How BOOKS became bestsellers AGAIN
E-books predicted a bleak future for hard copies, but now the page-turning news is that sales are on the rise
AFTER years of dreaming, planning and searching for the perfect property, Trish Hennessy opened her children’s bookshop, Halfway up the Stairs, in October 2019.
In the few short years since, it has become a beloved institution in the bustling harbour town of Greystones, Co. Wicklow.
It’s not hard to see why — it’s an Aladdin’s cave of imagination and creativity. White shelves are stacked with hundreds of colourful books, from stiff cardboard picture books for babies, to graphic novels for teens and young adults. From titles that many of us would recognise from our own childhoods to
PEOPLE LIKE TO SAY THERE’S A BOOKSHOP IN THEIR TOWN
newly-published works by debut writers, they’re all carefully curated by Trish and her small team of experts.
Stock is chosen based on their belief that the product is worthy of inclusion. You might not always find the mega-sellers found in the chain stores, instead it’s an eclectic mix of classics, brand new fiction and factual books they believe will engage and enthral young minds.
The approach is clearly working. This year it is one of two nominees from Ireland on the shortlist for Independent Bookshop of the Year in the prestigious Booksellers Book Awards 2023. Up against Little Acorns Bookshop in Derry, the winner of this regional final will be announced in mid-March and then it’s onwards to a glitzy awards ceremony in Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
It’s the second year in a row it’s been nominated in this category, and in 2021 it was longlisted for the An Post Awards Bookshop of the Year — an incredible achievement for such a young business. If it gets through again, it will be up against independent bookshops of all kinds from across the UK.
‘We’re delighted, it’s about celebrating bookshops and getting a brilliant opportunity for people to see who we are,’ says Hennessy.
There was more good news for Irish independent bookshops this week. At the annual Irish Book Trade Conference, held this year in Cork City, it was revealed that membership of Bookselling Ireland and UK for independent outlets was up by almost 5 per cent on last year.
In an era of online superpowers that can afford to sell at heavilydiscounted prices and the advent of e-readers, which once threatened the very existence of smaller bookshops, it’s heartening to hear that they’re holding their own.
Especially when just last week we learned of the closing of yet another Dublin institution, the McCullough Pigott music shop on South William Street in Dublin, where for 200 years tens of thousands of music students bought their instruments and sheet music.
Like many other similar types of businesses, parent company Hal Leonard Europe, who took it over in 1993, has decided to close the bricks and mortar shop along with six other retail premises in the UK, to concentrate on online sales.
With high rents and rates, not to mention soaring energy costs, it’s perhaps not a surprising tack to take. Indeed, many smaller and independent stores have disappeared forever from the streets of towns and cities across the country over the last few decades, with the birth of mega malls and retail parks.
But there’s something about bookshops that seems to exercise people into taking action. When it was announced that Chapters was closing its doors after the owner retired in early 2022, there was a sizeable public outpouring of dismay at the loss of the Dublin city bookstore. Famous for its huge selection of second-hand books, as well as new titles, new owners stepped in and it reopened a few months later. It was interesting to hear the news that it has now joined eBay. Chief executive Mick
Finucane explained that because its second-hand stock has such a ‘sprawling range’ of titles, it made sense to join up.
‘Trying to make our range available to as many people as possible, needed a creative approach,’ he said.
‘Although we’re all so familiar with eBay and what it does, we forget that it is a really creative, vibrant retail environment that gives space to independent sellers and innovative practices. It was a perfect match for us.’
Books are still big business. Despite the cost-of-living crisis, like a lipstick or a takeaway coffee they’re an affordable luxury. Indeed, for many they’re a necessity that they’re willing to stretch to.
With the explosion of BookTok, where younger readers recommend authors they love on the social media platform TikTok, many firsttime buyers have entered the market with gusto, pushing previously unknown writers like Colleen Hoover and Alex Aster to the top of the charts. According to Forbes, six of Hoover’s books were in the top selling ten of 2022.
Overall, book sales are in rude health here too. The Nielsen figures for last year show that 13 million books were sold in Ireland, making it the eighth consecutive year of growth in book sales by value and volume. That translated into €170 million, the highest figure on record.
According to Bookselling Ireland, which represents 136 businesses, including 19 in Northern Ireland, children’s books and fiction have both seen record growth. However, there are issues of concern within the Irish book world, including the rising costs of paper.
‘There’s also uncertainty around the free primary school book scheme that was announced in Budget 2023,’ explains chairperson of Bookselling Ireland, Dawn Behan. ‘According to a member
YOU DON’T GO INTO SELLING BOOKS TO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY
WE CAN PROPERLY CURATE WHAT WE’LL SHOW OUR CUSTOMERS
survey we carried out in October 2022, 54% of Irish bookshops sell school books. At least one in ten bookshops in Ireland are at risk of closure if they’re no longer able to sell primary school books.
‘As yet, guidelines have not been issued by the Department of Education for the implementation of this scheme.
‘Then there’s the cost of living. As with all other businesses, bookshops are experiencing some serious rising costs, including utilities, energy and transport.’
Indeed, last month a bookshop owner in Ramsgate in England tweeted how they needed to make £800 (€900) by the following ~Tuesday if they were to stand a chance of covering their bills. They then posted a photo of inside their shop, which was empty of any customers.
