My top five bookselling mistakes

Five years ago this month we opened our first book shop at 39 North View, in Bristol’s Westbury Park neighbourhood. Neither Jessica, my wife, or I had ever worked in a bookshop before. Jessica had worked for her uncle, who supplied books to the Singapore national library, so had some credentials for the role. Me? I had the collector’s instinct of someone who includes High Fidelity in both their all-time, top-five, favourite book and film lists, a completely unearned confidence that we could do it, and Jess by my side.

Five years on, we’re still doing it, so we must have got a few things right. We certainly got a lot of things wrong. So here, for anyone looking to open their own bookshop, or simply looking for a laugh at my expense, are my all-time, top-five most memorable mistakes from five years as a bookshop owner. 

5. Assuming people knew we existed
Last summer, when we were preparing to move from our original premises to a much larger store a 10-minute walk away. I was confident enough people knew about us to justify the jump in floorspace and rent. It turns out not that many knew about us after all. Every day, someone would come in to tell us how lovely it was to have a local bookshop at last, completely unaware we’d been tucked just around the corner for four years. Luckily, I’d arranged for 10,000 branded Christmas catalogues to be delivered to every house in the postcode. A year on, enough people know about us to make the move a good one but people still keep coming in for the first time. I now assume no one knows we exist.

4. Not reading the author’s book before an event
I’d heard of bookshops who don’t read the book they’re holding an event for and wondered why on earth they’d do that? It’s disrespectful to the author and audience. I hadn’t realised it’s also terror-inducing for the interviewer. On the day of one of our events, Jess, who had read the book and prepared the questions, fell ill. I had to step in. How hard can this be, I thought. Quite hard, it turns out. I read Jess’ questions robotically and, with no knowledge of the book, I was unable to deviate from the script when the author’s answers opened up new routes of inquiry. I finished with nervous sweat pouring down my back and the resolution to never put myself in that position again. Read the book, who knows, you might even enjoy it.

Every day, someone would come in to tell us how lovely it was to have a local bookshop at last, completely unaware we’d been tucked just around the corner for four years

3. Thinking owning a bookshop was about selling books
I don’t think it was unreasonable to presume owning a bookshop would mainly involve selling books. Wrong, but not unreasonable. As it turns out, I can easily work 50 hours in one week without serving a single customer in either of our shops. Paying invoices, placing stock orders on numerous individual excel spreadsheets, managing said orders in Edelweiss and the shop p.o.s., fretting over P&Ls and cash flow forecasts, organising rotas, looking for other bits to sell alongside books, approaching schools about supplying their library, pitching for events, finding venues for events, ordering stock for events, writing questions for events, a lot of other stuff to do with events, and school events. The task list goes on and on. If you want to own a bookshop and just sell books, you can, but paying the bills may prove difficult. 

2. Not delegating
Last September we not only moved and tripled the size of our original shop but simultaneously opened a second shop, in Portishead. For some reason, my own pig-headed stupidity mainly, I spent the autumn trying to oversee both shops, and run our website, staffing, marketing, events and school activity on my own. By Christmas I was broken. Then, with a Scrooge-like epiphany, I realised I could ask for help. I gradually handed management of our school activity over to our two children’s booksellers, our Portishead team took control of our social content and email marketing, and our Henleaze store were put in charge of our website. I still oversee everything, but I’m not doing everything. The business runs better and our team is happier (I think). The only problem is I now have more time to come up with new ways to keep me busy.

1. Underestimating the pulling power of Dolly Alderton
In March, we pitched for an event with Dolly Alderton for the launch of her new novel, Good Materials. In August we found out we’d been lucky enough to get one. I booked a 180-capacity venue, figuring that, with a bit of marketing we should sell it out. Oh how wrong I was. With no marketing, bar one post on Twitter and one on Instagram, we sold all 180 tickets in two hours and had a 100 person waiting list within one more. And I was on holiday in Croatia. After scrambling a plan together over WhatsApp, we found a 390-capacity venue for the same date, worked out a way to temporarily limit ticket sales on our website to those on the waiting list, sold those tickets, then put the remaining 110 tickets on sale and sold those. All within 24 hours. The lesson? Do not mess with Dolly. Her fans mean business.