Tea in the Library Read online

  Once, at dinner, I asked my neighbours at the table how long they thought it should take before a new shop broke even. The chap from Abbeys thought carefully and advised that it could take two to three years. A bookseller who, with his lively wife, ran two Angus & Robertson franchises on the Central Coast, was appalled. “But you must make a profit from day one! Otherwise, how can you survive?” Take your pick.

  One terrific supporter of Tea In The Library from the booksellers’ fraternity was Derek, the owner of Better Read Than Dead in Newtown. He was — probably still is — a tireless worker for the ABA, and much in demand as the MC at the conference functions, where his humour guaranteed a lively evening. At the ABA conferences, and through the publishers’ reps, booksellers are often given uncorrected proofs, or prepublication copies of up-coming releases. The idea is that the front-line sellers will have read the book in advance and will therefore be in a good position to spruik it to their customers. At one conference, we were given copies of a new Dan Brown novel which was about to be released — The Da Vinci Code.

  “Have you read this yet?” asked Derek.

  “No, not yet. What’s it like?”

  “Not bad. It should do OK.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Finding our demographic

  Early one damp May morning I sat, cappuccino in hand, at a table in the café at The Sydney Dance Company’s rehearsal rooms, which occupy an old reclaimed wharf in the eastern precinct of Sydney Harbour. I had a newspaper insert in my hand, a schedule of the day’s events, and I pored over it with anticipation and interest. The Dance Company lives in the lower level of the wharf, and the upper levels house the Sydney Theatre Company, two small theatres, and a restaurant. This particular wharf is one of several in a row, one now converted to luxurious apartments, another offices. They sit practically under the tall grey span of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, surrounded by water, with small craft tied up at the adjoining marina and huge vessels steaming close by as they negotiate the channels of the working harbour. I love this precinct — now with the new Sydney Theatre in a re-designed old warehouse across the road, plus the Philharmonic Choir’s rehearsal rooms, and all kinds of “artsy” businesses and chic eateries springing up. The long, long wharves themselves, with their echoing walkways of old timbers, evoke a feeling of solidity and nostalgia. Kind of funky, too. An ideal venue for the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

  The SWF has boomed in popularity in recent years, and it is now hard to get into the “big name” events without buying a ticket in advance. But a few years ago, when I first started attending, part of the thrill was the adventure of just turning up, seeing what was happening, and joining in, wandering in and out of sessions, chatting with other aficionados, and spending the day at the wharf with like-minded souls and plenty of erudite and interesting speakers. You can still try this at the SWF, but expect forty thousand other people there too.

  On this particular morning, I was circling in the schedule which authors I wanted to hear. I wandered in to a panel of Australian novelists, including Louis Nowra talking about his book set in the immigrant communities of Melbourne. I listened to a university professor argue cogently for his vision of an Australian republic seamlessly reconciled with its indigenous people. I heard with fascination a panel of overseas novelists tell us exactly what techniques they used to create tension in the writing of their thrillers — secrets from the experts! I was disappointed that Margaret Whitlam was unable to attend and talk about her latest book, but these things happen, and the Writers’ Festival schedule can get a little fluid. In fact, as I was starting on my second cappuccino of the day, there was a surprise addition to the program — a book launch by then-aspiring politician, Mark Latham. And — wow! — it was to be launched by the Great Man himself, Margaret’s husband Gough Whitlam. So I swiveled around in my seat and joined the crowd. Mark told an anecdote about the time when Gough was the local member in the electorate where Mark went to high school. In this capacity, he came along to make a speech at the end-of-year prize giving function, as local members are wont to do. It happened that Gough was Prime Minister at the time, and Mark was about eleven years old. The high school was an agricultural school, with many boarder students from the country. Their farmer parents were present at the prize-giving, and were not happy with a particular policy that Gough’s government had recently implemented, so they booed and heckled him.

  Mark said he thought at the time that it was amazing that people were allowed to boo and heckle the Prime Minister — “and now it’s my job description!” Well, Mark Latham has since left politics with plenty of boos and heckles himself, but he is still writing books. They’re selling quite well, too.

  Each May I make sure I set aside several days to go along to the Writers’ Festival. There is a buzzing atmosphere and just about everyone seems to love the stimulation of hearing interesting speakers on a huge range of topics, and the chance to ask questions, raise issues and make their own comments. I hadn’t been long at my first festival before I thought “Our demographic!” All around me were people who would love Tea In The Library. I hatched plans to advertise in the festival program, and talked about the shop to everyone I met. If only we could funnel these people down to the shop, we’d have hit the mother lode of customers.

