ADAPTING IN A PERIOD OF IMMENSE CHANGE: Strategies you might consider Thoughts from The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland from Tim Godfray [Chief Executive, The Booksellers Association] Jane Streeter [World Book Day Chair Executive Committee] EIBF Conference 20 th October 2016
What we were facing BA membership: half the number of independent bookshops we had in 1995 BA Finances: a loss of 766,815 ( 690,824) in 2015
Our aim Not only to continue to offer our same services But also to develop them
How have we achieved our aim?
BA Membership Anyone selling new books can join: Independents Chains Internet booksellers Supermarkets Wholesalers
Membership subscriptions Based on the total new book turnover for a bookselling business No incentive for bookseller to leave shops out of BA membership Fair: if a shop s turnover goes down, the annual subscription to the BA goes down
Number of outlets in BA membership all-time high 5000 All Outlets 4500 4000 2013 2014 2015 2016 3500 3000 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Membership shift: traditional to the non-traditional
Millions Sales of print books by value: Week 40 cumulative sales, growth variance 2016 v 2015 is 8.6% [Source: Nielsen TCM data] 1,100 1,043 1,000 900 929 912 960 800 700 600 500 2013 2014 2015 2016
Our commercial companies make money to support the Association Booksellers Association Ltd Wholly owned Book Tokens Ltd Batch Ltd Partly owned VB Clearing World Book Day Ltd Book Industry Communication Ltd
Book Tokens Ltd & Batch Ltd Run to make money to support the BA Some directors from outside the book trade Freedom to operate, providing services to: Not only booksellers and publishers But also outside the book trade
Governance structure BA Board runs the BA Group (budgets, salaries etc) Advisory Council focuses on trade policy matters
BA staff Now 29 Was 46 a few years ago Almost all processes computerised
BA Group Business Plan 2017
Creative & innovative solutions this last year
Personalised Book Tokens Personalised gift cards Bulk order personalisation
Caboodle Book Tokens Digital Caboodle now with nearly 500,000 book lovers Booksellers can use our platform to promote their offers to local consumers We use the platform to tell consumers about Book Tokens initiatives Marketing Platform
Batch Payments and Returns Batch Payments: Financial data and Multicurrency Payments for booksellers Free service for BA members Batch Payments now used by booksellers in 65 countries Batch Returns saves bigger booksellers over 110,000
View a PDF of the supplier s invoice (where available). Click to open.
2016 016
Brand message on bag Famous artist/designer designs Limited Edition Bag each year Booksellers buy bags from us and sell them, or give them away
Celebrities promote the brand message
Bookshop Day, 8 th October: shops organise events supported by publishers
BAMB Readers Awards, 24 th November
BAMB Civilized Saturday, 26 th November
Campaign Kit 2016 Campaign Posters Logo Posters Empty Belly Posters Bookmarks BAMB Readers Awards Posters BAMB Readers Awards Voting Cards Civilised Saturday Posters and Invites Bunting Balloons T-shirt BAMB Mug Winne the Pooh Bags Belly Bands Book Plates Surprise Extras! Irish Campaign Kit Irish Celebrities Poster Irish Bookmark Irish Bag Promotion
BAMB underpinned by social media and PR #BookshopDay was the #1 trend ALL DAY in the United Kingdom on Saturday (beating #TrumpTapes) #BookshopDay Twitter reach = 7.5million accounts #BookshopDay was made a Twitter Moment (news story/curated tweets showing the best of Twitter that day) #BookshopDay was also trending on Friday 8 th October #onlyonthehighstreet Twitter reach = 2.4 million accounts #BAMB Twitter reach = 2.2 million accounts Facebook reach = 50,000 organic (06/10 08/10) Our Twitter chat with author Lindsey Kelk (#AskLindsey) was trending on Friday 7 th October #BAMBReadersAwards was trending after the announcement on Thursday 6 th October
BAMB finances Total expenditure 96,569 ( 86,999) excluding manufacture and sale of bags Income comes from publishers, booksellers and Book Tokens
BA s e-book platform: 400,000 ebook titles
Concern over Amazon: BA s submission to DG Competition
BA has asked DG Competition if our allegations can be substantiated
BA representations to DG Competition We said in our submission 42% of publishers said that in the last 2 years, Amazon had attempted to prevent them from offering a better deal to anyone other than Amazon [121] For years, Amazon have been selling e-books into UK from Luxembourg at 3% VAT: our members had to adopt 20% [Para 51] Kindle consumers have been effectively locked in to buy content only from Amazon [128 132] Being able to transfer sales and costs between countries in order to avoid Corporation Tax gives Amazon a competitive advantage [48] Does the decision by Luxembourg's tax authorities with regard to the corporate income tax to be paid by Amazon in Luxembourg comply with the EU rules on state aid? [49] Action by the European Commission DG Competition looking at Amazon s contracts Now VAT rate applied on ebooks has to be that in consumer s country of residence DG Connect looking at Interoperability EC announces major initiative re transfer pricing EC launched investigations into whether State Aid has illegally been given
Supporting Copyright BA film
World Book Day 2016
Book selection for this year 2016 data
World Book Day
WBD and the Book Industry Role of the Booksellers Association and National Book Tokens Industry partnership with the Publishers Association My role as Chair of the WBD Executive Committee
WBD and Partnerships Schools and nurseries Libraries Theatres Local authors Local MPs Prisons Public Relations and social media Hospitals
WBD What We Want To Achieve To create a festive atmosphere of celebration around reading for pleasure To share stories in as many ways as possible To encourage all booksellers to take part
The WBD Award The competition element of WBD How it benefits school libraries and booksellers
ADAPTING IN A PERIOD OF IMMENSE CHANGE: Strategies you might consider Thoughts from The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland from Tim Godfray [tim.godfray@booksellers.org.uk] Jane Streeter [janestreeter@thebookcase.co.uk] EIBF Conference 20 th October 2016