Tea in the Library Read online

  I got hold of publishers’ catalogues and calculated what I would have to invest in order to fill the shelves with a minimum number of books (if you’re interested, it turned out to be about $100,000). Although the majority of our stock could be purchased on a “sale or return” basis, it would have to be paid for up front. If unsold after three months, it could be returned in order to produce some credit to buy new titles. Returning too many books would have several downsides (apart from lost profit) — the major one being the acquisition of pariah status in the publishers’ eyes and therefore a dreaded lowering of what is euphemistically termed, in the book trade, our “discount”. This term makes it sound like the publisher is doing the bookseller a bit of a favour, being generous, cutting some slack, giving a break, doesn’t it? Not so, my friends.

  This “discount”, I was to learn, represents the bookseller’s gross margin. The term refers to the difference between the usual retail price of the book and the wholesale cost of it to the bookseller. After working very hard on this, importuning publishers, making big promises, name dropping, joining a buying group, meeting our bills on time, and so on, we were able in the first few months to achieve the princely average gross margin of 40%. Yep, and out of that 40% we had to cover our expenses in order to at least “break even”.

  Moreover, this was considered an excellent margin for a small independent bookshop. Some of the bigger players, in particular franchisees who were part of the large buying power of a chain, could command much higher margins, which were possibly under less threat. They could probably also command better terms — our publishers in the main accorded us only 30 day accounts. A couple of days late paying up, and they would put one’s future orders on hold — this is called being “on stop”. I later found out that it is far from uncommon for small bookshops to be “on stop” with several of their publishers, cashflow perhaps necessitating a late payment. Then cash would flow again and the “stop” would come off, and the book deliveries resume. The trick was to make sure this didn’t happen to you just when “Harry Potter Six” was released.

  We were assisted in our efforts to improve our average margin by joining a buying group called Leading Edge. This group pulls together small independents and accords them some measure of buying power. Certain titles — many of the most important popular new releases — are purchased in bulk by Leading Edge, and members can buy their small share at the bulk purchase rates. Leading Edge also provided other member supports — such as a pre-produced newsletter or buying guide, which the individual shops could have printed with their name & logo, and some promotional text if they chose. We used this service, especially for the more important buying guides, such as the Christmas releases, or the Summer Buying Guide. Belonging to this group was a big factor in keeping our margins anywhere near viable.

  As to the café supplies, this turned out to be a quite different universe. Because many items are fresh food, accounts are generally seven days, needing quick handling in the bookkeeping department, or else your bread doesn’t get delivered. In trying at first to source interesting and unique ingredients, we found ourselves dealing with many small suppliers of jams and cakes and smoked salmon and so on who were so small that their accounts were all hand written, they rarely kept good track of payments coming in, and small children answered their phone for mummy.

  The upside is that margins in café are much better — an average of about 65-70%. Coffee and tea have wonderful margins. I was quite thrilled at the thought of how much gross profit there could be in a cappuccino. Of course, someone has to be paid to make the cappuccino, serve it, collect payment, clean the table and wash up the cup. Which is more time consuming than selling a book (although not always!) To say nothing of the repayments on the cappuccino machine.

  I mulled this question of margins. Clearly here was a vital element to be understood. Of course, many businesses (supermarkets, for example) operate on much slenderer margins than 40%. They can do so because of massive volume. Businesses that sell one designer handbag a week are going to need a 4000% margin. The key would be sales, of course. We would have to get sales to a good level. Guessing again about what that might be, I squiggled calculations over numerous backs of envelopes, trying to estimate numbers for the three main elements of a workable business: income, expenses and margins.

  My head still aches to think of it.

  Chapter Seven

  Designing

  Although I worked diligently on the nuts and bolts of the Business Plan, and struggled with numbers and many new concepts, all the while I had in my mind The Vision of what my bookshop café would look like. I am a great believer in the power of visualization, and I wanted to make a picture of the putative shop, reasoning that this would ensure it became reality. At first, I printed and mounted a set of photographs of the Washington Club library which I had taken on my visit. I kept this visual in front of me whenever I could. It held the essence of The Vision, but I wanted something closer to reality.

  I surfed the internet looking for design companies. Quite naturally, design companies all have rather gorgeous web sites, but one took my eye in particular — a company called Impress Design. They were located a stone’s throw from my office — a sign? I called for an appointment.

  It was a teensy bit nerve wracking to front up to a respectable business and tell them I intended to open a bookshop café. At this point I had no funds to do so, and no clear idea of whether it would really come to reality. But I felt that every step I took in anticipation would, of itself, help create that reality. As Frances Scovel Shinn would say, I was “digging my ditches” in anticipation of the rain. So I fronted at Impress Design’s very gorgeous and funky offices, and announced to the two friendly ladies who met with me, that this bookshop café would exist. I asked them to design a logo, and I gave them a copy of the “Vision” chapter of my Business Plan. I tried to describe what was in my mind’s eye. They were reassuringly enthusiastic.