By the next day the shop was packed and online sales went through the roof.
Last Tuesday they paid their bills and did multiple media interviews about the kindness of book lovers and the effects of the cost-of-living crisis.
‘You see that a lot more in the UK than in Ireland I think,’ says Behan. ‘People go online or instore to help them because they don’t want bookshops to close.’
Owner of the Woodbine Bookshop in Kilcullen, a town of about 4,000 residents in Co Kildare, Behan has been open since 2016 and says things are ticking along nicely. ‘You don’t go into selling books to make lots of money,’ she smiles. ‘You do it because you love books and you want to share that passion with others, while surrounding yourself with books and getting to talk about them all day.
‘It’s always quiet this time of the year but it’s not as quiet as this time last year. I think everybody is finding that. During lockdown we delivered and posted but as soon as we were open again the customers were straight back in, they really missed us. That’s kept up, I think that’s the general feeling throughout the industry.
‘People like to say there’s a bookshop in their town, it makes it feel special. Some new ones even opened during and just after the pandemic. I think people had a chance to think about what they really wanted to do, they got out of the rat race and didn’t want to go back.
‘Not all our new members are new shops, some only sell school books and with all the uncertainty, they wanted some kind of national representation at a national level. But there are new shops and branches of existing chains. For instance, Seanchaí in Kildare town opened a year ago and it’s thriving. It’s a gorgeous place and the locals are so happy there’s a bookshop in their town.’
Certainly Greystones locals are very proud of their children’s bookshop. Trish Hennessy was confident there was a market for such a store in the area. Previously a bank employee, after having her three children she sold Usbourne books part-time from home to supplement the household income.
‘There are lots of families, several schools and people who are very invested in their children’s education,’ she explains. ‘When I started thinking seriously about opening my own place, I decided I needed experience, so I went to work in Easons for a few years.’
Using her savings, help from the bank and a short-term enterprise allowance, she set her dream in motion. ‘There aren’t many children’s bookshops in the country — as far as I know there’s two, us and one in Bray,’ she says. ‘Tales for Tadpoles is a gorgeous shop, and there are some online.
‘Finding a premises wasn’t easy but I was lucky — through word of mouth one came up here.’
She opened Halfway Up The Stairs in the winter of 2019. Five months later, Covid hit.
‘It was really stressful and there were times when things felt bleak, but it also brought a lot of opportunities,’ she says. ‘We quickly got a reputation for being able to help people and the big connection we had was with grandparents. They were coming to us for advice on fiction and activities books, asking us to send them all over the country and we got a couple of shoutouts in media.
‘We learned a lot very fast and then built a website with help from the Booksellers Association. When we finally reopened for good, customers came in and told us how we sent them books during Covid. They came from all over — some had planned their holidays around dropping into us.’
Online competition is obviously a challenge. ‘But with children’s books in particular, what people want is expertise, they want advice and personal service, which they won’t get from big online giants,’ she explains. ‘Price is important but it’s not the main thing. The vast majority of books we sell in this shop are ones we recommend to a customer, we literally hand-sell them.
‘You won’t see the same names on our best-selling list that you see on other lists. We get behind the books we sell, we believe in them, that’s why people come back to us. The service we provide is what gives the value.’
Just back from the booksellers conference in Cork, she was delighted to hear about the slight rise in independent shops.
‘I’ve given advice to a few people over the years,’ she says. ‘The Booksellers Association runs an open your own bookshop course, I did it in London in 2019, but there’s one now in Ireland, which shows there’s a demand for it.’
While business is OK, she has noticed that people are being more careful with their money, so they need to work hard to ‘give people reasons to come to us’.
The shop has an events manager, the writer Sarah Webb, and last year worked with more than 50 writers for their online and in-person events. ‘Every week we do a Saturday storytime,’ she says. In the last few weeks they had had Shane Hegarty reading from his new book and Marita Conlon McKenna signing her new book, Fairy Hill.
It also has an ingenious subscription service, where you can sign a child up for three months or six months, and staff will handpick a book for them based on their interests and post it out.
‘It takes a lot of work and effort to keep an independent open,’ she says. ‘With the high costs involved, you can’t compete on price. A big part of the discussion at the conference was how our industry needs to highlight the value of the service we offer.
‘There’s a place for big chains and independent bookshops, but a thriving independent industry is really important because we all have our own flavour. Every bookshop reflects the tastes and interests of the people that work there, that’s what makes them special and different.
‘There is a future and a potential for growth, there are also loads of wonderful new books coming out all the time, especially Irish ones. When I first opened, I got asked a lot if children are still reading, and the answer is yes, they are, despite the devices and all the screens. There’s so much wonderful material out there, our libraries are busy as well.
‘But we do need to remind customers to buy locally, that OK, they might get a book for a couple of euro cheaper online, but what they don’t get is the service, the expertise, the loyalty, the feedback and the follow-up.
‘When new books come in, we often know the customers who will love a particular one, we know their tastes and preferences. We can properly curate what we’ll show them, it’s not an algorithm — that’s the difference.’
■ SARAH Bowie will be reading and drawing from her new book Kevin’s In A Mood at 3pm this Saturday at Halfway up the Stairs in Greystones.