To sell your soul. The booksellers' job

"Vendere L'Anima. Il Mestiere del Libraio" is a book written by Romano Montroni and published in 2006 by Laterza.
Montroni became a bookseller when he was very young, by chance.


He worked for Rizzoli and later for Librerie Feltrinelli until he became a manager.
From 2001, he teaches at Scuola per Librai Umberto ed Elisabetta Mauri.
From 2005, he collaborates with Coop for the project librerie.coop.
He formed more than 600 booksellers, in Italy and abroad.

I'll read the book as soon as possible and tell you about it.

He also wrote an autobiography "Libraio per caso. Una vita tra autori e lettori" ("Bookseller by chance. A life with authors and readers").

This is an interview with some interesting lines:

"Then I had the privilege to meet Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, now there are good editors, but such extraordinary people - like Alberto Mondadori and Giulio Einaudi - are not there any more, they are extinguished mythological figures"

"Ciriosity, if a young person is not curious he can't do this job. A bookseller must have a 360 view, and this width comes only with curiosity. Contemporary booksellers must work on merchandising, display and offer."

"... our job must tempt people to read"

Gulliver: Specialized Travel Book Store

Yesterday I went to Gulliver; a bookstore specialized in travel books.

THE BOOKSTORE

Gulliver opened in Verona 21 years ago. One of the first bookstores of its kind it used to serve many nearby provinces. Nowadays it serves Verona, Brescia, Mantova and Vicenza. Similar bookstores opened in Trento, Venezia and Padova. The bookstore offers travel guides in Italian and other languages, maps globes and focuses on travel fiction and photo feature. 

note. the only objects on sale (globes) are a furnishing element rather than a significant earning source.

THE BOOKSELLER

Luigi Licci, the kind bookseller who talked to me, took Gulliver over in 2007. He did not have any previous experiences as bookseller; nevertheless a travel bookstore was a dream of his life. He had experience as a traveler and a reader. He attended a booksellers school and an editorial course. Nevertheless he underlines that experience and willingness are the real and best schools ("remarkable booksellers, like Romano Montroni", he said, "started their training as kids in book stock rooms"); in addition to that, the presence of his colleague, who used to work in the same bookstore before he took it over, was an indispensable element.

EDITORS AND DISTRIBUTORS

The relationship with editors and distributors is based on fairs and salesmen: Luigi prefers face to face relationships even if he uses the web as a source of updates and a tool to look for books. 

PROMOTION

Luigi is well aware of the crisis bookstores are going through; that is why he believes that it is crucial to keep his bookstore as lively as possible.

Gulliver uses web tool and channels:

_  a website as window and for e-commerce

_  a Facebook page

_ a Twitter account

_ a newsletter/ mailing list

Gulliver organizes events:

Monthly presentations of books, or meetings with authors.

NOTE Luigi underlines how the choice of books and authors is far from editors or distributors strategies, but rather the result of his personal choice. He explains how valuable it is to keep and communicate the subjective, personal and human feature of his bookstore. 

Specs:

Lately, Gulliver joined La Scuola del Viaggio to organize travel writing courses and travel watercolor courses held on weekends. The first courses took place in the Verona area, in beautiful locations such as ancient residencies, and recently moved to the centre of Italy. Thanks to the web, people are joining the courses either from far away in Italy and even from abroad, encouraging the development of this innovative initiative.

RELATIONSHIPS

With associations:

Gulliver is not part of any bookseller associations, the main one - ALI - is thought to be unnecessary and unworthy the annual fee, especially considering the size of the bookstore. Nevertheless ALI is used as a source of information and updates regarding the ones provided for free. 

With other bookshops:

Gulliver is in contact with other local bookstores such as L'Aquilone (specialized in 0-16 literature), and Pagina 12_an indie bookstore. The relationship between booksellers is thought to be fruitful in terms of sharing information and opinions (especially since they do not belong to large associations -ed.-).

With libraries:

Luigi used to be in contact with the city library thanks to Claudio Gallo, an illuminated director, they used to organize some events together, especially book presentations held in the big rooms of the library, but since Gallo retired there has not been any collaboration. 

With clients:

Considering the constant threat of huge bookstore chains (in Italy Feltrinelli, Mondadori, MelBook, Giunti ...) the care for the relationship with clients is essential.

With travel agencies:

Travel agents use to go to Gulliver to be counseled about travel books but nothing more. 

Luigi feels uncomfortable talking about the chance to collaborate with travel agencies.