  I came back a few weeks later and was thrilled and astounded to find that I had managed to communicate, and the designer, Danielle, had clearly heard, The Vision. There it was, reduced to actuality on something Danielle called a “mood board”. She had taken snips of pictures from magazines, swatches of fabric, paint samples and even a teaspoon and had created Tea In The Library. I had an instant connection with what she had materialized , and the “feel” of it was spot on.

  Having received my enthusiastic response to the mood board, Danielle unveiled two concepts for the logo. One was rather traditional, in that it used a stylized rendition of a book and a tea cup. It was elegant and attractive — a dark maroon red on cream. The second was more intriguing and less obvious — a curved lamp in a circular pattern of something that looked a bit like fleur-de-lis. Danielle said she had designed the pattern based on a medieval symbol for the beginning of a paragraph. It was also very elegant, rather more evocative and unusual, and was in an uncommon shade of mid-green on cream.

  I chose the unusual design, thereby committing myself to a long search through lighting shops and catalogues for a lamp that exact shape, but that’s another story (I found it). Of the two colours proposed, we decided on the green, mainly because the maroon was rather too close to Dymock’s house colour. There’s nothing like a trade marks lawyer for steering clear of competitors’ branding.

  I have made this sound like a quick and simple decision making process. Indeed it was not — I spent a lot of time discussing the attributes of the designs with the designers, and mulling over the mood board and the logos. Nevertheless, it was an exciting and creative stage of the project — and a heap more fun than margins and expenses.

  I was happy with my choice, and I asked Impress Design to print me some business cards using the logo. That was the extent of it for now. I paid the bill, put the logo boards up in my room at home and at the office, and waited for the magic of visualization to take effect. Eventually it did.

  Chapter Eight

  Mind games I

&
nbsp; At this point in proceedings, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I lacked any source of finance to continue, but mainly I lacked the confidence in my ability to bring it all to fruition. So I put the Business Plan and all the research papers into a box. I thought of it as “my bookshop in a box”. It sat there for nearly two years, which admittedly is a long time to shelve a dream, and it was discouraging. Often I concluded that it had all just been a game, a little foray into another world, but as a tourist, not a true immigrant. It became a bit of a family myth, with my children occasionally sending me up for talking about opening a bookshop and then not doing it. “So when will the bookshop be open?” they’d ask. “I need a job!”

  The real problem was deep within, of course, and I knew it. At one point, I became rather despairing — about myself. Perhaps this was a true “mid-life crisis”. Perhaps it was just a delayed adolescent crisis.

  In any event, it was certainly a personal development watershed.

  Fortunately, books again came to the rescue — along with people in my life who steered me towards certain authors. I started reading some of the ubiquitous personal development writing that abounds, including the much-maligned deluge of material that comes from American writers. From a previous position of skepticism, I was fascinated at what I discovered. Some of the material I read didn’t speak to me — either it made no sense, or was unoriginal, or was pure bullshit. But there were enough kernels of useful insight to keep me interested and keep me reading. I reached the conclusion that one should take what one can use from this material, and — well — use it!

  One of the most high profile authors in this area is Anthony Robbins. While I never became a fire-walker, I found much in his book Awaken The Giant Within that spoke directly to the situation I was in. Skimming over the rather ludicrous idea that there was a giant within me, I was taken with his writing on focus. This was the theory behind the visualizations. Putting a picture of what you want in front of your eyes has one principal effect — you focus on it. Robbins describes being taught by a racing car driver to drive a powerful machine at maximum speed around corners. The novice will look at the obstacles, and inevitably run into them. The expert knows that you focus on the road ahead — focus where you want to go. Try it next time you get on a bicycle.

  Now, there are many books around which expound on the magic of visualization, and related approaches such as “focus”, “manifestation”, “attracting what you think about”, and Florence Scovel Shinn’s advice to believe strongly enough in your goal that you “dig your ditches” — that is, take action on the basis that your goal is already a reality. Check out authors like Wayne Dyer (manifestation), Esther & Jerry Hicks Ask And It Is Given and Joe Vitale The Law Of Attraction.

  To complete the Goethe quote:

  The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man or woman could have dreamed would come his or her way.

  I hadn’t come across that quote at the time of Tea In The Library’s exciting conception and birth, but some of the other authors were among my reading, and I could observe and agree with the concept that you tend to receive what you focus upon. Visualization I saw as a very powerful tool for directing one’s attention. Once this concept was lodged in my head, I literally kept pictures of the planned bookshop in front of me — pinned up at my bedside, on my desk at work, in my briefcase. And things did begin to happen and people who could help did come my way — some described above and more to follow. It was just a matter of recognising those helping hands and grabbing hold of them. Of receiving what was sent my way. But I am getting ahead of the story, because it was some time before I made it to this point.

