"145 Days in Space" with Linda Grant

Following on from my recent blogpost "145 Days in Space", we've asked some fantastic authors to let us know what six books they'd take with them if (like astronaut Chris Hadfield) they were sent into space for 145 days. 

To kick off, the brilliant Booker shortlisted, Orange Prize winning Linda Grant has cheekily sneaked in an extra book without anyone noticing.  

"145 days isn't that long, and I assume I would have duties of various kinds 
on the space station, or maybe I am lost in space and using literature to 
save myself from going mad. There's nothing to look at in space.

So here's my choice." 

Lampedusa, The Leopard;  Haven't re-read this since I was in Sicily in the late 80s 

Dickens, Bleak House; for the umpteenth time 

Proust A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. in the hopes that finally I will finish it 

Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle; Pleasure 

Jean Rhys Good Morning Midnight; (to work out how she manages to do what she does with a sentence) 

Amos Oz A Tale of Love and Darkness; Longing for a re-read of this 
Claudia Rosen The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarakand and Vilna to the Present Day The history of the Jews through eating

Thanks to Linda for sharing this with us. 

Linda will be appearing with novelist Charlotte Mendelson at the Wood Green Literary Festival on Sunday October 13th in conversation with journalist Alex Clarke. 

More information can be found HERE

145 Days in Space

I'm starting a promotion in the bookshop called "145 days in space". 

The idea comes from amazing Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who spent 145 day in space on his last mission from December 19th 2012 until May 13th 2013. 

145 days.

During that time, he chatted to William Shatner .

Hurray!

 He took some very pretty photos, like this one. 

The Isle of Wight

And he played his guitar. 

He probably also did some important space stuff too.

Did he read any books?? I don't know, but I'm asking authors which six books they'd take to space with them if they had to go there for 145 days (You can only fit six books into your space suitcase and Ereaders don't work in space).

It can be anything at all. Books they've read already, books they've always wanted the time to read. It could even be their own books.

Yes, it's like Desert Island Discs for the 21st Century. 

I'm sending out requests to authors today, but I also want you to let me know your choices. If you can send short reasons why you chose the books as well, that'd be even better. The best will be featured on a dedicated bookcase in the shop, so I hope you can help. 

Thanks. 

You can email them to enquiries@biggreenbookshop.com if it's easier. 

EBooks for Independent Bookshops - another quick update.

Earlier this year, I put something up on here about a possible option for Indie Bookshops to be able to sell EBooks, and actually make some money doing it. 
It's an Australian company called Readcloud. 

• the bookshop gets around 35% of the download price.

• bookshops don't have to do anything to process the sales, it's all done for you.

• The look & feel of the e-book section of your website will match that of your existing website. Here is an example of what it looks like. This is a test site for Nigel's shop.

• You can decide the books that are highlighted on the website. 

• The prices of the books on sale are negotiable (not necessarily r.r.p.)

• There are over 100,000 books available to download (all major publishers are included, and many smaller imprints) and the number of publishers signing up to it is increasing all the time.

Anyway, here's the latest update. Readcloud are still in negotiation with a Big Publisher to get the rights to sell their EBooks in the UK. It's a bit of a struggle, but they think they're pretty close to sorting it out. 
Once that's done, then, in theory, it's good to go. 

To the 30 or so Bookshops who've expressed an interest, we are almost there. 
Phew.

It's been quite a month.

been busy.

So, here is a short version of recent events.

The Literary Festival is in the process of becoming awesome. I have sent out 469 emails, and have received some in return. The Festival website is now up and running and we'll be adding the first events to it VERY soon. You can follow all the news on Twitter (if you have a Twitter account) @WGLitFest (which as @gillpea pointed out, is almost an anagram of twiglets)

Potential Sponsors

The new shop is doing OK. Our bestsellers are Fart Bombs, Party Snaps and Pirate stickers

We won an award last weekend. It was for having the Best Customer Service of any independent shop in Wood Green and Hornsey. That's lovely isn't it.

Hurray.

