Happy New Year

Simon;

Don't you just wish. (a bit sweary!)

Mmmm not a bad idea


From the great people at Modern Toss.

I do hope you all have great new year. I promise we'll open a shop soon....

Simon;

This is for my Mum, (who doesn't subscribe to the Bookseller, funnily enough). I hope if you click on it, it'll get bigger. Otherwise, you might have to get your good glasses on!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho. It's Back to Work We Go.

Tim:

Ten things to do while the Solicitors, Banks and Assorted offices have an unnecessarily long Christmas break. (It's only one day for God's sake..... Sorry, been in corporate retail toooo long)

1) Buy Tea (Simon has his coffee maker all sorted, but what about those of us who are old enough to remember life before "Friends"?)
2) Buy kettle (Ever tried to make tea in a coffee maker?)
3) Buy coffee table (Why isn't it called a tea table?)
4) Discuss lay out for sign with sign makers. (I believe the guys we're using are French, giving them tea is probably an insult)
5) Chat to old chum Neil at Autumn. (Tea for the chat. Coffee or brandy to recover)
6) Create account form and advertising for local schools, and decide opening offers or events. (Why does a coffee morning sound so much cooler than a tea morning? Go on, say it out loud. Do you see what I mean?)
7) Get price for flooring. (preferably something green, but not Ottakar's green, and dark enough to hide the tea stains which will no doubt appear)

No, damn you I am not fixated!!!

8) Buy cash registers. (Wipe clean surface..... No reason)
9) Buy clock. (Got to time those ... er... breaks)
10) Design new and groovy shelving for picture flats. (Having re-defined Kids' bookselling - it's a secret, but we're really, really proud of it - we are now going to re-design picture flat merchandising. On only two mu.... nevermind)

Oh, yeah. Simon's going to put together a little order for a few kids books.... You know, I rather think I got the better deal.

You Can Stick Your Sales....

Simon;
Woooooooooooo, it's Boxing Day so let's go and shop! It's been a good 40 hours since I got back from the shops and my brain can't compute! I must hit the high streets and look at all the things I don't really want or need, that are on sale at half the price they might be if I don't buy them now!
Look how happy I am, can you see my smiling face? No? I must be tying my shoelace up in this picture then, cos everyone loves shopping don't they.

No no, it's the emotion of not being able to shop on Xmas day. Why don't they make the shops open, so then I wouldn't be forced to spend 40 hours with my family.


I'm not a fan of shops being open on Boxing Day. Mainly, I feel it's unfair on the people who have to work on this day. Let's take Bookshops...
Firstly, these are people in retail and so don't get paid very much anyway, so it's a kind of tax on the poor. People in better paid jobs, like publishing for example (!), get about 2 weeks off over xmas.
Secondly, the argument that people who work in shops know what they've let themselves in for (shops open over xmas so if you work in a shop it's your own fault), is nuts. I started in bookselling in 1984, we didn't open on Sundays and the idea that we would work later than 7pm was frowned upon. Up till 4 years ago we didn't open on Boxing Day. Up till 2 years ago we didn't have 24 hour shifts in December (something that was introduced because the shop was too busy to restock/tidy during the day). I'm no luddite but let's just say you work as a teacher and suddenly it's decided that you have to work during the holidays and over xmas. You wouldn't be too happy about that would you? Unfortunately this is what happened to opening hours in shops. Having a sale on Boxing Day means that after the shops close on Xmas Eve people have to stay to put the sale in (not for time and a half or double time as well), so it isn't just the time that the stores are open that there are people there.
Yes, temps do cover a lot of these hours(usually for a very basic wage), but as a full time bookseller you're expected to 'be flexible' over xmas. Which means if the Directors (who are sitting on their fat ar....mchairs at home) decide that your shop needs to stay open until 11pm and open at 7am, then you have to do it.
What'll happen soon is that the pressure will start on the publishers to open straight after xmas in order to supply the shops, then the distributors and so on. Anyone who works in publishing won't like that very much I imagine. I don't imagine that's what you thought you'd let yourself into when you got the job.
I think that having recovery shifts (working when the shop's closed to tidy/restock) is necessary and I also think that extending opening hours is reasonable. But by accepting so readily that shops should open on Boxing Day is quite dangerous. It's only one step away from saying 'let's open on Christmas day'. And i'm not sure too many people would want that (until it happens).
Rant Over

I had a lovely Christmas, me. Katie and I stayed in London, and spent the day itself eating, playing with our presents, and watching sentimental films on TV.
Below is the shining star of all my presents. It's a Steepletone retro record player, and Katie has won a few million brownie points for this one.


