BA = totally useless. We're only in so that we can take book tokens and use batch. They don't speak for independents like us.

I think the previous two sad comments have misunderstood what has happened ? The BA has it seems started to publicly talk about the bricks and mortor bookshop problems.
BBC news last night and now this press statement, it seems that more is to come, albeit a bit slow for me !
The real issues of some sort of price control as in europe needs to raised at the highest level...even though it might attract the attention of the vat man. The BA has tirelessly worked within it remit and the law and the EU to not attract vat ,but now I believe a small vat would be not so bad if we had the pricing deal most euopean member countries have.
As for have publishers firm sale ? I have never had firm sale from a publisher unless its at a huge discount, so I dont know who you deal with but you need to sort yourself out.
If you joined the BA it would cost you pennies and instead of freeloading on thier endevours you could put something back into an organistaion which 'makes a huge difference'
I think we might see more action ...

what is your name and the publisher of your books ?

It's hard to sell books alone on the high street. Last time I went up Ayr High Street there was just Waterstone's (also sell coffee now) and WHS (sells books at the back of the long narrow shop). Go back 10 years and there was a bookshop in Newmarket Street (found it could make more selling greetings cards & teddy bears) and James Thin which had been in the Sandgate for 100 years until the chain was sunk by events elesewhere. Ottakars clsoed that shop & merged it with their shop in the High Street which then became a Waterstone's and now has a coffee shop at the back. Unfortunately the lack of space means the book selection has to be determined by popularity through the Epos so I generally don't find a range that appeals to my eclectic interests whereas Ottakar's range had a bit more zing and Thin's shop when it existed had the space to stock a much wider range. The real problem about being on the high street is that space is expensive. All the money goes on rent and rates and the thing that suffers is stockholding and range. Believe me customers will travel long distances to shops that have interesting ranges and depth of stock whatever product you are trying to sell and local customers will come back again and again. You don't have to be bang in the epicentre of the high street - in some ways that is the worst place to be. Independent bookshops that are thriving are in some pretty wacky locations - The Watermill in Aberfeldy is a great example - talk about the middle of nowhere!

Strangely, I get the similar kind of non-response when I contact publishers...
So the chains were more receptive? Tesco, W.H.Smith, Sainsbury? I don't think so and from what I knew of the Waterstones of old there would be heavy negotiations over "support" (i.e. the publisher chucked them a bung).

An independent would be more than happy to support an author so long as it suited their market. There's little point in expending energy on organising a book-signing event for, let's say, a minor poet from a small publisher if no-one and his dog is going to turn up. Lee Child, Val McDermid, Dan Brown, Jamie Oliver...no indie in their right mind would turn these away. Sadly, it is rare that this quality of author is ever offered to the indies.

It really makes me smile.
Publishers were responsible entirely for the end of the net book agreement, their greed and shortsightedness are responsible for the death of the independent bookshop and unless it was re-introduced all the pissing in the wind will not stop the rot. The public have the prospect of diminishing lists failing small publishers and probably missing out on some of the 21st centuries great writers who will never see the light of day.
Why could no-one see that books WERE a special case for keeping a level playing field. The big boys could profit by their buying capacity and the small bookshops could make a living by selling at the same printed price, the public actually would have be very little worse off as publishers could recommend a lower selling price as they would not have been squeezed by supermarkets as they are now.
Oh well the new wheel has been invented so there is no going back.
I closed my bookshop in 2005 spouting the same stuff and the rot continues. I suppose I am destined for a kindle.

Peter Bergman Late of The Regent Bookshop

Peter Bergman is absolutely right.

If the BA had addressed this way back when, many, many booksellers would still be trading, supermarkets and Amazon wouldn't be bleeding an industry they couldn't care less about absolutely dry, and publishers would be better off too.

There is a tiny chance of saving the high street, but action is needed NOW. The die is cast with Amazon, and the mindset is now in place, but all supermarket pernicious influence could easily be reduced and corrected.

But the BA has been taking your money for years, overpaying staff who work in swanky offices in London and doing nothing to actually benefit the trade. Like many others, I was a member only for Book Tokens and Batch.

And Godfray has the absolute gall to ask for government assistance!! The answer is industry-dependent!!!

In truth quite a lot of people saw in 1995 that books were a special case for a levelish playing field, though even then publishers were falling over themselves to give ludicrously generous terms to chains and supermarkets while leaving indies to languish on 35 per cent. It has been sad to watch what many of us predicted gradually but inexorably unfold. The BA fought tooth and nail to the very end to try to preserve the NBA and since then has done everything legally possible to support and defend independents. However, even had publishers shown more backbone to preserve the NBA, imports from the US via Amazon.com would have quickly made it unsustainable. The faint hope is that Tim Godfray's contribution may add to the debate on the social impact of dead or caffeine/alcohol-only town centres. The track record of successive governments, though, has been to reject economic and planning support for small retailers in favour of driving down consumer prices, regardless of the social cost.