3Cs Workshop: Create, Curate, Consume

One very interesting strand of discussion at our recent workshop related to the change that digital culture has had on our ways of thinking about participation in culture.

To put it very simply, the internet has reshaped our expectations about who gets involved, where and how. At the workshop my attention was directed to a recent lecture given to the British Council by the journalist Ben Hammersley. You can read a transcript or watch a video here. Hammersley explains the way that the internet is shaping the thinking of younger people. It’s a change in thinking he typifies as the difference between a network and a hierarchy. I won’t go into detail explaining what Ben explains very well in his lecture – here I want to reflect on how we might think about how making books and selling them can fit into this new network model…

From my perspective this notion of hierarchies vs networks is very useful for understanding what has changed for readers (and consumers) of books. Once, bookstores were heirarchical places where many people didn’t dare to enter lest they be looked down their noses at by a stiff-looking shop owner who had organised the store (or not organised the store, as the case may be) to suit themselves. Book shopping for most of the 20^th century could be an alienating business. Many people just gave up. Would rather buy a book at a news agent or a train station or (later) a supermarket to avoid the discomfort of an antisocial exchange.

This is not so today in a culture increasingly organised according to the network model. Networks not only encourage but necessitate participation from a diverse population. You can’t actually engage with Facebook, for instance, unless you understand that you need to be connected to others. The experience of buying a book today is nothing but networked. Of course, there’s the obvious stuff – buying books online via Amazon and Book Depository… These are networks for books, certainly. But a networked bookstore doesn’t mean an online store. Many online stores are not very well networked at all, or at least, networked in only the most simple ways. Arguably there are much more interesting examples of how books are used, bought, sold and made according to the network experience.

Ironically, I think some of the better, earlier examples of a networked bookstore were actually the big bricks-and-mortar chain stores like (the now defunct) Borders. These stores were a real revolution for consumers in the 80s and 90s because they broke down the hierarchical model for buying books. With their open plan and huge range they made browsing shelves a pleasure. This produced a set of ‘accidental networks’ as browsers zig-zagged around large stores for hours following the associative networks of their shopping fancies (e.g. you find a new book or an author because you’re looking for another and discover it shelved nearby, or because one thought leads to another which reminds you of a long forgotten title you’ve always been meaning to read, etc etc)

More than these accidental networks, the big chain stores really hit it big by encouraging physical networks inside their walls. The introduction of coffee shops encouraged customers to sit down and hang out for a while. They reversed the expectation that booksellers were snooty and intimidating; they broke down the hierarchies that made readers and browsers feel insecure about their interests and opinions. These stores made people relax by offering them other nice experiences to complement their browsing, particularly coffee shops. In the café people could enjoy the atmosphere of books, make a small investment (the price of a cup of coffee), and then move on with the rest of their day. The bookstore was an ambient place where experience could be absorbed, not spoonfed.

Of course, as the internet proliferated across the world and online retail became legitimate and popular the consumer value system changed. Consumers reassessed their motivations for entering a bookstore. Many books were easier and cheaper to obtain online. Both the network and the value system underpinning it changed. The social and ambient aspects that made the big chain bookstores pleasant were being well satisfied in other locations (in real life and also online). The big bookstores lost the allegiance of their network of customers in deference to the economic hierarchies (and we can see now where that has got them). To quote Ben Hammersley, the glue that holds individuals together across the network is “interest, it’s belief, it’s cultural allegiance.
 And those cultural allegiances can be anything from religion or hard-core politics down to the fact that you and I really like vampire novels and those lot don’t. Or we are Star Wars and they are Star Trek. […] We increasingly find that our allegiance – our social allegiances, our political allegiances – are to people who are likeminded but nowhere near us.”

This is certainly true, but I want to stress the point here that these networks are equally effective and important in creating allegiances closer to home. And indeed, more and more the internet and digital social networks are being used not just to link people with common allegiances who are geographically distant but also proximate. In the small bookshops where I’ve been conducting field work I’ve noticed this happening in almost all cases. Using online networks, these stores involve customers in their community even while they’re not in the shop. This might just be via news updates on Facebook or Twitter, but it also involves more experimental forms of networking: managing events in the store after hours (not necessarily book launches, but quiz nights, sewing classes, music or comedy performances – stuff that has virtually nothing to do with books and how to flog them). The motivation here is to cater to the drives of the network that supports them. Today, a customer at a small independent bookstore needn’t necessarily even be someone who’d identify themselves as a great reader. Instead they find their social and cultural allegiances well catered to by the store and its wider network. Bookstores, it turns out, may not be about books at all…

The bookshop is an ideal place to explore networks because at heart they represent not a place to buy books but a place for engagement. In 1960 an American sociologist Edward Shills said of the bookshop, it is a “place for intellectual conviviality, and it has the same value as conversation, not as a “civilized art” but as a necessary part of the habitat of a lively intelligence in touch with the world.” Being in touch with the world now very often takes place via the internet but theres no reason for bookshops not to continue to involve themselves in the conviviality and conversation of these modern networks. Bookshops can be one place (in actual geographic place and also digitally) that nurture the social and cultural networks facilitated by life after the internet.

Pop ups and downfalls

A few bits and pieces of relevant bookshop news turned up over the last few days -

Here's a pop up project happening in New York in autumn that is trying to engage with the idea of giving public space a literary quality. The Uni project is a portable space based on a system of cubes. The books inside the cubes are only the beginning of the concept. Partly a library, the project will act as a venue for readings, talks, workshops and screenings - all organised in partnership with various local organisations. Because it's lightweight and portable it can be moved around to suit the location and the requirements. Have a look at the website to see how the Uni project can function and you'll see how the same principle would work for a pop up bookshop.