Now, if you happened to go to Waterstone's on Charing Cross Road in the mid-late nineties, you would have probably heard some rather obscure music being piped through the shop. This was mainly down to Mr Alister Babb, ably assisted by yours truly. It was at that time that we were both very much into Lounge music and the mighty Moog synthesizer. We trawled charity shops and made up some amazing compilation tapes that we eagerly brought into the shop and played, hooting with laughter at the most obscure recordings that we found.
Sadly my record player packed in a few years ago and my rather large stack of LPs have remained unplayed since. So imagine my delight at being able to bring the super sensational sound of the swinging sixties back into the living room. Two of my favourites are below. The first is Studio2stereo climax. Harry Roche's version of Hawaii Five O is awesome.

But the king of my collection has to be the great Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. There are so many things I could say about how much I enjoy these albums and choosing one paricular LP as his best is very hard. But S.R.O. is a perfect Alpert. 'Flamingo', 'Mexican Road Race', 'Mame' are all on here. The highlight has to be 'Beanbag' or as most people know it the It's a Knockout themetune. Pure joy!

I've kept my love for lounge very quiet until now. It'll certainly be a surprise to Tim. It may confuse some people who know me, as I also enjoy Doom and Thrash Metal, Guitar based Indie and 2-tone amongst other genres.
I now need to get a few mixtapes ready for opening day at the shop!

My Yule Blog

Simon


Hoppy Christmas

I've promised to have a break from the blog tomorrow, and now the virtual advent calendar has finally reached it's frogtastic finale, you can now hang your stockings up and leave the sherry out in preparation for Santa.

Something to make your xmas go with a ddddfff-ddddfff-dddff


Have a lovely time everyone, and thanks for all your continued support. Here's hoping for a Big Green New Year.

Bestsellers, you ain't all that.

Simon:

A Christmas Tweet

So i'm looking at the Amazon bestsellers and also the Waterstone's bestsellers and WH Smiths bestsellers and it seems Nigella is winning at the moment. At £12, £12.50 and £13.75 respectively it hardly surprising it's selling though. Russell Brand is at least half price, Richard Hammond the same and so is Clarkson. As you go down the lists there's no surprises. I do like Amazon having only £2 off World Records though. It would be interesting to have a chart which lets us know the most profitable books. If you're flogging something at 60% off you can't really be making much from it, you'd need to sell 25 of them to make as much money as selling 1 copy at full price or something like that, probably. So maybe the 3 websites have sold say 50, 000 Booky Wooks. It sounds great, but if 2000 sold at full price, bookshops will have made just as much cash. And there'd be less copies to print, so less copies to send, which would be good for the environment and so publishers carbon footprints would improve, and then we'd be able to have an accurate bestsellers list, so then we wouldn't be ridiculed in Europe for having a dumbed down list of bestsellers, which would mean that we would invest more time in publishing good books, which means that we wouldn't have to bother Colleen and ask if she could write books for Children, which would mean that she'd have more time to shop. So everybody's happy. Oh yeah, except the publishers, who wouldn't sell as many Booky Wooks....

But, what they could do would be to put the prices down and offer smaller discounts, because now books are making more money for bookshops, and bookshops will sell more, ands don't forget that other books are selling more as well....see, it's easy.

Or possibly there could be an Agreement that means that books can't be discounted for the first 6 weeks of publication. Yeah, that'll work...

I might shut up, if you ignore me for long enough, but probably not

Xmas Party!!!!

Simon

Having had such a bumper year, me and Tim have decided to go all out this year and are blowing our xmas profit on a whopping party....
OK, seeing as we haven't opened the shop yet, and therefore didn't make any money , Tim and Julie have kindly invited Katie and I round for a meal, with perhaps a glass or two of wine. So no photocopier to copy your bits on and no awkward standing around in the corner with the people from your department thinking of stuff to say that isn't about work, drinking far too much and waking uo the next morning staring at the ceiling desparately trying to remember if you did anything really embarrassing.

Ah well, there's always next year.

A Day Off

Simon


Despite everything, this has been my first day off for ages. I have in fact done nothing bookshopworthy for a whole day. I am a little bit of an obsessive, as Tim will happily tell you, after i've bombarded him with crazy ideas that have kept me awake the previous night. It worries me occasionally, that even when the shop opens i'll be like this, and sneak back to the shop in the dead of night to rearrange the cookery section by price or something equally strange.
I think it's a question of control. I'm not in control of things at the moment, and i'm relying on Landlords, solicitors, and building societies to sort stuff out that I can do nothing about. This makes me feel uncomfortable, and as such my mind tries to redress the balance by bouncing around loads of ideas. It'll hopefully prove really useful, as i've now got a long long list of things that we can try in the shop. I guess it's already helped, as it meant that we've shamelessly contacted hundreds of people to tell them about the shop, and requested help.
The response from this has been amazing, and it sometimes astounds us that we've had so much interest and support. We are listed in the Bookseller this week as one of their 'Bookshop Perfect 10' of new independent bookshops, i've secured a regular slot in Retail Week, and as Tim has mentioned before, we have had interest from BBC television (of which we can hopefully tell you more about soon!). We'd have never had time to get all this sorted if we had a shop to run, so it's all swings and roundabouts innit.
And now our solicitor is on holiday until the new year, so there's nothing we can do until he comes back. I might explode. So, if anyone wants their car washed or their drain unblocked, give me a call. I warn you that I might be going through an Usborne catalogue for the 5th time making sure that we have all the titles we need, or trying out a variety of tills to see which one has the best action, but you might be lucky.

