Editors’ preface

This chapter discusses the strategies an independent academic bookseller has to adopt in order to protect and develop business in the 21st century. It provides an overview of reader base issues, the promotional opportunities available and the additional activities that are needed to ensure continued engagement with the book-buying public.

Introduction

When you walk into a bookshop and pick up a book, this is a significant achievement for the bookshop manager. In order to get to that book you may have gone to that part of the shop devoted to bestsellers or new titles. You may have gone to a particular department such as biology or philosophy. The book may have caught your attention in the shop window, or it may have been part of a particularly attractive table display visible by the front door as you came in.

All of these methods of placement can be used by the bookshop manager in order to draw attention to a new title. The market for books, however, is not restricted to those people who casually walk through the front doors of their local bookshop. So, how does a bookseller manage to promote new titles to those people who are rarely, if ever, in a bookshop?

My reality: the competition

I am the manager of a small, independent, academic bookshop in a large university town. Although there is a very large student and academic community, the reality of my situation is that I have strong competition from internet booksellers, two or three major national bookselling chains and other, smaller, operators as well. For this reason it is necessary to focus all of my attention and skills on maintaining and increasing my market share in the sector of the market in which I am operating. Like most brick-and mortar bookshops, my business operates for customers who purchase books in my shop, and customers, who could be many miles away, who purchase books by telephone, e-mail, fax or post.

All of the methods described in this chapter have been employed over the years to bring new title information to customers in the general market, undergraduate academic market, school market and hospital library market.