MIRLI BOOKS
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
    • Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • The Amesbury Union Workhouse
    • The Separate System
    • Anatomy of a Bridge
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald

Bookshops

2/1/2014

2 Comments

 
I was under no illusions when I started on this publishing lark. Having done all the research and much of the writing for Henry’s Trials, I was damned if I was going to let forty rejections from publishers and literary agents stop the book in its tracks. Mirli Books was the result.

Naturally, my resources are limited; I cannot afford proper marketing so I never expected substantial sales. To date, I have sold 240 copies of Henry’s Trials and 46 copies of Smethurst’s Luck. And when I did decide to venture £100 on some local magazine advertising, the response was zero.

The very limited sales of both books were entirely expected, and although I would like to think that they would command some attention if only they could be adequately publicised, I am content. My level of kudos – if not income – was increased recently when I received a demand for five copies of Smethurst’s Luck for deposit in the National Library of Scotland, the Bodlian Library, Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Dublin and the National Library of Wales.

Just before Christmas I made a pilgrimage to Richmond. Since the extended title of Smethurst’s Luck is ‘The Story of the Richmond Poisoner’, I concluded that it might be of some interest in that town. Sure enough I sold nearly ten copies, and there is now stock of the books at two independent retailers as well as the Local Studies Library. Sadly, not so Waterstones. They seemed to be quite interested with the local connection, but I was told that the purchasing of stock needed ‘Head-Office approval’. The manager I spoke to seemed enthusiastic about the book, but nothing ever happened. I had the same story in Chelmsford which was a shame, since when Henry’s Trials came out in 2009, having been written by a local author, the local Waterstones took several copies.

Waterstones, of course, have their own problems, and controlling stock must go a very long way to keeping costs down. But I wonder if the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. yesterday I tried to buy a copy of Whitaker’s Almanack from Waterstones. They were advertising it on line at £40, £10 off the cover price, but they ‘did not keep it in stock’ in the shop. All they had was the concise version which I did not want. So, I bought the book on Amazon for £31 delivered.

I recognize that I am both poacher and game-keeper here. I do buy a lot of books and I don’t want to pay more for them than I have to. But I do like to browse, and you can’t browse on Amazon, even with their ‘look inside’ feature. Independent bookshops complain that Waterstones undercut them by discounting, so my experience with Whitaker seems to be a case of the biter bit. On the other hand, I want to sell my books for as much as possible, and all booksellers demand a substantial discount from me as a supplier.

The conundrum is then, how does a high-street book-seller make a working profit, and can the market accommodate both the chains (Waterstones etc) and the Independents in the face of Amazon? Let me add that Amazon offer a superb service. I recently needed to return a book after the Post Office helpfully left it in the front garden behind the dustbin without telling me. I discovered it after it had been outside for two or three days in the rain… The operation was slick and stress free – I printed out a return label, took the book to my local Co-op, and they returned it to Amazon. The replacement arrived two days later no questions asked.

However, as I have said, I cannot browse in the Amazon bookshop because there isn’t one, and Amazon has been accused of ‘poor warehouse conditions for workers’ and tax-avoidance in the UK. The latter I have commented on elsewhere in this blog. Still, Amazon is a $61B international business and is capable of looking after itself. So the question remains, how can the UK high-street – chains and independents – survive?

I like browsing in bookshops and it can’t be done on line. Frequently, I buy a book purely by chance having seen it in a shop – and more often than not it is a book I had no idea that I wanted. But bookshops are businesses, and businesses must make profits.

I don’t know the answer, but somewhere in there must be customer service. I find that I am always willing to pay a modest premium, say 10% or 15%, for a good service; knowledgeable, helpful and friendly staff, a ‘nice’ environment, a quick and efficient ordering service for material not in stock, and, of course, a decent browsable stock. Perhaps we should lobby for reduced business rates for bookshops. After all, books nourish the mind; surely a case can be made.
2 Comments
CR
2/1/2014 02:53:58 pm

Remember RPM?

Reply
Peter Maggs
2/1/2014 11:50:59 pm

I do remember Retail Price Maintenance, but apart from the fact that price-fixing is illegal, you cannot buck the market. Remember the Corn Laws?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Welcome to the Mirli Books blog written by Peter Maggs

    Archives

    April 2025
    December 2024
    October 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    February 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Website and Contents © Peter Maggs 2025
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
    • Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • The Amesbury Union Workhouse
    • The Separate System
    • Anatomy of a Bridge
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald