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MWF ‘11 Coverage: 22nd Century Bookstores

Bhakthi Puvanenthiran September 21

I was skeptical about this event. The 22nd century is a long way away. I mean, unless cryogenic freezing becomes a viable alternative to death any time soon, I don’t anticipate I’ll be direct debiting my e-books, paying cash for hardbacks or even picking up the Ikea catalog past 2080. Worse, current booksellers struggle to provide two or three year forecasts for their businesses, let alone forecasting into the next century. Asking this question seemed not only a little cruel to them, but also perhaps futile. Of course these are all factors the MWF accounted for. It seemed to me this panel, aptly one of the last for the festival, existed to try and reach beyond the despairing headlines of today. If the digital dust ever settles, what could bookshops become? And how?

The first speaker, Kate Eltham of the Queesland Writers' Centre and if:book Australia, was as usual, impressive. Eltham spoke of recreating digital lives in physical spaces as an important way for bookshops to remain relevant places for their patrons to attend. She identified curation, hand selling and recommendation as book selling services that have persistent value (as many who are familiar with The Morning News' biblioracle will attest). However, Eltham went on to point out that these services are not remunerated. Would you join up and pay for someone to recommend books to you? I certainly would.

Tim White from Cooks for Books spoke next. The former lawyer and savvy businessman spent more time presenting his experiences than sticking to the (difficult) task at hand. Nonetheless, Books for Cooks, a well-known treasure trove in Melbourne, offers a fascinating example of destination bookselling — something White is convinced will be increasingly popular. Acknowledging the reality that bookshops have always been in a state of flux, White suggested that bookstores will need to be more specialised in order to be able to filter out the junk. “Do we really need another cookbook on how to cook Tuscan?”. Good question. White also took time to look at global trends, especially in terms of increasing literacy in the developing world, and the way that will affect demand for bookselling.

Dymocks' head honcho Don Grover rounded out the panellists' speeches with a strikingly un-MWF-like business-style presentation. Grover was able to provide some unique insights given his generalist retail background. “When mail order came out, that really scared me” he recalled. Grover then went on to talk about how mail order was a push tool, where as online selling can be a pull tool — a way to ‘pull’ people into stores. Of course, Grover took every opportunity to spruik Dymocks' success in today’s confusing financial climate. In closing, however, he used the phrase ‘future-proof’, one that is inherently pessimistic about the future (presupposing it’s something you have to ‘proof’ yourself against), suggesting he is fundamentally frightened of the next few decades of bookselling. You can’t blame him, but you’ve got to wonder what’s in store for Dymocks.

It was a shame there was no voice for digital booksellers on this panel. Certainly both Dymocks and Books for Cooks offer online ordering services, but the discussion would have benefited from a personal account of business without the burden of a physical shopfront. Similarly, second hand books — will they still be around in 100 years? And if so, in what permutation?

I was skeptical about this panel to begin with. By the end, however, I saw that rather than being futile, panels like this continue to be painfully necessary. And while they struggle to go far enough in the time allotted, these are questions that plenty of people still want answers to.



* Bhakthi Puvanenthiran is Co-Director of the National Young Writers' Festival, which runs as part of This is Not Art in Newcastle from the 29th of September to the 3rd of October. *


 

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