Do not go gently: How bookshops are reinventing the business

A Perth bookseller who works full-time for virtually zero profit has launched a novel new business model encouraging punters to subscribe to bookshops as a cultural resource.

Guinevere Hall works in the inner-Perth suburb of Applecross and says bookselling is virtually unsustainable as a sole source of income. But for the price of a coffee a month, people can help change that.

Guinevere Hall’s mother Kay Hall volunteers at the shop to give her daughter a weekend. Credit: Cameron Myles

She has launched a $5-a-month subscription offering discounts and other perks in exchange for making the shop’s income more reliable.

It follows a similar drive by former Oxford Street Books staff to resurrect the once-loved hipster hangout, whose 2018 closure created a cultural gap on a street now dominated by food and beverage tenants.

After a midlife divorce, Hall decided it was time for another change – from the white-collar rat race.

She realised a lifelong dream of opening a bookshop after seeing the Applecross store once known as The Well go on sale.

The previous owner had run it at a loss for many years, but Hall thought if she ran it without employees and reinvigorated sales with social media and events, she might make a modest living of $35,000 a year.

She called her shop Typeface and has maximised its tiny footprint with special attention to her passions of history and general non-fiction, a huge range of children’s books and Australian fiction.

She, her mother and daughter, all avid readers, hand-sell titles by writing recommendations for everything they enjoy themselves, making buying a book there a personal experience discount chains cannot match.

But after she opened in 2020, COVID drove away her main in-person clientele – the demographic of the wealthy suburb meaning her best customers are older people buying children’s books “to get their grandchildren off their devices” – and killed her events plans, destroying profits.

She made $10,000 profit in 2021, with no sick leave and one week’s holiday.

Handwritten recommendations from Hall and her family are part of the service. Credit: Cameron Myles

Hall’s mother volunteers as shop assistant one day a week so that she can keep opening on Saturdays but not have to work a six-day week.

Hall has built social media accounts, connections with book clubs and a service people sign up for to receive a special box with a coordinated book, tea and chocolate offerings as well as connected with other booksellers to share ideas, but it isn’t enough. Costs are rising but book prices are not, and while Kmart and Big W can sell undercut the recommended retail price, independents cannot.

Slowly Hall’s nest egg of savings is dwindling. The shop is difficult to justify.

“Other bookshop [owners] might have a partner working as well or another income source, and they can handle a vanity project,” she said.

“There is certainly no money in it.”

She saw Oxford Street Books had gained 27 per cent of its goal of just over 6000 subscriptions and decided to give this a try.

“I put it out there that if people wanted an independent bookshop in their suburb they might have to support it,” she said.

“A $5-a-month membership gives them 10 per cent off and a free advance reading copy ... it’s certainly not making a huge amount of money, it’s maybe $300 a month but it creates a sense of community.

“They put words of affirmation out there … all these lovely words are keeping me going.

Booksellers across the city – and the country – are diversifying to stay afloat, but it takes a personal toll. Credit: Cameron Myles

“I just wonder if we need to look at bookshops as a different style of business; about something other than pure profit – a community resource people pay to have.”

Oxford Street Books has promised members discounts, book clubs, priority access to regular events and a late-night social hub, all to be run as a not-for-profit.

Jen Jackson, owner of Fremantle’s specialty children’s bookshop Paper Bird, has been brainstorming with Jane Seaton, Australian Booksellers’ Association president and Beaufort Street Books owner, on how to make bookshops more sustainable.

She said a decline in school libraries had lost a huge amount of trade in children’s books, which was why a shop like hers had to run a comprehensive events program, itself a mammoth time commitment.

She also said a long-established practice in WA of public libraries sourcing stock from predominantly one central warehouse also removed a potential relationship between libraries and their local booksellers.

And with prices, wages and inflation increasing, margins were increasingly tight and something had to give.

Jackson said several east coast stores had tried the not-for-profit or co-op model and she believed the idea had legs.

“Another obvious solution for engaging the community with bookshops would be to build relationships between libraries, bookshops and schools and have all these relationships supporting each other,” she said.

“When communities realise that [their increased financial support] might be the only way for these businesses to survive it will be a choice that they’ll make.

“A bookshop can be a bit like the lounge room of the community and when a bookshop closes down, what a hole it leaves.”

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