At the time of writing (2011) Mostly Books - our independent bookshop - will be five years old. A lot has changed since we opened, and the pace of change seems to be increasing.
Conventional wisdom seems to be that, if you are an independent bookseller, your days are numbered. High street and town centre 'die-off', the voraciousness of the supermarkets and the unstoppable march of the Internet are bad enough. But throw in the coming of the eBook, and the future looks grim indeed.
Except...I don't think so.
When Nicki and I started Mostly Books, we really had no idea what we were doing (correction, we had little idea of what we were doing, we knew we wanted to open a bookshop, and we believed we knew what people might want from one). But we started blogging about it, and in a very short space of time, a whole army of people - from readers, authors, booksellers and booktrade professionals - offered us support and practical advice. It's no exaggeration that without that help in the early days, we probably wouldn't have survived.
The future is uncertain, and I believe that change is unavoidable, but our core belief remains the same. There is room on the high street for small, passionate booksellers who work hard to give readers a great experience and focus on selecting and recommending great books. But can this proposition work in the digital domain?
So Mostly Books is going to start to make some changes to try and find out. And - as before - we're starting from a position of belief + ignorance, we'll try to share with you the things that work and don't work, and hopefully pioneer an approach which will benefit and inspire other booksellers - or at the very least, serve as a warning about what not to do...
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