The Australian website Crikey also had a couple of very interesting articles over the weekend addressing the demise of the bookshop in Australia. First was Matthia Dempsey's essay (reprinted/revised from a version originally published in Kill Your Darlings) about the consumer's obligation to shop responsibly. This is a subject I'm going to be writing about in more depth very soon - Are book consumers going to take on ethical purchasing practices in the same way that we have embraced other responsible consumer practices like fair trade, free range and so on? It certainly seems as if book sellers think so. The Melbourne newspaper The Age ran this story about the news of an Australian/New Zealand version of the original US 'Indie Bound' scheme that encourages shoppers to use local independent retailers.

The other piece that caught my eye addressed the downfall of the REDgroup (who were owners of Borders in Australia and the local Australian book retailer Angus and Robertson). Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the disintegration of these chain bookstores is that, in the words of publisher Michael Heywood (quoted in the article), Australia has "become a nation of independent booksellers overnight."

Book Sufficiency...

A few days ago I went to visit the wonderful bookstore the Book Barge while it was moored on Regent’s Canal just behind Kings Cross station. I had some idea of what to expect having read some recent news coverage but one thing that had escaped my notice was that the barge’s adventure up and down the canals of the UK is an experiment in what might be called “book-sufficient living.” For six months the floating book shop is making a tour of the country “living off books for the entirety of the trip, bartering stock for food, accommodation.” The hope is that this radical experiment will draw attention to the plight of independent booksellers, prompting readers to reassess the value of books in the wake of the massive discounting trends of online and supermarket retailers. If book shopping could be understood not only in terms of the market value of price tags but more directly in terms of a book's value as an item equivalent to, say, a meal or a warm shower perhaps this would bring price considerations into better balance when readers decide where and how they want to buy a book.

The Book Barge @Large experiment offers an interesting example of the way in which it is possible to reinvigorate public interest in visiting the bricks and mortar (or in this case, wood and water) bookshop. The barge is a USP. But the problem is not getting customers but getting sales. Thanks to chain stores and internet retailers readers have grown to expect discounts and, indeed, many people believe that they are being cheated in some way if a store sells anything at full price. This means that even though customers enjoy browsing the independents, many people seek out discounts when it is time to make a purchase. It seems to me that by trying this “bartering for books” experiment the Book Barge presents customers with a way to think beyond this basic reduction to market principles. What if the exchange wasn’t strictly financial, but still economic? An experiment like this provides a useful corrective to the easy acceptance that all economies come down to capital - some run on other currencies. And in demonstrating this the Book Barge illustrates that the triumph of the discount isn’t inevitable. As Laura Miller points out in her book about US independent booksellers:

“the production, circulation, and consumption of goods can be organized in many ways, and even in the modern world, noncapitalist forms exist, sometimes temporarily, sometimes as a pale memory of earlier irganizational types, but nonetheless, not that difficult to find.” (10)

You can read more about the ideas that inspired the Book Barge @Large adventure here.

'Business as Usual!' Amazon and Book Depository

Here is the blog post I wrote for the great Melbourne journal Kill Your Darlings a few days ago.

It seems not a week goes by without some important book retailing news going down in the UK: first came the announcement that James Daunt (the man responsible for the successful chain of London independent bookshops that bear his name) had been appointed as head of the faltering Waterstone’s chain. Then came the announcement that this year’s National Booksellers Award was presented to a supermarket. Now, the Book Depository, the online shop beloved of cheapskate readers around the world has been sold to Amazon!

Since the revelation the Book Depository have been working hard to dispel the notion that the company’s purchase by Amazon will have any effect on their service. On Twitter the company responded to a flurry of tweets from worried customers assuring them it was “business as usual”. The company has “no plans to change the shipping policy” and will "continue to operate independently". In the UK this news has been greeted with alarm for what it signifies for a company proudly championed as an innovative British independent bookseller.

The notion that the Book Depository represents the face of independent bookselling might come as a surprise if you’re an Australian familiar with our recent debates about online bookselling and the problems posed by the Book Depository to our local booksellers (GST and free shipping in particular). In the UK though, where the recession is having notable effects on retail generally, the Book Depository is regarded as a British success story: a plucky David rather than a greedy Goliath. And, with the exception of some dissenting voices – notably offshore independent booksellers, like our own – customers have seen it in these terms too: “I liked you better than Amazon :(“ tweeted one customer after the announcement.

One reason for this attitude is that the Book Depository has always made the most of their accessibility; not just in the obvious sense of existing only online but by virtue of offering customers the ultimate in transparent online retail: no false promises about availability, no registration to purchase, no shipping costs. The Book Depository credits its success to a “long tail” strategy of providing its customers over six million titles (selling “less of more” rather than “more of less”) and the slow creep of their positive word of mouth. Two words in particular: “free” and “shipping.” For this reason alone it is well loved by its users, celebrated as an online retailer that serves customers, not its own ends. Of course, if this were the reality it would make rather poor business sense.

According to an article in the Guardian dissecting the details of Amazon’s acquisition, the annual turnover of the Book Depository has almost doubled in just the last year (up to 120 million pounds). In 2009 the company could boast of doing at least fifty percent of its business with offshore customers. In 2010 the Book Depository received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade.

The announcement of Amazon’s takeover disrupts this idea that the Book Depository is, or can remain, a customer driven enterprise. After all, selling your business to the company that already has 70% of the market is not going to serve the best interests of customers (no matter how many chipper “no plans to change!” tweets are made). The UK’s Office of Fair Trading will investigate the deal, analysing if the merger could produce “a substantial lessening of competition” in the UK book market. How the buyout it might effect the BD’s offshore market is anyone’s guess. The more conceptual problem here is the misapprehension by customers (and retailers) that bookstores anywhere, of any size, will be any more independent from the global retail market than any other industries – it’s always business as usual.