouraging our friends and family to do the same, the healthy survival of our vibrant and proudly independent bookshops will be helped.
So in Independent Bookshop week, let’s make sure that any book purchase we make in the next seven days is from one of them – and keep the habit going.
After all, we need them just as much as they need us!
