Okay, so we've received notice from Southwark Council that we have the wrong address. Apparently the correct address should be 13 Bermondsey Square rather than 12. 'What's the big deal?' I try and console myself. Physically we're still in the same spot. So, okay, whether it's 12 or 13 someone's looking for, they should find us. It's just a number, right?

But here are the things that are weighing on me. Do the lease agreements have to be redone? What about council departments we liaise with - from Business Ratings, HMRC to Food Safety - do we have to write to them all and tell them about our 'new' address? Does it matter? Then there's our bank we'll have to deal with. Utility companies... What about our Google map and the dozens of online web listings that have us down as a venue - should we track them all down, edit them all or leave them as they are? Our many suppliers, in fact the whole darn creditors list, do we have to send masses of letters or emails? Our cloth bags (just ordered 500 two weeks ago), plastic carry bags, bookmarks, business cards, etc etc...

Feeling like a balloon that's been popped. Deflated. (Sorry to moan out loud.)

You know, a few months ago, a lady wrote to us. Said she was a mom with young children, was going to retire or quit her day job, something like that. Said she wanted to start a bookshop, that it was her dream. I shared with her that it's a tough, long road. Worth doing but the pros and cons should be ruminated over carefully. If you need a living wage, I told her, don't start a bookshop.

Feeling cynical. All that talk about Mary Portas Report, revitalise the High Street jazz, yadda yadda yadda... Save our indie shops campaign, etc etc etc... The amount of hoops you have to jump through is incredible. Organisations and companies you didn't know about crawl out of the wood work to harass you. If I could list the number of balls from the left field we've had to parry, the kind of scams one should avoid (and we have been scammed for supposed charity causes), the pitfalls of iron-clad agreements, the nature and quantity of threatening phone calls I get from non-existent suppliers, and so on, it would be a sizeable tome. I better not get started on that topic, or I'll be here all day.

Time, effort, costs. Another list of tasks we could have done without.

Okay, time to take a deep breath. Cheer up. Pull myself up by the bootstraps and all that.

Enough whingeing.

The Chinese have a saying - When the horse dies, get down and walk. [Translation: Find an alternative and deal with it.]

Think it's time to start walking.

Fran

PS. I'm sorry if I depressed you. I promise I'll write again soon of happier things.

As some of our regular customers may know, W&T was closed for 2 days in October. The reason? The crew from production company Kream London was using W&T as the film location for the National Book Tokens cinema advertisement.

As you can see from the photos below, it was a masterclass in organised chaos. And the finished result? To eagle-eyed customers, I'm sure you'll recognise our shelves and counter. Apart from that very little LOL!

Thank you Kream London, Booksellers Association and National Book Tokens for the amazing experience and wonderful campaign. Five days to Christmas - not sure what book to buy? Get a National Book Token :)

PS. The video of the cinema ad - which I had posted below - has now been removed as I have been informed the rights are only for cinema and not online. Sorry!

Okay, so there's been a lot of reflecting going on this past week, seeing as we have just made it past our first year in business.

It's very encouraging that we're still afloat, and this is a testimony to the conscientiousness and consciousness of the British consumer, for as Shivaun noted, "Many people are very supportive of independent bookshops as they recognise it as a courageous thing to do." Nevertheless, while it's been a milestone in one way, it's also a marker on what could be a very long road to becoming even remotely solvent. After all, there's always the spectre of sobering reality looming in the distance, especially when I read the posting about our bookshop celebrating our first year including the comment "Woolfson & Tay's celebration comes just a week after four well-known independent bookshops have closed and Waterstone's announced major changes in its marketing policy." (SE1 article)

This made me ponder as to the challenges faced by indie bookshops everywhere, just like ours. I have come to the conclusion that, putting it very simply, the sums have to add up. We may love what we do but we have to keep being innovative and offering more than just a retail experience, and at a margin that sustains the business side of things. Why? Because selling books is hard work. The margins simply aren't there. The costs are steep, even if you discount the initial investment that goes into fitting out a shop; there's the repeating monthly stuff - rent and service charges, council fees, cleaning costs, staff and overtime wage bills, utility charges, and these for us represent on average about 80% of monthly sales - and all these before we have even considered the purchasing costs for reordering or new stock.

