{"id":18045,"date":"2017-01-24T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.journals.cambridge.org\/?p=18045"},"modified":"2017-01-25T12:38:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T12:38:39","slug":"traditional-bookselling-in-a-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2017\/01\/24\/traditional-bookselling-in-a-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Traditional Bookselling in a Digital Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I often consider how\u00a0fortunate I am to be working at the Press’\u00a0Bookshop and showroom in \"pilethe centre of Cambridge.\u00a0\u00a0The shop is located\u00a0in one of the best retail spaces in Cambridge and boasts a stunning view across to the University Senate House and King’s College Chapel.\u00a0 Not only that but we can claim to be continuing a noble tradition in being the latest in a long line of booksellers that have operated continuously from this site since around 1581, making it the oldest bookshop site in the country.\u00a0 Thus it is the ideal location from which to sell the publications of the oldest publisher. \u00a0However, that\u00a0heritage can seem at risk in the face of new technologies and the dawning digital age.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recent years have witnessed the closure of many bookshops on the high street and Cambridge has not been immune to that with half a dozen bookshops closing in as many years.\u00a0 Therefore, being not just an academic bookshop but one that only sells books from one publisher can feel daunting and precarious, to say the least.\u00a0 Having once been fairly Eeyore-ish about the situation I’m now much more optimistic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New undergraduates are increasingly accustomed to finding the information they need online and given the cost of their education are understandably reluctant to buy books that might only be required for one term or even\u00a0just a few weeks. \u00a0However whilst we see far fewer undergraduates buying their textbooks from us than we did say 10 years ago, we continue to have large numbers of visiting scholars calling in when they’re in Cambridge on study leave or attending conferences.\u00a0 They are grateful to find an academic bookshop that has the breadth and depth of titles that ours does. The majority of traditional campus stores in\u00a0university towns have\u00a0morphed into stationery and giftware outlets with a few textbooks thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 In comparison, we have somewhere in the region of 50,000 titles on our shelves which are\u00a0supplemented by\u00a0a huge backlist of print on demand titles that we can rustle up within a few days. \u00a0Indeed it’s those POD titles that now account for almost half of our daily sales. \u00a0Of course many\u00a0are monographs which, once made\u00a0available in paperback in this way, finally\u00a0become affordable to a greater number of readers. \u00a0So the backlist is key for us and one of our key strengths lies in being able to showcase the best of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today academic book publishing is\u00a0increasingly engaging with the concept of the crossover book and those that we publish sell really well and help to entice new customers across the threshold.\u00a0\u00a0 One example of this is the recent title\u00a0 A Fortunate Universe<\/a><\/u> which has seen superb coverage in the media and its authors are both active on social media.\u00a0 These are things that we are able to engage with and capitalise on as booksellers and that are increasingly pertinent to a books’ success. \u00a0Social media works well for bookshops.\u00a0 It functions as an extra shop window without the constraints of\u00a0location.\u00a0 Our followers are startlingly international and yet some\u00a0show the loyalty and curiosity of our local regular customers. \u00a0Authors are also vocal in their appreciation of any focus we give to their books and link us to wider academic communities which are navigating social media and pioneering ways of harnessing its potential.\u00a0 Who would have thought for instance that medieval historians would have such a presence on Twitter? \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So whilst at first the new digital age\u00a0might have been expected to sound the death knell of bookshops it has in fact\u00a0become a great boon.\u00a0 Even Amazon, which is routinely decried as the great enemy of the high\u00a0street, has actually\u00a0opened and extended our customer base.\u00a0 Sure we inevitably lose sales to customers who want to find the best deal online for every purchase but our sales to customers across Europe via our Amazon marketplace storefront\u00a0more than makes up for any customers we miss out on along the high street. Today we sell books to customers in Copenhagen as well as Cambridge and now\u00a0we’re\u00a0reaching out to the rest of the world from the oldest bookshop site in the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

Alastair Lynn<\/span><\/p>\n

Sales Development Manager<\/span><\/p>\n

Cambridge University Press Bookshop<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often consider how\u00a0fortunate I am to be working at the Press’\u00a0Bookshop and showroom in the centre of Cambridge.\u00a0\u00a0The shop is located\u00a0in one of the best retail spaces in Cambridge and boasts a stunning view across to the University Senate House and King’s College Chapel.\u00a0 Not only that but we can claim to be continuing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":555,"featured_media":18072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18045"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}