MORE ON WATERSTONES
January 17, 2010
The bookshop strangler: it’s a scary whodunnit
India Knight writing in The Times.

I remember when Waterstone’s came to my high street. It was 1987 and unbelievably exciting: an entirely new species of bookshop. The branch’s stock reflected its local audience well — obscure literary novels in translation and biographies of Rosa Luxemburg sharing shelf space with bonkbusters.

The way the different books all sat there side by side — the sublime nestling companionably alongside the ridiculous — made Waterstone’s feel bold and democratic: a paradise for all. I can’t tell you how much I loved it: I used to spend hours in there. In those far-gone days it seemed the perfect bookshop: masses of stock, enthusiastic, knowledgeable staff and a beautiful space, with its dark shelves, high ceilings and — squeal! — wooden floors.

It’s all gone pretty pear-shaped now. Tim Waterstone, who founded the chain in 1982, sold it to WH Smith in 1993 (it had had a share of the company since 1989). In 1998 WH Smith sold it to HMV Group. Waterstone tried to buy it back in 2006, but then withdrew his offer. Last week HMV announced Gerry Johnson would no longer be managing director of Waterstone’s, after a sales slump over the key Christmas period.

Promoting Dominic Myers to the position of boss, Simon Fox, HMV Group’s chief executive, said turning the chain’s fortunes around was a matter of “urgency”. He said: “It’s not about going back to dusty old bookshops. This is about building a specialist chain that is relevant in a Google-Amazon world.”

Waterstone’s is the last nationwide bookshop chain. It wields amazing power. Imagine I’m a first-time novelist who has never had anything published before. I write a “difficult” but brilliant novel. It’s not going to sell in Asda, so I am stuffed if Waterstone’s isn’t interested: career over before it’s begun. Even if Waterstone’s is interested but unwilling to include me in its promotions — which publishers pay for, as well as paying for their books to be displayed prominently on those tables near the front of the shops — my novel still has no chance. Where’s it going to go — to the handful of independent bookshops that might, if I’m lucky, order 12 copies collectively? I can have marvellous reviews, but they’re never going to translate into sales if the book is invisible in the 300-odd Waterstone’s bookshops.
The full piece at The Timers online.