The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

E PURCELL

Eoin Purcell is commissioning editor for Mercier Press, Ireland’s oldest independent publishing house. He writes a blog on what is happening to publishing and books at www.eoinpurcellsblog.com

Blogging The BA (Irish Branch) Conference

01.03.08

 

Travel, work and wi-fi access created some problems early in the weekend but I got to Galway for the whole of saturday.

Notes from the saturday morning session

Maria Dickenson (Easons) introduces a profile of the Irish bookmarket

Ann Betts (Nielsen) offers thoughts on trends and threats:

- Reckons that they cover some 75% of the Irish trade market.

- Value Growth 16.7%

- Growing slightly quicker than the Chinese Market

- Volume Growth16.5%

- Average Selling Price 2006 €12.57,  2007 €12.60

- Books considered "an inexpensive luxury"

- Consumer confidence declining but still high relative to the EU Average 

- Gill & Macmillan and Poolbeg the only IRISH publishers in the Top Ten Publishers

- Good year for childrens books up 37.5% with Potter 27% without Potter

- Interesting data on the Christmas Top Ten which was less dominanted by a single title than last year

- 2007 was a range Christmas

- Internet sales growing twice as fast as sales in supermarket sector which themselves are growing 50% more than high street sales

- All in all a very positive view of the market!

Steve Bohme (Book Marketing Ltd) will be talking consumer psychology

- Warms the audience by offering Trapattoni as a guide (nice!)

- Concerned that a slightly smaller % of people are buying books in the UK

- Information and reference books showing decline in the UK from 2003-2006 (Competition from online)

- Independents the only sector to increase average price paid by the cosumer between 2003 and 2006

- More is spent on Literary Fiction in Supermarkets in the UK than in independents

- Steve is very upbeat about the strengths of book shops and their value in the age of downloads. Also makes the point that 75% of those surveyed didn't know books could be downloaded!

- People seem to have split views on green issues, think books should be printed on eco friendly paper but not willing to pay more

- Another relatively positive view though with challenges from the internet/downloading

Siemon Scamell-Katz TNS Magasin (Selling to Shoppers)

- Media fragmentation: US Consumers spend 8.2 hrs with some kind of media

- Retail fragmentation: More and more diverse outlets, new channels retail and service merge

- Shoppers fragmenting: Average time spent in a shop down from 45 mins in 95 to 30 mins in 2003. Shop more often but less planned.

- 9 out of 10 new grocery products fail within first year

- Shoppers making fairly irrational decisions in store

- No specific knowledge of the book trade but he has some fascinating thoughts 

- BIG MESSAGE: Don't Listen To What Customers Say: 80% of decisions in store are sub consciously made

- BIG MESSAGE: 1) Consumer and 2) Getting it in hand or Buying it and Consuming it

- Missions: Reorganising store around Top up/Browser and For Tonight shopper can improve sales

- Packaging fails because it's tested out of store (Important for Book Covers)

- "Shoppers are humans just like you"

- Great presentation. Best of the morning, more later.

 

Notes from the afternoon aession chaired by Aideen Brady

Alaistair Giles Agile Marketing

- Breaking markets into segments and consumer types

- UK market is broken into Heavy 12%, Light 30%, Medium 19% Non Buyers 39%

- Heavy book buyers buy 56% of books, Medium buy 28% and Light buyers buy 16%

- Industry needs to become more populist, inclusive and outward looking

- How are we marketing: Stuck in push style promotions and aimed at Heavy Buyers

- Richard & Judy has been successful in opening up the industry and changing perception. It has hit light and medium book buyers and succeeded in getting them to buy books

- Irish Book Awards: Completely independent, backed by the whole trade, aims to promote Irish writers and books

- A blt light or my taste but some interesting concepts.

Des Kenny, Kennys.ie

 - Kenny's Personal Book Service grew out of the gamily bookstore here in Galway.

- No two parcels sent are the same

- Kenny's became the 2nd bookstore in the world with a website by chance more than by design

 

Notes from the Small Business Forum

Damian Horner: Independent Bookselling – How To Make a Difference

- Recreate the Romance of Bookshops. That's what got most of us got into the business for. If you become too professional you'll just be another, poorer Easons/Waterstones

- Be different, be quirky and be human

- A good bookshop should be like an upside down swan, serence and smoothly run in the background and hectic and energetic like the paddling legs in the front

- Example of how to do it Simply Books and Puccino's who have a wonderful Flickr photoset dedicated to them

- Takeaways: Bring your values out in everything that you do, think long term and think about much much more than books but if you must here are ten things you can do straight away:

1) Personal Shopper

2) Wi-fi

3) Audio/Visual Readings

4) Art Colleges & windows

5) Subscription Gifts

6) Mind Map & Book Trails

7) Case Histories

8) Part Time Mums

9) Book Loan Services

10) Amazon parcel collection service

Tom Dixon: Old Hall Bookshop: Community Bookselling

- Some interesting stuff here. Tom started with a list of all the things that were wrong with Brackley and when I listened first it sounded like a bad place to be

- Everything from a Tesco on the edge of town, four charity shops and poor frontages were depressing the town's retail environment

- He took action everything from just getting his fellow retailers together to build footfall, liaise with landlords, deal with the coucil, build best practice and talk to shoppers to get them back into the town

- Managed to change the context and build community, bringing new retialers of quality into the town

- Massive intangible benefit to the Old Hall Bookshop

- Concern in the UK to protect and preserve independent retailers

Nic Bottomley: From Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights: Creating an Online Community and Connecting with Customers

- Opened two years ago right behind Waterstone's in Bath. NoT obvious but proved a good decision.

- His theories: Faultless Service, Wideand varied stock (fairly eclectic), make the shop a genuinely enjoyable memorable experience, events, community

- Sold over 20 Reading Spas (from £75 to £175) every single person has spent over the value of the book voucher included

- Purpose of website: 1) reflect and promote the shop, 2) extension of the shop and 3) sell books in that order

- No blog because he fears it becomes hijacked by industry discussion and distracts from teh bookselling side

- For websites the takeaway is that you can do it cheaply and still have something that reflects your brand values and yourself, get to a position that you can understand the basics

 

The Dinner

Dinner went well and everyone seemed to have a good time. Richard Madeley's speech was interesting in two regards, firstly that he spoke relatively little about the pheonenon that is his and Judy Finnegan's book club (though what he said was fascinating). he did however talk about his forthcoming book Fathers and Sons which sounds like a heartbreaking story in its initial chapters and an interesting exploration of whether or not the sins of a father must be passed onto his son in its later chapters.

The band left something to be desired but what can one expect in Galway in the early days of March?

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