The prolific bookstore closures and the increase of e*book readers means my team and I are readily on the receiving end of the question – what does this mean for your business? Never fear, as much as we feel for the book trade (Redgroup’s collapse saw the closure of 96 Australian Borders and Angus and Robertson stores), it actually doesn’t really affect our business model.
You see, seven years ago we entered an age old traditional industry. However as many of you know, we came to the game without an iota of publishing experience. What we did bring was years of sponsorship, marketing and PR knowledge and it was this acumen we applied and our mandate has very much always been that we are a marketing company who just happens to produce books as the primary tool.
So bookstores have always been a part of our mix, but a very small part – more a PR exercise to appease societal perception that you’ve “made it” when your book is in a bookstore. What’s really been going on behind the scenes was a much more strategic play by us and our clients and for that reason it goes a little something like this.
Bookstores – we’ve always talked about traditional (bookstores) and non-traditional (everything else) channels. Our real purpose has been to help clients to create engaging, amazing content that provides value to the reader in the form of a book (which we then disseminate across multiple other channels). Our primary objective is to get the book into the hands of as many people in their target market as possible (essentially an expensive business card acting as a lead generator, credibility piece, door opener). We’ve never focussed on sales of the $30 book (which when sold through a bookstore equates to about $9 less production costs… ie vertially a big fat zero) but encourage people to look at the $30,000 client they can pick up as a result. So for us it’s not so much about small bookshop sales where you sit amongst a lot of clutter screaming “pick me”. It’s more about bulk deals (sales or giveaways) where we collaborate with like minded non competing corporations with similar customer profiles and BIG databases.
So, as sad as we are for the bookstores (frankly though they could have been a bit more on their game, innovated, been more experiential, destinational and ramped things up a few notches… the writing was on the wall…they could have embraced it with a bit more enthusiasm and morphed and moved with the times to quickly adapt and capitalise on the trend…), it was never our primary (or even secondary) mode of distribution.
E*Readers – we love e*readers – big fan. I just spent three weeks abroad and used my iPad prolifically for everything. Again though, not a threat but very much a complimentary tool to our model. Our objective though largely is to surprize and delight and so we’re kind of reversing the current trend. When everything is online and digital – and I mean pretty much everything (how often do you receive a hand written card or invitation unless its from us ) there is something really unexpected, tangible and with high perceived value about receiving a physical book. It is for this reason (and a few others) that we keep doing it. People feel really special when they receive a book.
I know this and am testament to this as I’ve even been caught at my own game – not once but a couple of times. When I went to my vets a while ago and they gave me a book on how to look after my puppy I was over the moon… even though and despite the fact that I knew exactly what the higher motivation of the pet food company that produced the book was. It was still of value to me and I might just be all the more loyal to that brand because they’ve actually thought about my needs and provided me something of value.
At the risk of sounding hard nosed and commercial (I haven’t talked about how much I loved browsing for hours in bookstores for most of my life – that’s a whole other tangent…), I hope this goes some way to explaining our current thoughts on the demise of bookstores and the ever changing technology that see’s a number of books going online.
My final word on this really traverses any industry. Watch the trends, stay ahead of the curve, challenge the status quo and be able to move and morph quickly depending on where the market is going. With this in mind, I strongly believe, you can enter any industry, flip it on its head, make it commercial, profitable, fun and have higher purpose.