Tim did his back in about six weeks ago. Quite seriously. He wasn't able to stand up for about 10 days. It's been pretty desperate without him at the shop, especially as we've just opened a new one. Thankfully, he's now able to get to the shop in Wood Green and as long as he doesn't do anything that involves walking, lifting or breakdancing, he's OK. I have seen him (I think) twice in the last two months.

Two of my teeth have fallen out in the last 3 weeks.

Our E-Books for Independent bookshops campaign is still happening. Richard French at Coles bookshop is in the final stages of negotiations with ReadCloud, so hopefully there'll be an announcement very soon.

My brother Justin is in Greece at the moment. He isn't supposed to be, but this, in his own words last week, is why;

"I'm stuck in a Greek hospital, a quick summary. With a couple of days hols left I had my first ever epileptic fit (and concussion when I then fell off bed!). MRI scan revealed large (but most likely benign) tumour on my brain so I was put on anti-epileptic meds until doctors happy for me to fly home for operation to remove the meningioma (posh word for the tumor). Docs now say fine to fly so long as on meds but insurance company wants to check all medical records and reports and probably fly out a doctor from UK to accompany me home direct to hospital, which is delaying everything. I feel absolutely fine and have done since getting over the concussion but bored and want to get home".

And here is a picture of his brain, that he put up on Facebook (Justin knows i'm writing about him btw).

"that big pale splodge at the top...that's not supposed to be there" 

The good news is that he's getting a flight back to England tonight,accompanied by a doctor that his insurance company have flown over from the UK.
I'll be very pleased to see him.

Yes, quite a month.

ReadCloud - Enabling Indie Bookshops to sell EBooks. Momentum is building.

SPREAD THE WORD, SPREAD THE WORD. 

ReadCloud. A Viable Ebook solution for Independent Bookshops. 

Well, I certainly think so. I wrote about it here a couple of weeks ago and asked any interested bookshops to get in touch. Independent Bookshops can't ignore EBooks, and this offers, we think, the best deal.

Essentially, with ReadCloud 

• the bookshop gets around 35% of the download price.
• bookshops don't have to do anything to process the sales, it's all done for you.
• The look & feel of the e-book section of your website will match that of your existing website. Here is an example of what it looks like. This is a test site for Nigel's shop.
• You can decide the books that are highlighted on the website.
• The prices of the books on sale are negotiable (not necessarily r.r.p.)
• There are over 100,000 books available to download (all major publishers are included, and many smaller imprints) and the number of publishers signing up to it is increasing all the time.

One of the big draws for me personally, is that ReadCloud is an Indie company, just like us. I like to support independent companies and I want to support this one.

Well, the good news is that Bookshops did get in touch.

I've been asking the shops if they'd let me name check them on here and so far the ones that have said yes include;

The Gutter Bookshop

Belgravia Books 

Inkspot & Silverleaf

Dulwich Books

Warwick & Kenilworth Bookshop

Rikaro Books

Cole's Books

Kibworth Bookshop

Allan Hanna's Bookshop

Big Green Bookshop (hurrah)

The Book Barge

There are so far 26 bookshops overall, who've contacted us to say that they're interested. This is all getting very exciting, and now that momentum is gathering, we don't want it to stop. 

If you are an Indie Bookshop, or you are reading this and thinking to yourself that maybe you know a bookshop that would be interested, please help spread the word. 

This could be revolutionary. 

Thanks. 

Bookshop Layout.

A question was raised on Twitter earlier today by Brie (@14NC)

who like me would prefer bookshops to put all fiction together like a library rather than in to genres? 

 

It got a few people thinking, including me.

 

Despite the fact that a lot of libraries do separate genre fiction, the crux of the question was about the layout of bookshops.

 

When we first opened, we tried a couple of things. One of them was incorporating poetry into fiction.

I wrote this about it on the blog, way back in 2008.

 

" At the moment we've got poetry, essays and plays in with fiction. The reason for this was that we hoped people would be doing the usual thing of looking through fiction (the main section people look through) and would find a book of poetry 'by mistake'. It's worked well on some occasions, and I doubt we'd have sold 3 copies of Tarantula by Bob Dylan, if it had been in the poetry section, but at the same time we've uncovered a large population of local poets who are up in arms about this. So we've caved in."

