Kiwis still love indie bookstores

EMMA RAWSON - Stuff -  13/04/2014

Timeout's Jenna Todd  Photo - Claire Duncan

Right -Mary-Liz Corbett, Patricia Kay and Carole Beu at The Women's Bookshop

When Auckland's Women's Bookshop celebrated its 25th birthday last week with a roaring party at Ponsonby Central, it sent a clear message to the publishing world - Kiwi independent bookstores have reason to celebrate. 

The doom and gloom You've Got Mail narrative where the Tom Hanks character's big multinational bookstore chain (a clumsily-masked Borders) swoops in and steals the business from the family bookstore run by cutesy Meg Ryan is as out of date as Ryan's foppish 1998 hairdo. 
Borders might have closed its doors in New Zealand but these days overseas online giants such as Amazon and Book Depository are biting at the independents' sales.

Although the New Zealand book industry on a whole saw a 15 per cent drop last year, independent stores such as Unity Books in Wellington and Auckland, Ponsonby Road's Women's Bookshop and Timeout in Mt Eden all reported good Christmas periods last year and promising growth in 2014.
''Almost the entire book trade was at our party. It was a buoyant feeling in the room that the book trade is in good health, the independents in particular,'' Carole Beu, owner of the Women's Bookshop, said.
''We had the best Christmas last year that we've had in 25 years and 2014 is going strong.''
The growth is, in part, thanks to Eleanor Catton's Man Booker-winning The Luminaries - that sold 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone. 

But Lincoln Gould of Booksellers New Zealand said the indie booksellers' recent success is following trends in the US that saw independent bookstores increase their sales by 9 per cent in 2013. 
The biggest obstacle locally is that overseas online purchases, such as books, under the value of $400 are currently GST exempt.  Booksellers New Zealand has been lobbying the government to have the rule changed.

''That's a 15 per cent challenge to every bookshop before they open their doors,'' Gould said.
The Women's Bookshop, Timeout and Unity Books are each tackling the challenge from these giant online retailers by selling books locally through their own separate web stores. They've also responding to demand for e-books by selling Kobo readers and taking a share of the profits from e-books sales that are driven through their own online stores to Kobo. 

Timeout's manager Jenna Todd adds that holding events and opening their doors to bookclubs add to sales.
''Our customers come in and say, 'Jenna I loved that book you recommended to me last time, what's the next book I should read?'  It's about making it a really personal experience,'' Todd said. 
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