Q & A with indie bookseller, Jen Campbell

London Writers’ Club LOVE indie bookshops – they are quirky, individual, the staff are passionate about books and really know their stuff. Jen Campbell of Ripping Yarns Bookshop in North London was kind enough to let us use the following Q & A on our site.

Are you an indie or a chain bookseller?

 

I’ve worked in two indie bookshops – The Edinburgh Bookshop and now Ripping Yarns bookshop which is an antiquarian bookshop in North London. Independent bookshops pretty much own my soul [in a good way!]

 

What motivates people to buy? 

 

Many things. If you’re asking what motivates someone in an independent bookshop to buy: covers, recommendations from the staff, a catchy blurb. Often bookshops have a ‘book of the month’, something we did at The Edinburgh Bookshop, which would have its own display on a table in the centre of the shop. People buy books on recommendations from a friend… all manner of things. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a book online or in a supermarket then I think you’re driven more by price. What motivates me to buy? If I walk into a bookshop and I’m not looking for anything specific, I will [hands up here] be drawn to a book cover. I won’t ultimately judge a book by its cover, no, but I will be drawn to the ones that catch my eye.

 

How do authors get into promotions?

 

For an indie bookseller it’s very difficult to give promotions. I think a lot of people forget the amount of people who have to be paid for every book that sells – the author, editors, cover designers, printers, bookshops… £7.99 isn’t much when you consider what people pay for say the cinema or a meal out, but Amazon and supermarkets are presenting the issue that people expect books to be available for less. Having said that, in indie bookshops [as mentioned above] if we have your book as our ‘book of the month’ then we offer 10% off. So… I guess if you want it on promotion, then it has to be a book that sells and that we love so… simply? Write a good book.

 

Do people latch on to a genre and author?  

 

I think people do, definitely. And publishers push that along. How many vampire books are there now? And angel books? [Please don’t write an angel book, I beg you!]. Everyone’s a different buyer, but you certainly do get fantasy geeks, poetry lovers, sci-fi obsessives…

 

What is the best sale you’ve made?

 

We have two first edition Harry Potters, signed, at Ripping Yarns at the moment for £1300. I’d so love to sell those. We’ve sold first edition Charles Dickens, we’ve got a signed Ted Hughes book… lots of interesting things there. But, I think [corny as it really is going to sound], the best sales you make are recommendations you make to people who then buy the book and stop by a week later to tell you that they loved it – best feeling ever ever ever!

 

The silliest question?

Oh so many. So so many. One of the best was to my boss Vanessa at The Edinburgh Bookshop: ‘Did Anne Frank ever write a sequel? I loved her book.’ A facepalm moment there, if ever there was one… I’ve got a more comprehensive list of silly things over on my blog here  

Why sometimes do booksellers not stock a particular book even though it has a good publisher?  

 

Everyone has personal taste, and independent bookshops only have so much space! We can’t stock everything. But if it has good recommendations, or a member of staff liked reading the proof then we will stock it.

 

How can a self-published author get their book into a bookshop? 

 

By not being an ass about it. Don’t email us telling us that you’re the new Van Gogh. Don’t come into our shop and tell us that your mother loves it. Don’t walk into our shop for the first time in your life, having never bought anything there ever and expect us to bow down at your feet. Don’t publish it without having someone proof-read it first. Look: bookselling is a really hard and busy business. There’s a myth hanging over the industry that booksellers get to sit on their arses all day and get to read. No. No we don’t. These are really, really difficult times for all bookshops [not just independent ones]. We have to hand-sell. At the Edinburgh Bookshop we’d [and they obviously still do] talk to authors, arrange events, get authors into schools, liaise with sales reps and go through catalogues, decide what to stock and make sure that we sell it. At Ripping Yarns I’m busy cataloguing a whole shop, a house and three garages full of books, researching, sourcing, accurately describing and photographing all of the stock to catalogue it online, at the same time as opening and running the shop by myself!

 

& breathe… so. If you self-publish your book, you must understand that a lot of booksellers are going to be cynical about that. I know it’s hard to get published, especially at the moment. But with so many books for us to buy centrally, through a wholesaler, which have backing and recommendations from a publisher [not that I think every published book is good!] – for us to stock a self-published book we need a really, really good reason to buy it. It takes a lot of our time to take a book home and read it carefully. We have A LOT of other things to do. Lots of us have other jobs after work [I’m an archivist and a writer, and I run that the bookshop six or seven days a week], so please don’t come into our shop, or email or call, a week after you’ve given us a copy of your book and demand to know how many copies we’d like. It’s rude. If you’ve written a really good book, and you self-publish and you bring it to us then we will notice that it’s a really good book. We will. We run bookshops, we know what sells, and we know a good book. Sure, someone else might like it if we don’t, that’s life, but please respect our opinion and don’t smash our shop up if we say no.

 

With the success of Amazon, is it still worth the effort of trying to get your book into bookshops? 

 

Yes. Absolutely yes. I’m guilty of buying books through Amazon, I’m sure we all are. But Amazon and supermarkets are driving the value of books down. When the last Harry Potter book came out ASDA sold it for £1, undercutting the wholesalers so much that booksellers like us couldn’t compete. Now is not the time to write bookshops off as being ‘finished.’  It’s really not the case at all. I personally believe that a bookshop is the heart and soul of the book world. If you get a really great bookshop then you go back again and again, you discover new authors that can change your life. I don’t think you can rely on Amazon to do that. Writers know more than anyone that making a living in this business is bloody tough. But hand-selling in bookshops help ‘spread the love’ of that book you’ve slaved over. It’s a different kind of selling to clicking on a screen. And how many people browse in bookshops and then buy online? Naughty, naughty. I’d like to stop those people doing it, but on the one hand [for you as a writer] those browsing people would never have bought your book online if they hadn’t seen it in a bookshop first…. You’re worried that bookshops are fading, and you’re worried that perhaps your book won’t do well in them? You’ve written a damn good book but you think it’s too much effort to get your book into a bookshop? Go out and support your local bookshop, and I promise they in turn will support you.

 

 

[Jen Campbell, 24, is a writer and bookseller living in London. Her poetry and prose have been published in many different places, and she’s the winner of the Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize. She blogs, and interviews authors at http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com], and tweets at @aeroplanegirl.]