Publishers and booksellers to swap working days

20.10.11 | Lisa Campbell - The Bookseller

Publishers and booksellers will soon be able to swap a working day in the life of each other’s businesses in a new joint initiative soon to be launched by the Booksellers Association and the Publisher Association.
The two trade bodies have been working on a forthcoming website, in which booksellers and publishers can sign up and swap details to arrange the exchange of industry experience. Following the BA’s recent calls for more support from publishers and the government to keep bookshops on the high street, the scheme is being seen as one way of encouraging greater co-operation and understanding between the two industries.
Patrick Neale, who owns Jaffe and Neale’s Bookshop in Chipping Norton, said he had already been signed up to the initiative as a bookseller. He said: "I think it is a really good idea. My view is publishers coming and spending some time in bookshops will be a valuable experience, particularly now publishers are overwhelmingly excited by digital books, it wouldn’t hurt them to come and sell physical books and see how much customers love them. It would also be really good for them to get out of London and good too of course for me to go and visit them."
Andrew Cant, owner of Simply Books in Bramhall, also gave his backing to the scheme. He said: "We have had some publishers come and work here in the past which worked quite well but it would be nice to have them coming to us instead of us going to them, I think it is a great idea."
Both the Booksellers Association and Publishers Association declined to comment.

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