  The festival organizers strike a deal with a particular bookshop to run the Festival temporary bookshop, sited down at the wharf — and in the foyers of many other venues, as festival events are held around town. Dymocks, a large well-established chain, was the festival bookseller for many years, although the role has now been taken over by Gleebooks. I watched in fascination how this was managed — what a virtuoso logistical exercise! The bookseller has to source all the books of all the writers at the festival (and there are several hundred). These are piled in high stacks in the temporary premises. Temporary phone lines and point-of-sale computers are set up on wobbly tables, extra staff are hired, and then the hoards of customers descend — usually all at once on the hour or half-hour as sessions come out. The authors are set up at tables to sign copies of their books, so everyone rushes out, forms a scrum to buy the book, and then queues to get it signed. As I surreptitiously watched just how the booksellers were doing, I saw many an anguished moment — fran-tic calls to book suppliers asking if they had just one spare carton of a particularly popular title that had sold out; the lines for credit facilities failing (“what’s cash?” one queuing customer quipped). I must say I was in awe. I would go up and ask the young booksellers how things were going, when they were quiet and could chat, and received a few insights into just what a mammoth task it all was.

  For the blithe attendee, the festival was stimulating fun! One morning at about 11.30am I decided to start with a white wine. “It’s not too early, do you think?” I remarked to the server. “Oh no!” he responded. “We’ve sold a half a dozen bottles of wine already today, and Bob Ellis hasn’t even arrived yet!” In addition to the celebrity authors, minor and major, who give the talks, the audience at the Writers’ Festival is also often sprinkled with local personalities. Bob Ellis is an author himself, and a common attendee at the Festival, adding a pithy comment when the spirit moves him. (Bob is also a founding member of the Festival Board and a great supporter of it in many ways).

  Over recent years, the readers attending on the writers have been privileged to hear from some impressive people. The winners of the Booker prize for the last few years have all been to Sydney to talk to us — DBC Pierre ( Vernon God Little), Alan Hollingsworth ( The Line Of Beauty), and John Banville ( The Sea). We’ve heard from half a dozen staff writers and editors of “The New Yorker” magazine; from fiery activists like Naomi Wolfe, David Suzuki and Tariq Ali; from great writers like Edmund White and Amy Tan; from poets and novelists from remote and exotic corners of the world, and many many local writers. We have heard our then State Premier, Bob Carr, a self-confessed history tragic, interview writers of history: “So why do you think Caesar did cross the Rubicon?” I w
as not alone in crying and laughing and crying alternately when Dr Maya Angelou joined us by satellite on a big screen from New York (being too elderly to travel), and was interviewed by our favourite interviewer-of-authors, Ramona Kaval. We have had literary lunches and afternoon teas with writers reading to us; live broadcasts from the festival café; book launches and prize-givings; and we filled the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall to listen for two hours to Alain de Botton, a writer of popular philosophy, of all things. He talked about architecture.

  I always feel very privileged to be involved in the festival, and lucky to have access to such great minds, who — whether you agree or disagree with them — always manage to stimulate. There is such a cross-section of authors in the smorgasbord, from the funny to the romantic to the political to the erudite. Sometimes these authors are people who have changed the world, even if you haven’t heard of them until their book came out or the festival organizers found them and invited them to Sydney. I was fascinated to hear, on a panel about freedom of the press, from a Russian journalist who spoke about the persecution of the free press which still goes on in Russia today. She had been a person trusted by the hostage-takers in a Moscow theatre some years ago, and so was able to facilitate the release of many who might otherwise have died. I hadn’t heard her name before, but listened intently as her translator passed on her comments. Only a few months later, she was killed, shot at home in her Moscow flat, by persons so far unknown. Vale, Anna Politkovskaya.

  In the search for our true demographic, I also gathered useful information from the Australian Booksellers Association conferences and meetings. A regular feature was industry statistics presented by Nielsen Bookscan, an arm of the AC Nielsen statistical and polling business. These stats were professionally gathered and presented, and I found them fascinating. They divided the booksellers into three broad categories — the independents (which embraced Tea In The Library), the chains (such as Dymocks and Borders), and the “discount department stores” (K-Mart et al). Nielsen would give us statistics on the market shares enjoyed by each of these segments, and then also the profitability. It was booksellers’ lore that sometimes independent booksellers could buy popular books from discount department stores at the retail price, cheaper than they could acquire stock from the publisher. There was usually a feeling of mild smugness among the hardy independents when the statistics revealed that the discounters were selling so low, they surely could not be making a profit — or not much of a profit, anyway. The prevailing wisdom had it that the discount stores would put cheap bestsellers at the entrance of their stores to “draw in the customers” and really didn’t need to make a profit on the books themselves. I have no idea if this is indeed true. But perhaps the most revealing story that the stats had to tell was when it came to the top ten bestsellers lists. The Nielsen presenter would flash up her Power Point charts and show us that there was virtually no overlap between the ten best-selling books in an independent bookshop, and the ten best-selling books in the local K-Mart. Except for Harry Potter, of course, but that phenomenon was a blip in the usual universe. This was an epiphany for me — while John Grisham and Barbara Cartland were selling out at K-Mart, Tea In The Library’s customers wanted to buy Don Watson’s Death Sentence and the latest Booker winner. In my view, this was wonderful news. It meant that we didn’t have to compete with the price-cutters, and that our demographic would come to us to look for thoughtful titles, served with care. And afternoon tea, hopefully.

