Lynne Patrick
So far it’s been a pretty good week. On Monday morning we had an offer for audio rights in a title that’s more than two years old. Then two requests came in for murder mystery evenings next year. I had to ask for an alternative date for one; the diary is already filling up. Tuesday brought another murder mystery evening, making five altogether, including two I booked in last week; and a photocopy of a review in a paper we’ve never got a foothold in before. And Wednesday… well, the morning’s been quiet, but who knows what the rest of the day will bring?
Credit crunch? Who said credit crunch? (Deities and fates please note: I said that with fingers crossed and hand firmly planted on the wooden table top. I know my place in the great scheme of things and if I give destiny the finger it’s always, absolutely, honest promise, in jest.)
The murder mystery evening bookings, by the way, are exciting not only because they mean we can shout about our books to a captive audience. They also mean firm sale of a couple of dozen each time. As I said to someone this morning, they’re not about earning money; all we charge is expenses. But the venue, if it’s a library, which all five of these are, buys a supply of our books for stock.
With these few good things coming to those who wait, I could start to feel a little smug and complacent. But that’s not really my style; I’m a swings and roundabouts, balance and harmony sort of person, and well aware that everything has to be paid for. But it would be good to think that the bad has already happened (how about alarmingly high returns last month as the bookshops cleared their shelves in time for the Christmas onslaught?), and these little bits of good are restoring equilibrium. Besides, when I hear about American publishing’s Black Wednesday, then look around and see poor old Woolworths in its death throes, not to mention the component parts of the empire which impact directly on the book trade, I do get a cold shiver and begin to wonder who’s safe. Even optimists have to be realistic sometimes.
The main cause for concern over here appears to be the fallout from the Woolworths crash, and the wholesalers which were entangled with them. EUK have already called in the receivers (please, EUK, don’t sue me if I’ve got that wrong – I only know what I read), so the big supermarkets are casting their eyes around for alternative sources of supply of Christmas books. Bertrams, who supply real bookshops with real books (oh, come on, surely no one takes supermarkets seriously as booksellers, however many they shift), have persuaded the big publishers to reopen lines of supply and are still trading more or less normally. The book trade news websites keep hinting that there’s a buyer in the offing, but so far it hasn’t happened. And meanwhile, one of the supermarket chains is already forming a meaningful relationship with Bertrams’ direct competitor.
I got involved in an interesting discussion this morning: what would happen if the other big book wholesaler decided to buy Bertrams? Would it be blocked by the Competitions Commission, despite the current economic situation, which has already made assorted politicians and financial institutions arrive at decisions they wouldn’t normally entertain? Alternatively, will the Competitions Commission intervene in some way if Bertrams follow the rest of the Woolies empire into oblivion, leaving the other wholesaler to scoop up all the business?
All totally hypothetical, of course, and something a little company like ours can only muse about. I have a hunch that Bertrams will continue to battle valiantly through the storm, and eventually rescue will come and they’ll be stronger than ever. Which is good news for them, and mostly good news for the rest of the book trade.
And we could all do with some good news.