  When Michael Gerber told me in The E-Myth Revisited that your small business shouldn’t take over your life, I drew from this that I could continue with my day job, and simply be the omniscient “entrepreneur” who oversaw operations. Stephen Covey, in his well-known book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, also describes this entrepreneur, distinguishing him/her from the manager and the technician, who are at the coal face. This theory is of course all very well. But I admit I may have taken it rather too far. (More of that later!)

  In addition to the printed word, I also drew a lot of support from people around me. I decided at one point that I needed to talk about the bookshop café project more — to “talk it into reality”, as it were. If you tell others you are going to do something, a subtle pressure is on to actually do it (or risk looking foolish).

  I was given a particularly interesting piece of advice that was a great boost to my confidence. I described to my friend Margaret how I had attended seminars of the Australian Booksellers’ Association, and introduced myself as someone who “wanted to open a bookshop”. The reaction of the booksellers was usually tinged with a little pity and some skepticism, and a sense of lost cause. I was off to a Booksellers’ Association conference again, and Margaret insisted that I take a different approach. I was to introduce myself thus: “Oh, I’m a successful lawyer, but I am going to open a bookshop”. I tried it. The difference in response was marked — people assumed I had the expertise and wherewithal to open the shop (which was not actually true) and therefore treated me as they would someone who had actually accomplished the task. It was not that they were any less helpful in the first instance — it was just that their palpable assumption that I “had the goods” was so confidence-boosting. It was like a round-robin: because they thought I could do it, I thought I could do it.

  I have abbreviated the mind games of this time into a few paragraphs, but many was the long night of discontent. Self-confidence doesn’t grow on trees. One major question shadowed all others — and still does — should I step right out of my comfort zone, quit the day job, and take on running a bookshop café on the basis that my livelihood really depended on it? Many small business people literally put their houses on the line to open their businesses. If they fail, they could lose everything. I was much more cowardly. Or was I more shrewd? I earned good money as a lawyer, and needed it to support my three student children and hefty mortgage (plus one dog). I reasoned that my income could cushion the business — all I would need was a competent manager. This would eat into profits, but I didn’t mind if no money was made for a while because of this, if the business supported itself. On the other hand, I so desperately wanted to be hands-on in this project, to steer the ship of my creation, hopefully clear of the shoals and out onto the high seas. I wanted adventure!

  Looking back now, I think in the end the real reason that I decided to stay in my job and hire a manager was simply lack of confidence. I thought — in my heart, though not articulated — that “throwing away” a good job for a foolish dream that probably wouldn’t work because I didn’t know what I was doing, would be a stupid move. “People” would consider me an idiot. I might well be an idiot to do that. I took the coward’s option.

  Or was it the shrewd option? Read on …

  Chapter Nine

  We all have our mountains to climb

  As life goes on, everyone accumulates experiences of varying kinds, which we attract to ourselves through our expectations, beliefs and the things we focus on and think about. In pondering why my own journey now suddenly included some of the more exciting challenges of its brief span, I’ll try a little pop psychology. Like many people, I had moved through life scaling hurdles along the way: small things can seem like big mountains depending upon your comfort zone. Something which seems simple to one person can be a big challenge to another, depending upon beliefs and experiences accumulated along the way.

  When I left my small Tassie town, I barely had the confidence to answer a telephone. Although I matriculated in one year, I stayed back at college for an extra year while my friends “caught up”, too scared to go
on to university alone. I married my first boyfriend. When I started my career, I was too embarrassed to dictate correspondence and kept writing things out by hand until the senior partner gave me a (surprisingly gentle) talking to. Fortunately living in the big city got me over all that, and none too soon.

  There is no doubt that divorce is a Major Life Event, and the effect on all involved is undoubtedly influential, one way or another. Skimming lightly over the very unpleasant few years involved in the deterioration of my marriage, I was left with two ingrained beliefs about myself: that I was an abject failure at something important, and that I was “hopeless with money”. I proceeded to prove the second one completely true by losing all that was left of the divorce settlement to a fraudster (now cosily ensconced in Berrima Correctional Facility). As to the first, it festered for a few years, until I realized that in fact I had achieved a few laudable things, and maybe “failure” was too strong a word. Nevertheless, a couple of “Great Achievements” would settle the matter, wouldn’t they? — like, oh, I don’t know — starting a successful business? Walking to Mount Everest? Let’s Think Big!

  So I became attracted to and fascinated by the Himalayan heights. Some years earlier, on my very first overseas trip, I had visited Switzerland. I will never forget taking my first train ride in Switzerland, from Zurich to Lichtenstein for a day trip, through the Alps. Those mountains were so tall that even if I leaned my head down below the train windowsill and peered upwards, I still couldn’t see the top of the peaks. Those are mountains. It made me appreciate the bemusement of a Swiss visitor we entertained back home, taken for the day to the wonderful panorama across the Jamieson Valley in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. “It is very beautiful”, he said, wrinkling his brow, “but where are the mountains?” The wooded peaks and valleys stretched out to the sea, but of course there was nothing in the vista even remotely like the Alps.