  As to the chains, it seemed to me that the stats put them in the most difficult position — their bestseller lists overlapped with both the independents and the discounters, meaning — in a simplified way — that they had to provide the hand-selling and the ambience of an independent with the cheap pricing of the discounters. Tough.

  So rather than find the stats challenging, I found them reassuring — we were niche sellers and we had a niche market — people who enjoyed the Writers’ Festival!

  Chapter Twelve

  Mind games II

  My bookshop in a box sat in the cupboard. I continued living my life the way I always had, deep in my comfort zone, gradually growing more discontented and discouraged. I couldn’t seem to take the next steps towards making the dream a reality. This particular battle was all internal.

  If you read the Sunday papers, you’ll know that all the best fash-ionistas these days have a “life coach”. This is considered de rigueur for the busy career girl, and in fact coaches of various sorts are proving quite successful and are acquiring some credibility in the corporate setting. One morning I went along to a businesswomen’s breakfast where the speaker was an experienced life coach. I left all fired up, and called the coach to sign up pronto. This proved to be an excellent decision.

  Like the “personal development” books I had been reading, I found that the coaching experience is what one chooses to make of it, or take from it. There is of course a wonderful cathartic feeling to sitting and talking about yourself to someone who (having been paid to do so) listens with complete attention. Try getting even your best friend to do that regularly once a week! But a good coach will also challenge you to try a different approach to life. As the saying goes, if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same result.

  It wasn’t long before I was pouring out to my coach the story of the putative bookshop. “Well, why don’t you do it?” she asked. About three dozen excuses followed. The coach wasn’t dismissive of these, but patiently helped me list all the steps I could take to overcome each hurdle I put up. She also said, in so many words, that she would support me all the way. I was being handed the tools to lift myself to the next level.

  There was an important concept I decided to accept from both my reading and my coaching experience and that is that each person has ultimate control over what happens to them. An abundance mindset brings abundance, and a failure mindset brings failure. This is a natural extension of the idea that you get what you focus on — the renowned “power of positive thinking”.

  The whole thing began to acquire rather a spiritual feel. I began a regime of thinking positively, of trusting the universe to bring me my bookshop. I viewed set-backs as valuable learning experiences and major road blocks as lessons in patience. (I have stuck with this approach, and it has come in handy!) I certainly became a happier, calmer person. But action was still needed — coaches are big on “action points” — if the bookshop was ever to be.

  The biggest hurdle was the question of financing the venture. I decided to open myself to whatever the universe wanted to tell me about this intractable difficulty. There was a certain amount of selectivity in this — for example, my financial advisor told me to wait a couple of years until I could put aside enough money to start the shop. But that piece of advice — excellent, of course — was out of synch with my intense wish to start the shop, find some new hori-zons, take some risks and have an adventure. But how to fund it?

  A few more weeks went by while I waited for the universe to speak to me. One day a friend spoke about putting her apartment on the market and said that a real estate agent had quoted a surprisingly good value for it. Within a few days, another friend asked over lunch when the bookshop was going to get started. As usual, I replied a bit gloomily that it wasn’t looking likely, as I couldn’t raise the funds. My friend suggested that I might sell an investment apartment that I owned. A couple of pennies dropped together.

  Selling a valuable asset to invest in a hair-brained retail venture was something not viewed with equanimity by my financial advisor, who by now was close to tearing his hair out over me. However, deciding that I was ready to put my money where my mouth was marked a new stage for me. I contacted a real estate agent, was quoted a good likely selling price, and started the sale process. It seemed more than co-incidence that the agent who took on the task was married to someone who worked in the book trade. We had some useful conversations about the book industry. The apartment duly sold well, and I had a nest-egg. It all see
med “meant”.

  The nest-egg wasn’t enough. But by now I knew not to sit around making excuses, but to explore every avenue. I ran through in my mind the names of anyone I knew with enough money to invest in a likely business venture, but everyone I could think of viewed retail with horror. Next, I called a finance brokerage that had organized car loans for me in the past. I had a meeting with the broker, handed over the necessary information, and a week later — lo and behold! — loans had been approved.

  There were now no excuses at all. The shop HAD to be opened.

  I proceeded to spend the bank’s money.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Location, location, location

  There are those who believe that Tea In The Library was located in an abysmal site for a bookshop café. There have been days when I would agree with them.

  The shop was right in the heart of Sydney, a great world metropolis. It was just two blocks from the major shopping precinct in Sydney, Pitt Street Mall, where astronomical rents are the norm. It was just across the road from the beautifully restored Queen Victoria Building, one of the great shopping precincts of any city anywhere. It was right on a bus interchange and a couple of minutes walk from a train station and Sydney’s Town Hall. We sailed in deep waters.

  As to size, we had 200 square metres, including the kitchen, loos and office, which left about 145 square metres for bookshelves, café tables and retail space. In addition, we had another 20 square metres outside on a landing, with more café tables. The premises was cosy and welcoming. It was also quiet, a valuable feature with a busy street outside. So what was the problem?