Or to be more precise, the last Sunday before Christmas. There is blanket of snow out there and the shops must be groaning at nature's cruel turn in the run up to Christmas. Lots of people have probably left their shopping as late as possible in order to catch bargains. And shops are relying on footfall not snowfall.
Borders in Buchanan Street has been heaving since the closing down sale signs went up. I wonder how this has impacted on Waterstones in the cities that have a Borders? I can only assume it has a negative effect in Glasgow where Borders is much the better positioned shop for passing trade.
Which brings us back to the Hub. My opinion is that it is fundamentally flawed. The reason for this is because it is aimed at cutting costs with the publishers (demanding more of a discount from them) but not passing the cut onto the consumer. The resulting savings is to bolster Waterstone's bottom line (and keep the shareholders happy) not to make books cheaper for the general public. Eventually Waterstone's will become Amazon's terrestrial showcase.
People who buy books are essentially divided into 2 camps: those who love reading and those who love books. The first group devours books but don't keep them in their houses. It is in the doing and not the having that they find pleasure. They are more interested in authors and genres. Naturally they look for books at the lowest prices - supermarkets, etc.
The second camp (and I believe most people working in publishing fall into this category) love books. They buy books and fill their houses with them but they don't necessarily read them. They prefer literary fiction rather than pulp fiction. They can get as much pleasure from reading the book as anticipating the reading of the book.
The point, dear reader, is that until publishers engage more with the first group, in the words of Private Fraser, 'we're doomed!' I am not sure how we do this, but it is the question to ponder over the festive period.
ps Remember we have a sale of the Nod offs.
1 comment:
Our interior decoration is books, books and more books. The shelves are triple-stacked in places and we have been debating whether we can possibly find room for another bookshelf if we rearrange some furniture. You know you love books when you need to climb over a pile in order to access your bed!
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