Quintin Jardine's blog

Last summer, as part of the launch of A Rush of Blood (which is out in paperback very soon, incidentally) I spent a day long the south coast, visiting a warehouse and several stores owned by an enterprising firm trading as British Book Shops. I was told that the company was a management buy-out, committed to growth, with a policy of value for the customer’s money. I was welcomed by the top brass and on the shop floor and was nothing but impressed everywhere I went, not least because they’d made me their author of the month.

Yesterday, a friend in the trade told me that the chain has gone into administration. Theoretically that doesn’t mean it’s gone bust; it’s in the hands of an appointed administrator whose task is to run the business short term while trying to sell it as a going concern. It’s something we’re hearing more and more these days in the football business, where for some reason it’s regarded as a crime and punished by a fine in the form of a league points deduction. In the real business world the results are usually more definitive than being pushed around by your holier than thou competitors. In the real world, administration is usually a step taken to ward off the Receiver, the specialist accountant whose role is that of a corporate hangman, come to wind up the business.

In recent years two UK national book chains have gone into administration, like BBS. In the case of Ottakars, some of their stores were bought by competitors and some staff kept their jobs, but the business as such went under. With Borders, it simply folded. Today, Waterstones is the only specialist national book chain in Britain. (I say ‘specialist’ as a nod to my friends in W H Smith, which has probably sold more books than anyone else over the years but which tends to offer less choice in its multi-purpose outlets.) If the big W has no more high street opposition it’s bound to survive, you say. Well no, because it’s part of the deeply troubled HMV group, which is in major trouble, word being that its suppliers could face difficulty in insuring against loss in trading with it. If they can’t insure, HMV can’t  get stock; that’s how it works.

We live in an age which demands that blame must be attributed, so, whose fault is this? Well, it’s yours. And it’s mine. Every time you buy a book from Amazon or another on-line operation, that’s another nail in the coffin of another bookshop. Every time http://www.campbellreadbooks.com, my son AJ’s business, sells you a book, that’s another. Every time you buy a book from a supermarket, that’s half a dozen of them.

But no, the world is real and the world is earnest. Online trading exists, the Tescopoly exists, and Luddism doesn’t work in practice. We can’t legislate or insulate against progress. Or can we? Need we allow the bulk purchasing power of a large organisation to be used as a weapon against its smaller competitors?

I spend my life in pursuit of ideals. Some are achievable, some are not. But here’s one that should be. I say it should be the law that when a manufacturer agrees a price per unit for its product with its  biggest retail customers, that price should be available to every retailer in the land, through wholesalers if necessary. To give this provision a few more teeth, it should be illegal for a retailer to sell new product below the price of acquisition. In other words, no more loss leaders. In the book business, who would suffer from that, long-term? As I see it, nobody; if things go on as they are, the entire independent book trade will disappear. As it is, most of them have to sell coffee to survive. Every publisher will tell you of its commitment to the independent sector, so let government give them all the tools to deliver on that commitment.

Does this reek of an author’s self-interest? Sure. But ask yourself; do you want to have to rely on supermarkets and Amazon, which has become a glorified eBay, as your only booksellers? Because if you do, pretty soon they’ll be telling you what you can and can’t buy.