On one hand, he is worried that collaborating with one would be unfair toward an other, on the other hand, he underlines that he is a travel book seller while they are travel sellers, as if he were worried to play too much around with the identity of his business. 

With the web:

Gulliver cares for real experiences, so even if Luigi uses the web, he does not look for virtual innovation.
Luigi does not know about travel blog, forums or platforms, neither he thinks that they regard his bookstore. While talking about Gulliver's social networks, Luigi proudly shows me a big red leather book laying on a heavy wooden book stand: there his guests, clients and friends can leave their travel thoughts and tips: ink on paper.

Editoria Italiana: service providers

Editoria Italiana is a service provider for booksellers, editors, distributors. At the moment, they offer management software - Infolib- and a directory of booksellers, editors and distributors, but they describe them as a "beginning".

UEM

Scuola per Librai Elisabetta e Umberto Mauri
is a school for booksellers founded in 1983 by Luciano Mauri, in Venice.
It is one of the two, with Scuola Librai Italiani Orvieto, Italian schools for booksellers, one of the few in the world.

Its purpose is to face the radical change of the book market, acknowledging that booksellers need constant updates for their technical and managerial tools.

Field research and Christmas time

At Glasgow School of Art they taught me "think first, google later" but I have always felt that it is not enough.

I would rather warn "think first, google later, but keep thinking all the way": it is so easy to get lost in research, especially at the beginning of the process.

When to stop opening new tabs?

Today I decided it was time to take a break from the internet, to start some field research. I went to Verona - my city- center, to interview or to make an appointment for an interview. "Now I don't have time for you" the bookseller said, "Fair enough" I though

"Try again... in January"

January!? Oh dear! It is going to be Christmas soon; poor booksellers are over-loaded with work. No field research until January?! I guess if it would be useful to try to work for one of them for a time, to observe things going on from the inside. Given that she or he would be happy with that, which is not obvious at all.

Booksellers are maybe more difficult and temperamental than librarians and this, I am sure, is a good share of the exciting adventure that people somehow expect when entering a bookstore.  A human bookseller can be different form an on line bookstore, to the point to refuse you a book and to escort you to the front door. Here, to me, part of the soul of books comes to life: subjective human thoughts, ideas and ethic.

Note 1 External Threats

After these few days of on line researches, I might take some notes:

_ Territory based networks make sense (see Liberòs)
_ Some editors are pioneering on new media, but the projects do not have strong and clear structures (The Global Hamlet)
_ The relationship between the on-line world of editors/associations and bookstores is quite detached from the world of real bookstores (it's becoming worryingly odd to use the world "real")
_ There are two families of threats to books:

One belongs to economy:

_ we are going through an economic crisis and books are not at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, even if we'd like to think so 

_ bookstores live for paper books and paper books imply production and distribution costs.

The other one belongs to lifestyles, instead of reading people now use to:

_ watch tv
_ browse the internet at home
_ browse the internet with mobile technologies
_ chat on phones or on-line

_ buy books on line
_ read e-books on e-readers
_ pirate books

DoppioZero

Doppiozero is a group of authors, editors, critics, scholars... working together for the future of publishing. It is also a website, a newsroom and an on line bookstore.

It aims to defend and to enlarge knowledge democracy, to give space to new voices, to contribute to social and cultural Italian improvements, "to save the past while going towards the future".

They recognize the potential of new technologies for editors and thus they aim to transform a publishing house into an intelligences hub, a meeting space, a collective mind thinking of books not just as potential sales but, instead, as potential critical contents.

On Doppiozero website, you can look for books, collective projects, dossier on news, columns held by authors, poets and artists, anthologies, comments ...

Among their projects:

_ 5x10 5 parole per un decennio

A series of 10  talks on the decades of the XX century, organized with Novecento museum and Storyville. 

_  00serialtw

series of 100 short illustrated versions of Italian tales.  A project in collaboration with Moleskine, published on Pinterest and distributed via Twitter.

BookCity

It is just ended in Milan, and I confess I have not been there, but BookCity is the first of this kind event about books  held in Milan. It hosted about 80.000 visitors, was run by 350 volunteers, featured more than 300 events mostly located in Castello Sforzesco, and was meant for indie editors and bookstores, to benefit from visibility.

Unfortunately, booksellers weren't able to participate much, for they aren't equipped with ubiquitousness and somebody had to keep the store open. Lucio Morawetz - Utopia bookstore- and Danilo Dajelli - Spazio Gogol and Company- interviewed about the event said they were happy about it, mostly because of the need to refresh the relationship between them and the citizens.

reference

Nuova Distribuzione Associati

NdA was founded is 1999 in Milan as the first specialized distributor for indie bookstores, social centers and associations.

