Would it be ridiculous to open a bookshop?

[GoneAndDoneItAgainAgain]

To be perfectly honest, I don’t need money and I’m lucky enough not to actually need to work. I’m recently divorced and have 2 school age school.

I live in a lovely tourist town with a really eclectic mix of independently owned shops. I’ve always wanted to have a bookshop. Well, I’ve always liked the idea of sitting in a bookshop and it somehow being a career.

I could afford to rent a building and that has become free with rates and based on a very rough idea of quotes I could afford to get fixtures and stock it without needing to get a loan. I wouldn’t expect to actually make a profit from it but would ideally be able to cover the cost of employing someone a few days a week so I wouldn’t be doing it on my own. The building itself is an old sail loft that used to be my dads office so I think a lot of it is an emotional tie to the building. But it would make a fucking awesome bookshop and it’s right on the harbour so in the right place too.

Would this be daft? It’s something I’ve been dreaming of for years but it just seems ridiculous to open a bookshop because I want to sit in a bookshop and sell people books rather than actually make any money.

Oh, I so hope you do - I'd do this in a heartbeat 💙

Would definitely try and get an idea of landlord's plans beyond that 18 months but if you do it please let us know so we can all come and visit!

@OneForTheRoadThen do indie bookshops get SOR terms or do they have to buy stock up front? I’ve seen a lot of author deals with their returns / pulping / remaindering provisions but I don’t know what the publisher / store terms are like for indies

There is a heavenly bookshop in St Ives Cornwall - they are tiny but always have an amazing window of children’s books - local to the area, beautiful hardback ones. I come out with armfuls of books every summer. This is an amazing dream - wishing you all the best of luck.

Really specialise your stock and keep an online presence and you're probably onto a winner, I think...

@TryAnotherNickname it depends where they get their stock from. If they go directly to publishers then yes most things will be supplied SOR with a returns window of about 3-15 months. If they are supplied by wholesalers then they tend to have a returns cap of about 5% or so. One of the biggest wholesalers went into administration over the summer so it's possible that shops were left with a lot of unreturnable stock. Also if they missed the returns window to publishers as they were closed over lockdown then they'd be stuck with non returnable stock too.

‘I told you. Not in this town’.

Just don’t keep all your savings in the books and you’ll need a guitar and a decent first aid kit.

Sounds amazing. Where i used to live there was a bookshop in an old church it was amazing.

@OneForTheRoadThen thank you- that’s awful for the indies. I was so disappointed by our local (rushed there the day the non/“-supermarket shops opened) still selling things as new releases when they were hardbacks already out in paperback etc that I didn’t buy anything. I’ll have to go back for a deep dive and help them out (nb, OP, a small bookshop that tries to be all things to all people ends up with a cooking section of 2 x Jamie Olivers, fiction being lee child and Marian Keyes etc etc that there’s nothing of interest at all to people who love books... specialise!)

@GoneAndDoneItAgainAgain

Are you still considering it?

I would do new and second hand. Have a kids corner. And maybe another corner to allow people to bring drinks in from the places next door and sit and read.

Well yes. It's relatively easy to make an interesting space to attract people. Turning that into an enterprise that at least covers its own costs, and how you factor in your own time - not quite so easy.

Our local bookshop can order and receive books very quickly, far quicker than book depository. And have a chat with you too. So although there are two Jamie Oliver books in the shelf, it is a space issue for them.