 

Funny thing is though, looking back, we don't sell any poetry from the poetry section. And we did sell it when it was in fiction.

 

There's the argument that if a customer is, say, a sci-fi nut, who reads nothing but science fiction, he/she will want this to be a separate section. If Science Fiction was incorporated into Fiction, I'm worried that it will put those customers off.

 

It's the same with crime, horror etc. But I love the idea of serendipity when it comes to browsing. Finding something that you'd never expect to find. Perhaps having it all under the label "Fiction" will mean that more people will find something unexpected and try something different....

 

Oh man, this is tricky.

 

Daunt Bookshops do things differently again. They shelve books geographically - with guides, phrase books, travel writing, history and fiction grouped by their relevant country. This is brilliant and quirky. And it seems to work for them. But their shops are aimed specifically at book lovers with time to browse and also a bit of disposable income (their branches are located in the more well off areas of London).

 

I would love to integrate horror, crime, science fiction, fantasy and short stories into the general fiction section, but I need persuading that it's a good idea. Oh, and graphic novels too. Perhaps there's a way which the genres can be highlighted within the section. Maybe it doesn't have to be alphabetical. I don't know.

Some of our customers (particularly the ones who like specific genres) will not be keen on this idea. But there's something about it that I like.

 

Any advice or suggestions would be very welcome.

 

 

Reading Habits

Inspired by Scott Pack's blogpost on the same subject, I though it would confess my own personal reading habits.

1. 95% of the books I read are novels.

2. I have a Nook, but I rarely read books with it. I much prefer to read a physical book.

3. Only very very rarely will I read a hardback. I just don't agree with them.

4. I can't read if there are any distractions (TV, music, radio etc).

5. I read anything up to four books at the same time. A morning book, a train book, an evening book and a bed book.

6.Like Scott, I will flick ahead to see how long each chapter is before deciding if i'm going to read it.

7. If i'm reading a novel, I very rarely read the introduction.

8. I don't use a bookmark. I fold the corners down on the pages to keep my place.

9. Despite what I do, there are periods of up to a month when I don't read a book. There are also periods of time when I can read two books a day.

10. There are very few books i've read more than once.

That feels much better.

E-Books For Indies. An Update

I'm delighted that The Bookseller has written this great article about Read Cloud, the E-Book solution that I wrote about a few days ago. 

As I said in the blogpost, we're looking for independent bookshops, who are looking for a credible  opportunity to sell ebooks to get in touch with us. This seems like a very authentic solution. Here's what Readcloud offer.

• around a 35% discount on downloads
• bookshops don't have to do anything to process the sales, it's all done for you.
• The look & feel of the e-book section of your website will match that of your existing website. Here is an example of what it looks like. This is a test site for Nigel's shop.
• You can decide the books that are highlighted on the website.
• The prices of the books on sale are negotiable (not necessarily r.r.p.)
• There are over 100,000 books available to download (all major publishers are included, and many smaller imprints) and the number of publishers signing up to it is increasing all the time.

More than a dozen bookshops have expressed an interest already, including The Gutter Bookshop, Belgravia Books, Under The Greenwood Tree and Waterstones. At least one of these isn't true, but there's a real interest building around Readcloud. And rightly so.

Nigel French from Cole's Bookshop has been a real star. He's been championing Readcloud, and between us we're trying to work out a really authentic e-book solution that works for bookshops in the UK.

This is the big bit.

If you want to sell ebooks, this is a big opportunity. PLEASE get in touch. All you have to do say you're interested. You don't have to sign anything, you don't have to pay anything. You just have to get in touch.

WE NEED YOU TO EXPRESS AN INTEREST.

The more bookshops who get involved, the more chance it'll happen.
If you don't like it, you don't have to sign up, but please give it a look.

enquiries@biggreenbookshop.com
@biggreenbooks
020 8881 6767

I think this is a real opportunity.

COME ON!!

