By Julie Power
During COVID lockdown, Katherine Morrison turned to print books to escape doomscrolling, rereading children’s classics such as Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner.
That appetite for reading has continued, prompting the 24-year-old to visit the Mr Pickwick’s Fine Old Books and other bookshops looking for children’s stories, novels, the classics and fantasy, to add to her collection.
Katherine Morrison at Hornsby Lifeline Bookshop.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Guy Weller, aka Mr Pickwick, is now selling his 25-year-old business in Katoomba as a going concern.
Far from the book being dead, he says interest from “youngsters” in printed books is strong and keeping the industry buoyant. “People are buying books like mad,” he said. “They are very regular and big-buying, despite some popular prejudice to the contrary. They love reading books. Science fiction and literary classics are the main fare for them.”
Despite a 2.1 per cent fall in the value of book sales in 2023 compared to 2022, the number of booksellers has grown in the past four years, from 330 to 360, Australian Booksellers Association president Tim Jarvis says.
In the Blue Mountains, interest in books has grown so much that Mary Coin, the owner of the Good Earth Bookshop in Wentworth Falls, started a book trail to attract literary tourists. It includes 12 bookshops across nine villages, and has found appeal among young readers.
Guy Weller, owner of Mr Pickwick’s Fine Old Books in Katoomba, is selling up.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Coin said on weekends that “posses of 20 somethings” descend on her shop.
“They go for classics, nerdy Penguin books. It is really fascinating to see them go for vintage. They are bookish nerds. We call them ‘nerdigans’,” she said.
Many were reading books in print because being offline was good for their mental health. They were also promoting the bookshop trail via “BookTok” on TikTok and other social media platforms.
Young people may be buying more books, but Jarvis said many bookshop owners like Weller are thinking of retiring. “It is fair to say succession in on their minds,” he said.
Jarvis, 36, bought Fullers Bookshop in Hobart two and a half years ago from his former boss, Clive Tilsley, who owned it for 40 years.
Higher book sales during COVID were responsible for the increase in bookshops, said the chief executive of Dymocks, Mark Newman. Whether that would continue was unclear, he said.
Newman said to survive competition from big retailers like Big W, which sell most new releases at 50 per cent off, non book sales had increased. “Proper bookshops are forced to sell other products to generate enough margin to sustain the costs of running a bricks and mortar store,” he said.
Dymock’s larger stores such as George Street in the Sydney CBD generate around 30 per cent of sales from non book products, and the smaller stores have a target of 20 per cent.
The book trail that is bringing young tourists to the Blue Mountains. Credit: Wolter Peeters
Lifeline’s two bookshops on Sydney’s north shore have also seen a remarkable growth in sales, generating $800,000 to support its help lines and counselling services, the chief executive of Lifeline Harbour to Hawkesbury regions Elizabeth Lovell said.
Demand was driven by young people from teens to university students who were “inhaling everything to do with fiction, science fiction”.
The bookshops are staffed by volunteers, including Morrison, who works at the Hornsby Lifeline bookshop.
Since lockdown, Morrison, a bookish person with bookish friends, has continued to read, and is now studying library services at TAFE.
She said many young people her age were reading more, and many were coming to Lifeline to buy second-hand books. “They want more fantasy,” she said.
Coin said to adapt to competition from big retailers, booksellers like her sold a range of companion items, including cards by local artists, puzzles and games.
“I sell socks and books, they are a great combo. In winter, we do a roaring trade,” she said.
Weller said he had received a dozen inquiries from people interested in buying the bookshop. “The book will long outlast all of us,” he said. “You don’t find people sitting on the toilet with their Kindle.” [That’s a claim that is hard to fact-check.]