It is no secret that the outbreak of the pandemic turned the book world upside down and that the return to normality is beginning to be confirmed as a euphemism. The board of the publishing market and the distribution of roles for each link in this productive chain changed during the most critical points of the health emergency under the pretext of individual survival, but with the reactivation there is no reestablishment of the conditions of the game that the Book agents used to play before the economic hurricane.
This is a paraphrase of the interview with bookstore Claudia Bautista, president and spokesperson for the Network of Independent Bookstores (RELI), on the eve of yet another celebration of World Book and Copyright Day. She is asked what has happened to independent bookstores in the last year, a cycle of gradual economic reactivation, not without its ups and downs marked by the comings and goings of the waves of the pandemic.
“I think that in this time of pandemic, the definition of what a bookseller is and what a bookstore is has changed. Some bookstores physically disappeared and were relocated in the virtual sphere or there were many initiatives that were born digital, in electronic commerce. So how do you classify them?
It doesn’t seem like a long time, just almost four years since RELI was conceived, but there have been many changes since then. Bautista says that “then we were booksellers in the most traditional, almost analogical sense, which right now seems old-fashioned, very focused on physical space and dealing directly with the reader. Now, on the other hand, it is very interesting how these other sales dynamics have emerged: new booksellers with a large investment of capital and knowledge that can make guidelines on Facebook and Google that makes them easily locatable. We are already two generations of entrepreneurs who are in the industry and the curious and worrying thing is that we have no relationship”.
“Nobody wants to take a step back”
The also co-founder of Hyperion Librería, in Xalapa, Veracruz, recognizes a reluctance on the part of the independent bookstore guild to jump into new business models, a rooting in traditional ways that, however, imply remaining between a rock and a hard place.
“The public that we now find in physical spaces is no longer the same as we left (before the pandemic). Yes, regular customers continue to come, because they are the ones who kept our spaces alive, but there is also another type of profile of people who can immediately compare the book you are selling on other platforms and are more confident in buying with their cell phones. It’s a much more active audience.”
Since the beginning of the confinement, this part of the book production chain advocated before the legislature for the rush of public policies that would balance the market, with initiatives such as the extension of the single price of the book from 18 to 36 months. And although the initiative began to advance in 2020, it was stuck in the Senate since February 2021. Meanwhile, publishers began to offer their copies for direct sale and at discounts. This measure, the booksellers accused, left them with no room for action.
“Direct marketing from publishers has weakened the relationship we (small booksellers) had with readers. That is to say, it is legitimate that they (publishers) want to have more profit and know directly who reads them, but they left us marginalized. If in itself the relationship between publishers and bookstores has been historically critical, it was complicated by direct sales. Nobody wants to take a step back. Survival in the pandemic was the justification, but now many of them do not see a colleague, an ally, but a competitor in the bookcase, at least not in the little one. And many booksellers are upset with their publishing colleagues for such tremendous discounts, they feel betrayed”.
responsibility for the problem
The need to adapt to new market conditions: the incorporation of metadata, the implementation of software and management systems, the planning of promotion strategies and online sales, for example, have not been well received by many of the small booksellers , admits Baptist. Several of them have decided to seek persistence under the old habits and despite the disadvantage compared to booksellers 2.0 mentioned by the president of RELI. However, she shares, in the last year she has focused efforts on making all possible tools available to her guild for those who decide to take them and evolve.
“I think we are bad on both sides,” he acknowledges. “We are afraid or unable to jump to the other side and many choose to stay with a scheme that may have served us for 20 or 30 years.”
Finally, Bautista estimates, within all this it is necessary to highlight the co-responsibility, due to indifference or ignorance, of the decision makers.
“The single price may not be a panacea, but its lack of regulation is putting us on the edge of the abyss and even more so now, with this drastic change that the markets, consumption and readers have given. That is where the legislators are failing, who do not have knowledge or conviction about the operation of bookstores.
Weave nets to make a membrane
RELI currently brings together a total of 40 bookstores from all over the country. To make itself visible, every September 28 this guild celebrates the Day of Independent Bookstores to make the date coincide with the Day of Bibliodiversity. Likewise, in November 2020, the Mexican network founded the Latin American Network of Independent Bookstores with its counterparts from Argentina, Chile and Colombia.