Piazza Repubblica Libri _ indie bookstore

Piazza Repubblica Libri is a lively indie bookstore based in Cagliari. Patrizio Zurru has more than fifteen years of experience in other bookstores and decided to open  P.R.L. in an area where there were already many bookstores, following an English model, and it worked.

He and Daniela Melis, his wife and colleague, are responsible of some innovative and exciting initiatives: along with well known book presentations and meetings with the authors they established:

Scrittori Socialmente Utili (Socially Helpful Authors)
Authors are invited to become under cover booksellers for a day, with the prohibition to promote her own titles. The idea was so successful that they exported it to other bookstores in Italy.

Colazione in Libreria (Breakfast at the Bookstore)
A Sunday morning meeting for readers willing to have a coffee, a slice of cake and a chat with other readers. The idea was so successful that it started as a one shot and developed in "thematic breakfasts".

Note. Piazza Repubblica Libri is part of ALI

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Il Ponte sulla Dora: brand new bookstore

Il Ponte sulla Dora is a new indie bookstore: located in Torino, opened today at 6 am and founded by Rocco Pinto. Before opening the bookstore, Rocco Pinto worked in other bookstores: he dedicated his life to Torre di Abele. Recently, he has been working with Giuseppe Laterza and Antonio Sellerio, to collect 50 thousand sign for a new law to promote reading.

Il Ponte sulla Dora seems an intriguing case: _ Rocco cares to underline the importance of the readers: he ordered the titles that readers suggested. _ it opened at 6 a.m. :

"We wanted to check if people come out at six a.m. only to buy an iPhone. We gladly found out that it isn't so."


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L'Aquilone: 0-16 Specialized Bookstore

THE BOOKSTORE

L'Aquilone is a 20 year old bookstore located in the city centre of Verona. It specializes in books and toys for children, kids and young adults: 0-16. The services offered at L'Aquilone are quite traditional: 

_ book selection

_ advise

_ book retrieval

_ book market shows in schools

THE BOOKSELLERS

The owners did not have any previous experience in bookstores. 

They took over a shop selling toys and some books and now they proudly run a specialized bookstore selling also some special toys.

EDITORS AND DISTRIBUTORS

 Fairs and salesmen are the channels to take and keep contacts with editors and distributors, occasionally through the internet, preferably face to face. The kind owner who talked to me seemed terribly discouraged by the distance between the e-commerce and the traditional book system. He complained about the fragmentation of the editors-distributors-booksellers system, underlining that we do have considerable couriers, but, "if you need a book you have "to hunt it out" through bookstore-distributor-editor while Amazon would bring it to your doormat in two days".

PROMOTION

L'Aquilone built its promotion through 20 years of honoured service and word of mouth. It has a Facebook page at its beginning, and a window website to be done. The owners are thinking about starting events such as meetings with the authors, even if the thought is not yet a plan.

RELATIONSHIPS

With Associations

L'Aquilone is not part of ALI for one main reason: its owners found ALI offered services unnecessary and weak compared to the subscription fee.

With other bookstores

L'Aquilone has occasional contacts with other indie Veronese bookstores, yet those seem to be  considered irrelevant to the business.

With libraries

Libraries are perceived as lost clients. Once they used to go to bookstores to be counselled on new books, now they do not have founds enough, and if they buy books they deal directly with editors to save some money. Nevertheless they still would like to be in contact with librarians.

With clients

The majority of L'Aquilone clients are children 0-10 years old, or better, who buys for them. During the nineties the "young adults fiction" used to sell remarkably well, especially thanks to the work of three great managers: Margherita Forestan for Mondadori, Donatella Zigliotto for Salani and Orietta Fatucci for EL. "But now that's over".

NOTE
Specialized bookstores and specialized offer:
The strength of specialised bookstores is the incapacity of general bookstores to host a large variety of high quality titles for each section, along with the incapacity of offering related services, such as prepared shop assistants.
Serious crisis comes when there are not (enough) indie editors publishing niche books.
"I cannot fight supermarkets with Geronimo Stilton".

Marcos y Marcos

Marcos y Marcos is a 30 year old Italian, independent and stimulating editor. Based in Milan, founded by Marco Franza and Marco Zapparoli it is now managed by Marco Zapparoli and Claudia Tarolo.

From 2000, with the help of Claudia Tarolo, Marcos y Marcos starts to grow proposing contemporary authors  and side activities such as
Corso di Editoria, a course in publishing, 2000
Piccola Scuola di Arti Narrative, a course in creative writing, 2011
Ventiquattro per Ventiquattro, a workshop for translators, 2013

Starting from 2006 Marcos y Marcos decided to focus on quality rather than quantity:
to publish maximum one new book per month and to start an economic series: miniMARCOS.

Lately Marcos y Marcos focused on new authors and new reading and writing promotional initiatives.
Letteratura Rinnovabile: new interpretations of classical passages
Parole Illuminanti: a literary prize for beginners sponsored by Eni
La Nostra Energia: workshops for high-schools
Libri a Teatro: a series of theater pieces/readings of Marcos y Marcos titles, in cooperation with Quelli di Grock

I'd like to focus here on initiatives highlighting the aim of Marcos y Marcos to create synergies involving both  bookstores and readers.

Andare in Libreria (Going to Bookstores)

In March 2012, with the collaboration of Letteratura Rinnovabile, Cartiere Fabriano and Fahrenheit Radio3 Rai, Andare in Libreria was launched through a national competition inviting to complete the slogan "Going to bookstores is ... " The authors of the 4 best slogan then challenged each other with a Praise of the Bookstore at the Salone del Libro di Torino. More than 200 bookstores participated.


Letti di Notte (Read at night)

Launched the 21th June 2012, Letti di Notte  was the first 'notte bianca' (promotional night) for Italian indie bookstores. Each participating bookstore organized its own timetable with presentations, meetings with authors, talks, auction sales, contests, exhibitions, shows and music.
Some of the events were published in streaming, others through an indie radio, and there is an archive on You Tube. The project had its own Facebook page which will eventually serve future dates.


Among the most intriguing initiatives, there is one based on Skype. All the participating bookstores contacted each other on Skype. Any client, in any bookstore, was welcomed to ask for advice to any networked bookseller, from all over Italy.

Bookup!

Launched in Autumn 2012, it is a promotional week for new authors, supported by 90 bookstores and 22 editors. It followed Letti di Notte so the website where to find information about it is the same.
Again there is a competition supporting the involvement of the readers:
Who will better suggest her own favourite beginner's piece will win a series of books by Marcos y Marcos.

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