Interno4 bookstores are the first NdA creation: small and medium specialized bookstores located in historical city centers.

In 2003 NdA became editor of NdA Press and in 2007 it created the disco-graphic label Interno4 Records.

Shake Edizioni, Milieu Edizioni e La Bibioteca del Cigno are part of NdA group.

Liberòs

Liberòs is an on-line based association gathering authors, editors, booksellers, libraries, cultural associations, festivals and publishing professionals, all Sardinian or working in Sardinia.

It is interesting to notice their ethic, outlined by the use of three words: honesty, territory, sharing. 

They promote cultural services, trying to create new jobs and shared advantages, around books, in Sardinia. 

The Global Hamlet

The Global Hamlet is an innovative project created in 2012 by an Italian cultural association aiming to gather "linguistic, critical and creative skills of teh whole world" on the common groung of, guess, Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

They also say: "An inspiring Shakespeare 2.0 for interactive readers" but I didn't get exactly how. Nevertheless, it makes me think to a hopeful quote:


"Perché se è vero che il mezzo è il messaggio e che l' avvento della multimedialità interattiva cambierà tutto (ma voglio prendermi il lusso di sperare il contrario fino all' ultimo, come un soldato giapponese in un atollo), è anche vero che una delle cose più belle e commoventi di ogni creazione artistica è sempre stata il conflitto con il proprio mezzo."

"If it's true that the media is the message, and that interactive multimedia will change everything (but I want to believe that it is not going to happen, like a Japanese soldier on an atoll), is it also true that one of the most beautiful and touching aspects of every artistic creation has always been the struggle with its media."

(I hope my translation works enough)

Michele Mari
reference

E-Paper book project

A project by Rikrea, presented at Che Fare Competiton to enrich bookstores with new services.
In this case booksellers would be able to advise people on e-books and to print out chosen ones.

SocialBook

SocialBook is a project by Giancarlo Briguglia.
It is meant to build an on-line based library owned and shared by people willing to share their private library.

Libris Group

Libris Group was founded in Vicenza in 1989 by bookstores using the managing software "Libris".

Today the group is joined by small medium and big bookstores and it is open to bookstores using different software than Libris. 

In 2001 the General Assembly pointed out a list of goals:

_to gather, to elaborate and to public information which are useful to understand the book market.

_to improve the cooperation between bookstores

_ to organize courses for bookstore owners

_to do whatever will be recognized to be useful for the improvement of the book market

"The secret life of libraries"

Between the lines: a reader at the British Museum library in 1952 

Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty

I'm going to post research on libraries as well as on bookstores. Here's a lovely article written by Bella Bathrust on The Observer, Sunday 1 May 2011.

Quotes:

"The great untold truth of libraries is that people need them not because they're about study and solitude, but because they're about connection."

"It's an odd thing that libraries – by tradition temples to the unfleshly – can sometimes seem such sexy places. Perhaps it's their churchiness or the deep, soft silence produced by so many layers of print, or simply the hiding places provided by the shelves. "There's a big following on the internet for sites on librarians and people with library fetishes,"

"In the 60s, before the Lady Chatterley trial," says Ian Stringer, "you used to get block books – literally, wooden blocks in place of any books the librarians thought were a bit risqué, like Last Exit to Brooklyn. You had to bring the block to the counter and then they'd give you the book from under the desk. So of course you got a certain type of person just going round looking for the wooden blocks."

 

Book Mania!

libreria Acqua Alta, Venice

photo by Ennio Maretto

Book mania! is a Blog 'Cultivating love and passion for reding'.
I thought it was a proper break for this workflow but it also features an interesting selection of worldwide bookstores. There aren't many Italian bookstores but I'm looking for case studies from all around the world,  so I'll probably dig into the selection.

Scuola Librai Italiani

It's a school for future bookstore's owners. Founded in 2006 by ALI, Università Ca'Foscari and Centro Studi Città di Orvieto.