The Big Green Christmas Story (unfinished)

Simon:

A long time ago King Tim ruled the kingdom of Waterstone's (now part of HMV), there worked a young man called Simon, who worked hard and for long hours and enjoyed his job very much. He travelled far and wide selling books and spreading the good word. At the same time in the rival kingdom of Ottakars run by the Emperor James, a hard working fellow called Tim also worked long and hard spreading the good word.

As time went by King Tim adbicated and a succession of Kings tried to rules the kingdom and make it more powerful. The latest King, King Gerry plundered the land and took control of the kingdom of Ottakar's, and changed it's name to Waterstone's. And he was glad. The kingdom was big and mighty and no commision in the land could stop it.

Presently Simon moved North to a small place called Wood Green, where he met Tim. They got on very well and they spread the good word together. The townsfolk of Wood Green were glad.

The kingdom of Waterstone's was now too big to be ruled properly, and King Gerry and his advisors decided to sell off ten percent of the kingdom to ensure that the Waterstonians complied with all it's rules. One part of the kingdom they sold was Wood Green, and the townsfolk were thrown into the literary wilderness. Despite much prayer and a petition, the decision was already made, and Tim and Simon were no longer able to spread the good word.

Then, one night and angel visited them both and said to them 'fear not, for you have been chosen to give birth to a new bookshop, and it shall be called 'the Big Green Bookshop'.

Simon and Tim were sorely afraid, but had faith that this was what they had to do, and set off to bear this immaculate conncept. They first of all had to find somewhere for the birth and looked all over the town of Wood Green. They tried many places, but were turned away as rents were far to high for their humble pockets. In time they found a place and after much negotiation they secured these stable premises.

Now many miles away, booksellers were watching their stock by night, and the angel came to them and told them about the wonderful news. 'but how shall we find the shop?' they asked the angel. 'just follow the Bookseller to the Stars, and he will guide you.' the angel replied.

News of the great event travelled far and wide thanks to BLOG, the messenger angel, who told stories of how Tim and Simon were progressing. Wise men came from the many publishing empires offering the Golden Notebook, Frankenstein and Murder mysteries to the new shop at wonderful discounts.

The story isn't over yet, and Tim and Simon are heavy with shop at the moment. They hoped to have been able to bear a small Christmas treat, but the Lords of the Land had other ideas. It will happen and there will be much celebrating in North London and parties will be thrown in which all the loyal followers will be invited. In the meantime, the kingdom of Waterstone's and the other big kingdoms of Borders and WHSmith continue to reign. But there are a few villages that, despite being small, are full of happy folk who are looked after and loved, and soon there will be another one in Wood Green.

I Hate it When I Think...

Tim;

the Cat in the Hat.

So, do spider's belch? (see post below) This is impossible to discover at the moment, as most spiders have the sense to hide in the cold weather, but I foresee many hours in the Spring spent with my ear pressed to spiders' webs and a pipette of Stella poised, listening for that tell-tale arachnid burp.

This week has been a whirl of school Christmas events. One fete, two shows and two parties. I found myself behind the counter of the 'Book and Toy' stall, proving that I am a brilliant retail manager. "Only 50p for this?" one lovely mum asked, clutching a Buzz Lightyear playset. "Yup," I replied. "It's broken, has bits missing and is covered in something sticky....." "It's still a bargain," she said, and pressed a coin into my hand. Honesty is the best policy.

Pride welled, as I watched my two boys in their respective Christmas shows dance out of time, mumble their lines and glow with a healthy embarrased red (especially when Harry's drum teacher invited me to 'have a go' on one of the kits as the other parents were filing out. That cleared the hall a bit quicker, I can tell you)

My Wife - who I am not allowed to mention - has just told me that I am being unfair to George - my eldest, who I am not allowed to mention - He did not mumble his lines. He spoke them very clearly. There, is everybody happy now?

Damn, now I'm wondering what the arachnid equivalent of 'pardon me' is.

Oh, I've spoken to the solicitor and a couple of the financial people involved this week. I don't know if they dance in time or mumble their lines, but some of them should be really red.