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The Bookseller Association’s president Patrick Neale has said the need to change the financial bookselling model is “present and immediate”.
Neale used his closing address at the BA’s 2012 Conference at Warwick University yesterday (17th September) to appeal to publishers to consider new financial models for their relationship with booksellers, such as extending credit terms and using different marketing models, as is currently being considered in the US. “The balance of risk has changed, therefore it is logical that the financial model must change with it,” Neale said.
“The need to change the financial model isn’t something for the future - it is present and immediate…I think it’s crazy that, for some booksellers, it is cheaper to buy stock from under retailers rather than the supplier. If publishers cherish the high street, this can’t continue.”
He also used the platform to urge booksellers to get on board with the sale of e-books and to warn against the danger library e-books lending posed to the long term viability of the bookselling industry. Neale called on trade members - including Publishers Association president Ursula Mackenzie and Society of Author’s chair Lindsey Davies, both also speaking at the event - to make sure library e-lending didn’t damage the industry.
“Every single delegate in this room must be concerned about the potential impact of e-book lending by libraries. Authors, publishers and booksellers need to be equally terrified by the prospect of unrestricted e-lending - the logical outcome of which is that readers could, if they wished, never have to buy a book ever again. So I make a plea through Ursula and Lindsey to their members, don’t let this happen,” Neale said.
In the year which Neale said was the “hardest” for his Jaffe and Neale bookshop in Chipping Norton, in which he had to close his satellite shop in Chipping Camden due to poor sales, Neale called on the Competition Authorities in the UK and Europe to investigate bookselling market for monopolies, such as Amazon. He said: “We should be pushing hard, as an industry, to the UK government and European Commission that a review needs to be carried out by the competition authorities to ensure that no monopolies exist in our market. Again, we need to pool our resources and work as an industry in every way possible to sell as many books across all formats."
Neale said all bookshop owners needed to look to offering customers digital books and could differentiate themselves by exhibiting books customers did not expect to find, as he also pledged to support publishers and authors in helping to combat piracy.
Describing himself as a “glass half-full” man, Neale’s ending note was upbeat as he told a packed conference room that bookshops were “still the best places to discover new authors and host brilliant events.” “We have to demonstrate that we add value to the customer’s experience. To do this, we need to work in even greater partnership than ever before with our colleagues across the trade… I can’t imagine how well authors would sell without our constant barrage of window displays around the nation,” he said.
Mackenzie also told the conference to focus on positive messages about the book industry: "Let's not contribute to a negative conversation but emphasise how adaptable we are, how comfortable with new technologies. We are not dinosaurs and we should refuse to share their fate," she said.
But she warned booksellers: "The biggest risk is losing physical books to online retailers, if customers are going online to download e-books. If customers don't feel awkward and disloyal about e-reading, they will come to you for physical books too."
Conference blog: Book, Book and e-way