From Flaubert to 50 Shades
To mark Bookshop Day, Amanda Saxton spent some time with a thriving independent book seller.
An eager reader hovers near the door of Mt Eden’s Time Out Bookstore independent bookshop at 9:03am on a Thursday. It swings open a minute later, she gets greeted by name, and flits through the latest offerings
Natalia Porter is en route to her Year 11 biology exam at ACG Parnell. She regularly stops by Time Out Bookstore, spending $50 a month on hard copy books – never digital.
Natalia, 15, has been visiting the store as long as she can remember.
Time Out is a staple stopover for Mt Eden’s well-heeled community. A heartening sign before New Zealand Bookstore Day in a world where books get downloaded, bought online, or forsaken completely for mind-numbing thumb-on-phone action.
Last year was the 28-year-old store’s most profitable ever, and 2016’s October figures show the store already $20,000 ahead of that.
Passionate staff and a ‘‘brat of a cat’’ – according to bookseller Caitlyn Kneller – are behind the store’s popularity.
Everyone there comes from a bibliophilic background. Store manager Ian Brown has a Kurt Vonnegut quote – ‘‘so it goes’’ – tattooed across his knee; Caitlyn is the namesake of a character in a Jilly Cooper novel (the same as feminist writer Caitlyn Moran named herself after).
Claire Duncan, who’s been working there for five years, joined the team on a mission to ‘‘hand sell so many copies of this obscure Latin American essayist I adored’’ (six months later the original stack was still intact, despite her best efforts).
Staff are encouraged to advocate books they love and there’s no pressure to hawk a volume just because piles of it waiting are to be sold. But Claire says experience has taught her that ‘‘customers are looking for entertainment and escape more than a mental challenge’’.
‘‘We all learn that after the initial enthusiasm to sculpt the city’s literary taste,’’ she said.
The surges in genre popularity baffle her, she admits. Last year’s explosion of adult colouring books, for instance.
‘‘It was really massive, really strange, and a total flash in the pan,’’ she said.
Fifty Shades of Grey was another flash: ‘‘A total anomaly,’’ according to Claire.
‘‘It was abysmally written. One of the worst books in the world. But everyone bought it and the best thing was it got people reading.’’
Are people still buying it? ‘‘No. No, no, no.’’
Current best sellers include thrillers, New Zealand fiction, and books about mindfulness.
The store thrives in the face of cheaper mainstream booksellers, and the even-cheaper offerings of online retail giant Amazon. Jilly Cooper’s latest saucey horsey blockbuster sells for $38 – a hefty price tag compared to Whitcoulls’ $29 or Amazon’s $16.
How do they compete? Owner Wendy Tighe-Umbers says she doesn’t even view those sellers as competition.
‘‘We do our thing and they do their thing.’’
‘‘What do you get in our shop? Well, everyone loves books here. You don’t get that on Amazon. We’ll tell about the downsides of a book, whether we were slightly disappointed by this one – or if it’s the best the author’s done. We can tell you about a new author noone’s even heard of yet, that we think is really superb.’’
Staff empathy towards customers does appear to be the store’s selling point – that in itself is an extension of Wendy’s fondness for her staff.
There’s always food in the fridge, and wine, and staff members consider the store their second home.
Everyone had gotten their jobs after first spending teenage years as Time Out devotees.
‘‘As a weird teenager with slightly esoteric interests it was somewhere that I could go and find something kind of new and exciting, but feel cosy too,’’ says Claire.
The store’s low staff turnover helps build customer loyalty, too. Patrons’ names, tastes, moods, and mentalities are remembered.
Hours move quickly at Time Out. Books get sold, books get discussed, books get pitched by publisher representatives, and books get stacked.
By 7:30pm the store is quiet but at least one engrossed customer is at each shelf of books. Running fingers down spines, flipping through pages, heads cocked.
Then the final hour and a half before closing gets really packed – Ellie Bijl, on the evening shift, says many customers are here on dates after dinner at Fraser’s cafe next door.
‘‘It’s funny watching them at this hour’’, she giggles. ‘‘They do this really awkward showing off – ‘have you read this?’ and so on, trying to impress.
‘‘Then there’s all the lonely types hanging around the counter, just wanting a chat.’’
190 books got sold by 9pm closing time.
‘‘Everyone knows that you can go to Amazon or Book Depository and get practically anything in this shop for probably half the price,’’ mused Ellie.
‘‘But people choose to come here because there’s that energy. They know people here are passionate about the books. We’re part of what they call a village.’’