Ouch

Last Tuesday (10 days ago), after moving a washing machine in the flat above Tuffet's, Tim was just tidying up, when he tore a massive amount of muscles in his back.
He managed to get home, but spent the next 4 days unable to stand up.
He is still pretty much housebound, and has now managed to walk to the end of his road and back. But essentially, Tim's back is pretty fucked at the moment and he can't work at the shop.
Heroically, he's been sitting/lying (I don't know), at home doing our monthly accounts and making sure that we don't get told off by our suppliers for not paying our bills on time.

It was a huge relief that we've taken on Carmel, who started at the bookshop last Wednesday (9 days ago), otherwise we'd have been unable to keep the shop open. She was only supposed to work 3 days last week, but ended up working from Weds-Sun. Thanks Carmel

I've been at Tuffet's pretty much non stop for the last fortnight. I've been desperate to get down to Wood Green, because there's so so much to do down there. I did spend a day at the Big Green on Monday (we had to shut Tuffet's) and did a bit of tidying. Blah.

As I've mentioned on a previous post, things are a bit quiet at the moment at the shop. Tim and I have been putting a lot of effort into opening the new gaff and I suspect taking some of our energy away from Wood Green has meant that it's not the slick, well oiled machine it usually is *coughs*.
Less people have decided to come and visit us there. That's what happens (we knew this), and we'd been really looking forward to Carmel starting, so that we'd then be able to have some time to look at the massive list of stuff we'd had to put on hold whilst trying to sort out the new shop.
Despite Tim knackering himself, we're can't put it off any longer, so we're going to be throwing all our energy at getting Big Green buzzing again (not with flies), and Literary Festival plans are the main focus of the next few weeks.
All the regular stuff is still going to be happening , including our Comedy Night tonight, school visits next week, book groups, writing groups etc.and we'll also be selling books at "The Literary Conference" at the Free Word Centre next weekend.
Anyway, we've always tried to be honest on this blog before, so we just thought we should let you know about poor Timmy and how how things are.

Here's a picture of some puppies. 



E-Books For Indies. An update

A few months ago I wrote a blogpost asking Independent Bookshops to band together in order for us to see if we could get a better deal on e-books than we are currently getting. It was relatively successful and we had around 15 Indies get in touch to express an interest. Not bad.
The trouble was that we are all very busy, trying to survive and thrive, so the opportunity to get together and chat regularly wasn't possible.
However, this doesn't mean that we gave up. Oh no. Some wonderful groundwork was put in by Nigel French, owner of Cole's Bookshop in Bicester. He's been in touch with a company in Australia called "ReadCloud", who supply over 100 Indie bookshops down under with a platform to sell e-books. They're keen to work with us over in the UK too.

ReadCloud

It looks rather good too.
Here are the benefits of using ReadCloud

• the bookshop gets around 35% of the download price.
• bookshops don't have to do anything to process the sales, it's all done for you.
• The look & feel of the e-book section of your website will match that of your existing website. Here is an example of what it looks like. This is a test site for Nigel's shop.
• You can decide the books that are highlighted on the website. 
• The prices of the books on sale are negotiable (not necessarily r.r.p.)
• There are over 100,000 books available to download (all major publishers are included, and many smaller imprints) and the number of publishers signing up to it is increasing all the time. 

One of the big draws for me personally, is that ReadCloud is an Indie company, just like us. I like to support independent companies and I want to support this one. 

So, here's the deal. They need around 50 shops to sign up in the UK to make it possible. If they get 50 shops, the set up cost will be approx £950 (it's likely to be less if more indies join). There will then be an annual charge of £450ish after that. 

Phew, £950 sounds like a lot of money. But we broke this down into sales. That's about £3 a day. If you sell ONE e-book for £8.99, you've made more than that. 

We have customers who buy both physical books and also downloads. I'd like to think that if we sold downloads, then some of those customers would buy them from us. 

I realise the timing of this isn't great, but please get in touch with me or Nigel if you're interested or have any questions. 

Nigel can be contacted here

I can be contacted here, here or here on this blog. Or tweet me @biggreenbooks

We've already had a few indies expressing an interest, including Bob from the mighty Gutter Bookshop in Dublin. He knows a good thing when he sees one. 

Please share this with anyone who you think may be interested. 

Thanks.