Think Bookshop, Think Bike

Did you know that this week (18th - 25th June) is designated Independent Booksellers Week? Indies, as they are known, are putting on a splash to remind the public that bookshops do still exist, and can provide a unique service that Amazon or even Tesco cannot match. Events are planned for this week, offers, reading groups...whatever the ingenuity of the managers can conjure up. But it's tough just to survive in the current climate, so you may have to travel a bit to find an Indie and admire the special window displays. How will you travel there I wonder? Co-incidentally it is also Team Green Britain Bike Week as well, and they have all sorts of promos going on to get the nation cycling. So fight obesity! Get your rusting bike out of the garage and do a perfect double whammy - cycle to your local bookshop. Especially if it's a Christian Bookshop! Just think of the health benefits for mind and body... Amazon, etc, promote laziness on both counts. You slouch at a computer and locate a title for purchase which you have been recommended to. No chance to look through it and compare it with others on the same subject, within the pleasant ambience and the informed advice to be found at a well run bricks and mortar bookshop. And, yes, there even are books to be found there which will be cheaper than on Amazon. To prove it check out: http://www.christianbookshopossett.co.uk/product.php?&id=163&
Remember to include Amazon's postage costs.

Katie goes for bricks and books...
Just needs to work on her cycling!








Jeremy

Customer Feedback

This is Angle Tarn, a place of wild beauty around 2000 feet up in the Lake District. A lovely location for team building in a month where fellowship has been the buzzword of the Christian booktrade. Unity is strength, but only if it is more than superficial.

The Lord blessed us with some fine weather, and then I was greeted by this sunny comment in an email on our return...

I would normally order them (books) direct, but given the current state of Christian bookshops across the country I feel it's right you get my custom even if I live hundreds of miles away!

This was accompanied by another, in an email from Australia...

I really like your website, well done!

Short but sweet, just like our time in the Lake District.

Jeremy

Less is More?

Our new website is taking up quite a bit of my time and energy at the moment. I enthusiastically demonstrated our 'beta' version of it to a friend the other day, extolling the virtues of the improved search engine, increased product information, and (most importantly from my point of view) the simplicity involved in keeping it up to date when she said 'Aren't you just giving everyone all the information they need about a book for them to go and buy it cheaper elsewhere?'. Gulp. Uur. Well, I suppose you could look at it like that. Actually, why don't I just shut up shop now and leave the bookselling to Amaz... all those other online retailers?
I don't, purely because I think we can provide a better service. We have a phone number for one thing and many customers will ring for advice about their choice of book, we are happy to source hard-to-find books, we take bookstalls out to special events, we even allow customers to take a box load of books to look through/discuss with Church leaders and then buy some and return some. We have specialist knowledge in our own niche of Christian books and enjoy discussing the finer details of particular titles. I could go on and on... about the mail order customer who buys books obsessively and so for his own well being we tactfully try to limit his purchases... about the 'mad monk' who pops in and likes to discuss the details of Calvinism over Roman Catholicism... about the little old lady who phones for a couple of greetings cards and insists that I describe the picture in detail and read every part of the greeting out to her... about the grumpy local chap who calls in regularly but rarely buys anything. Surely, surely it is worth staying open for that! Okay, so we can't always compete on price, but I'm pretty sure we can compete on service. Try us!
Lorna

Food for thought...

We received the June 'Evangelical Times' this week. An interesting letter was printed, written by Gordon Hoppe owner of the Christian Bookshop in Pratt's Bottom Orpington. I think it is worth quoting in full:

Dear Sir,
Everyone enjoys a bargain but the growing practice of discounts being offered by authors and publishers on the sale of books at meetings, conferences and exhibitions is damaging bookshops.
While I applaud the selling of good Christian books on every occasion possible, it is not unusual to find books being offered at prices below those at which a bookshop can buy them. This can only add to the struggles of those seeking to maintain a presence and witness in the streets and shopping centres of our towns.
Bookshops provide a service to the churchgoing public by enabling them to examine, compare and purchase books. They will order books for customers and advise on choice. They normally give a small discount to churches, schools and charities and will provide bookstalls and 'sale or return' books for special occasions. They seek to assist the churches' witness in a given neighbourhood.
But they usually have rent, rates and staff to pay and cannot compete with these unnecessary discounts. May I suggest that authors and publishers cease this discounting and that the book-buying public make an effort to pay the right price for books they value?
I do, of course, have a vested interest in writing this letter. But my main concern is to ensure that the 600 or so Christian bookshops can survive - to continue to provide a service to writers, publishers and readers alike, and maintain a witness in a needy world.
Gordon Hoppe

Food for thought?
Lorna