 I take note here of the learning contents:

1. The book market
characteristics, actors,, trends, associations, peculiarities

2.Book enterprise management
Strategic, economic, financial management and human resources

3.Practical management of the bookstore
Environment, assortment, supplies, promotion, infrastructures, technoligies

4.Relationships

With the territory, readers, schools, cultural institutions, libraries, associations

5.Planning
Bookstore identity definition. placement, objectives, interiors, external allies



website

AIE

AIE Associazione Italiana Editori
Born in 1869 as ALI got its contemporary name in 1946, it represents in Italy and abroad all the companies producing editorial contents. It is an obstervatory on cultural and educational habits and is dedicated to their growth and diffusion.



website

Status quo 2009

Here are some numbers referring to the situation of libraries in Italy in 2010, the overview - Rapporto sullo statuto dell'editoria in Italia 2010- was held by Associazione Italiana Editori - AIE- on data gathered in 2009.


The turnover for the editorial business concerning books in 2009 was 3,4 billions of Euro
The turnover for bookstores was 1,068 billions of Euro
The turnover for indie bookstores can be considered less than half than the total turnover.

The average turnover for an indie bookstore is 250.000 Euro with a gross profit margin of 30/35%, to be improved if the bookstores manages to add social and cultural services to the book sale activity. 

Indie bookstores are successful if they manage to build strong relationships with the spacial and social surroundings, becoming a meeting and socializing cultural place. 

Here is a list of the key factors for the success of (indie) bookstores:

_specialization degree

_consulting services

_cozy environment

_web inclusion  : web services and on line services

_cooperation with other bookstores and associations

_good location 

_catchy display

_good offer mix 

reference

Guides to Indipendent Bookstores

Independent bookstores are often fragile and isolated realities. That is why there are many projects aiming to create directories or guides.

Some guides are on paper, like those edited by  NdA -Nuova Distribuzione Associati-, part of the project Interno4.

Some other projects are on line, like Indi per Cui part of Finzioni Magazine, an interesting and successful project where readers are invited to edit maps and to narrate descriptions on the best independent bookstores of their city.

Bookstoreguide is an on-line "amateur guide to book shopping throughout Europe."

Sonja and Ivan, students living in two different countries, opened the website 5 years ago, they did not expect that the website would grow to the point "to include 243 bookstores in 103 European cities. Attracting almost half a million visitors, who logged in from almost all the countries in the world."

ALI and the Levi's law

ALI, Associazione Librai Italiani, was founded in 1946 and is the main association for Italian bookstores. It promotes and defends the interests of more than 3600 bookstores and companies.

Here is a manifesto  describing the crisis of Italian indipendent bookstores in terms of books prices laws.
And here is the text of the recent  Levi's law on book pricing in Italy.
Basically before Levi's law major bookstores were able to discount books without limitations, playing unbeatable competition to indipendent bookstores.



website

Indipendent Bookstores

An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is indipendently owned. 

Now let's give to Caesar what is Caesar's:
wikipedia well done page

I am working on bookstores because they are an incredibly valuable cultural estate.

Independent bookstores are independently owned, meaning that they are not owned by major editors, meaning that they are the channel for minor editors and authors. Minor authors not always are bad ones (as major authors not always are bad ones) : sometimes they are at their first book, sometimes they write inconvenient things, sometimes they write on specialized topics... and they need careful or passionate editors to be published and independent bookstores to be visible. 

I aim to preserve bookstores, eventually enriching them with a service based project, as places where culture is cared for and as places where people and ideas meet not just on-line.

I will research on bookstores as well as on libraries, book societies, associations, events, blogs and projects on books, to understand the contemporary "book world" as much as possible. 

Lepiska

"Lepiska appeared that day on my notebook. She cut out chats and briefly proposed herself as an indipendent contractor. I am still not sure if she is a friend or an enemy but apparently we share some  interests."

Lepisma saccharina, else known as silverfish, is a small, wingless insect. It is a cosmopolitan creature, it frequently enjoys human houses. It likes carbohydrates and eats lots of stuff: glue, book bindings, paper, photos, paint, carpet, sugar and some coffee.  

image credits

About me

Hi!

My name is Camilla and I am an MA Product Service System Design student at Politecnico di Milano.

I've always loved books and bookstores and this is my master thesis.

About the Blog

Let's face reality: bookstores are closing.

For the ones who used to read to kill time, smart entertaining technologies are now the choice: easier, cooler,  lighter than books.

For the ones who used to read for passion, e-readers are now, often, the choice: more practical, lighter and  cheaper than paper books.  (some data on paper, and not, books sales)

The world is changing fast, and bookstores are closing, careless for the last few nostalgic people. I might be a nostalgic myself, but even if I read e-books, I think that bookstores are much more than printed paper resellers.

This blog hosts the record of my efforts to rethink bookstores so to save their 'soul' without necessarily persisting with paper..