Looking over our daily sales figures, I can see that the worst day for us ever in terms of sales - books + gifts + cafe - was £126.80. That's earning an average of £15.85 per hour while open. Based on an estimated average gross margin of 50%, the profit for the day would be £63.40. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that with that sort of takings, one would be hard pressed to break even.

And that I reckon is the reason why so many indie bookshops close down.

We knew it was going to be a challenge to garner footfall for our first year celebrations on 10 September 2011; seeing that it coincided with the Thames Festival. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise as regulars dropped by throughout the day to wish us well, write messages on our birthday notice board, and drop off greeting cards. Thank you very much! Jazz guitarist Tomas Ciucelis played a range of soothing original pieces, followed by the 4-piece Lemon And Lime Band. Lead singer Rachel wooed the guests with her sultry, jazzy renditions of hits from the 70s to the 90s. Thank you all for making our first year celebrations a wonderful one and for your the warm wishes for many more to come!

Woke up this morning and had my usual cup of coffee and a smoke (bad, nasty habit I know). Thought to myself, "well that's it, a year has passed" and remembering what it was like this time last year - the frantic unpacking and shelving of books, the nail-biting, hair-tearing suspense when we couldn't get the electricity hooked up (until just the day before the doors officially opened), the half-finished works around the store - cupboards with no doors, displays with no slot walls, the bare walls in the gallery... And yet, the excitement, riding on an effervescent sparkling optimism, fuelled in part by the encouragement and excitement of people in the neighbourhood, who had dropped by throughout the fit-out period, poked their heads around the door, peered at our construction site, wished us well, told us how they were looking forward to when we opened...

Well, a year has indeed passed, and as Shivaun likes to say, We haven't run for the hills yet. We may be a bit ragged and rough round the edges but we're intact. Our passion is intact, our hopefulness is intact, our ethos is intact. We haven't stopped trying; trying to do better events, trying to have a varied program, trying to deliver quality and value in what we do - whether it's cooking and serving simple Asian lunches, hosting an exhibition launch, promoting an author event, cranking up potential ideas to do collaborations with local community groups...

And this morning, even as I sip my coffee, I reflect on what has kept us going. It's cliched but it's the truth - it's the customers. Those who drop by with a print out of an Amazon page to order a book ("because I'd rather get it from you"); who make a point to tell us they appreciate when we try (like the lady yesterday who dropped by, having tried our Asian lunch a few days ago, just to give us feedback - "it was lovely! and the lemon drizzle cake was wonderful!" before nicking back to work); who have told us how much they like our selection of books ("real care must have gone into curating this collection"; and in one case, when I said, well we have to be selective because we don't have that much shelf space, she said "yes, but you have the ones that matter"); and who let us know we are on the right track ("everything you do is quality," from a customer after an event). What can I say? As I reminisce over these precious nuggets of compliments, which I store in my memory for retrieval during times I need them most, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation.

A regular customer came in a week ago and asked how things were? (A question we get quite often by the way; it always fills me with an inexplicable tenderness to know the shop matters to some people). I knew she meant financially; in this age of doom and gloom, the senselessness of the London riots but a short while ago, small businesses going bust... the economic landscape is littered with the corpses of hopefuls. I was honest, Well if you mean are we paying the bills yet? The answer is no, I told her, but as Shivaun keeps saying, We are not running for the hills yet. Thank you to all W&T customers for your support - and even more than that, thank you for letting us know we matter in your lives.

With warmest wishes from the W&T team

There are several things which get us down over at W&T... Here are some of my main pet peeves:
1) Someone asking if our shop is a library
2) BT phone line - no dial tone
3) BT internet - no connection
4) Till system crashes or freezes
5) Stock system crashes or freezes
Notice how 4 out of 5 of the above are IT-related or ICT-related?
See this despondent bookseller on the left? She has lost the will to live. Why has she lost the will to live? The BT phone line died, the internet died in sympathy, and one of our counters was not in operation because the till system and the stock system also threw themselves off a cliff. Now you know why this bookseller sees no reason to go on living. And this lasted for two whole, very loooong days....
PS. Thank you Cui for catching this candid moment and Alexandra for letting me post this - LOL!
Fran

Courtesy of Woolfcub Productions