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Well, I'm Carol and I've been running this bookshop now for nearly 25 years. Next year will be 25 years. I was a teacher. I had no business experience whatsoever. And people in the business community find that totally amazing. Um, I have been told many times that I was brave and that I took a risk, and I just laugh. I was not brave. And I had absolutely no idea I was taking a risk because I knew so little about business. I didn't know that there are statistics that demonstrate [00:00:30] that something like the 1st 3rd, a a third of all new small businesses fail in the first three years, possibly more than a third these days. I would think I had no understanding of any of that. I do think I had all sorts of skills, um, that I wouldn't have recognised or put labels on, But I was a mother and I had a disabled child, so I had been a, um, caring for a disabled child as well. An intellectually disabled [00:01:00] child as well as a gorgeous, normal daughter. And, um, they're still very much in my life. Um, but also I was a secondary school teacher of English and drama. I mean, I was used to books. I knew about books, but I was also a drama teacher, which took, I guess, um, quite a lot of, um and prompt you stuff in a way. You take a risk. You take risks when you're a drama teacher. But I wouldn't maybe have recognised that or related that to to business. Um, but I was used to organising teenagers large large groups of teenagers. [00:01:30] In those days, they changed. There were seven periods in a day. You change seven times a day. You rotated these vast groups and sometimes more than 30 teenagers. That takes a lot of skill that I think teachers get no credit for, um so And I had good interpersonal skills and so on and good communication skills. And I would never have labelled those or, you know, and I suspect they send people on business courses to learn those skills. These days, um, I was persuaded to to start the bookshop by [00:02:00] a friend called Pat Rosie, who was then the editor of Broadsheet magazine and Broad magazine had a a premise in Dominion Road with a little shop front, and they actually needed an office space. They didn't have enough money to buy any books to have this tiny wee bookshop in the front. So Pat sort of said to me, What we need is someone to take over this premise and run it as a proper women's bookshop and we'll get an office space somewhere else. And she kept on at me and kept on at me. Another friend came with me, a friend called Chris McLean and actually [00:02:30] came with me to, um, the bank, and she knew what a cash flow forecast was. I didn't have a clue and couldn't have produced one, but we talked to the bank manager about getting a loan and that sort of thing, and by the time I also then travelled around the country. But I got to meet some of the women doing the same thing, and they're not doing it anymore. There was um, the Kate Shepherd Women's Bookshop in Christchurch was still there, and a woman's place in Wellington was still there, and some wonderful lesbian women like Pleasant Hanson and had been involved [00:03:00] in that. And Tilly Lloyd, I think, from Unity Books in Wellington had been involved in that at one stage. There were also wonderful women in the publishing industry, and they still are. I mean, the two current M DS of, um, Random House, New Zealand and the Penguin Books are both women, Karen Ferns and Margaret Thompson. Um, I went, you know, in those days to talk to She was at that stage, the marketing manager at Penguin Book. She gave me huge expertise. Helen Benton was working with her partner, Bob Ross. Um, they were running Benton Ross. [00:03:30] It was called. Then they became tandem press. Later, Um, so there were lots of women with huge experience, both on the publishing and the bookselling side of the industry. And they shared their knowledge with me, and I became convinced I could have a go at it. I mean, Helen Benton literally held my hand and took me around their warehouse and said, You need one of this and three of that and so on. Help me choose the opening stock. But I also had a sense, and I could go back to teaching if if I had to. I could always earn my living as a teacher. So [00:04:00] that removed another element of risk. Really? What was it like getting finance for such a specific bookshop? Well, and I didn't actually get very much. I scrimped and saved. And, um, a very kind woman who has to remain an honour because she doesn't ever want me to disclose lent me 10, 10, 12, maybe $12,000. I think it was. And I paid her back amazingly rapidly. Um, the bank gave me probably 20,000, I think. And I think they matched 20,000 [00:04:30] because I'd cobbled together with the 12 from this friend and various money I'd cobbled together 20,000. So I probably opened it with $40,000 which is a joke these days. And I do remember, um, Tony, who was then the managing director of Harper Collins, saying to me, How on earth are you going to buy any stock with such a little amount of money? He was astonished. So I had very little stop to start with. And I still remember the shock of the next day after the opening night, looking around my shelves and thinking I've sold so many things, I'm gonna have to reorder. I'm gonna have to [00:05:00] pay for what I've sold and reorder some more. So I was very green when I started off, and it just developed slowly. And I learned by doing the one other important factor is the support of women that has enabled me to do it. One other important factor. My very well, one of my two closest friends, Glenn Lori um, was at that stage a teacher, and she had time off on full salary to, um, do study physics at university. She was a, um, a science teacher, [00:05:30] chemistry and biology. But she needed, um to upskill on her on her physics area. And, um, she was giving the physics department at Auckland University a bit of a shake up at the time, I think. But she had no lectures and no teaching or anything on a Friday. So she worked because I was on my own that whole first year she worked for me for free every Friday for the whole first year and when the bookshop was in Dominion Road. So, you know, I had enormous support and help from women. Why, specifically, a woman's bookshop? [00:06:00] Well, it grew out of the feminist movement of the seventies, and there were feminist bookshops all around the world. Um, the most famous one of which probably was, um, the one in London. Um oh, what's it called? I have to remember what it's called, the one that one that was in London. It it survived for a long time. And then it was taken under the wing of Foyle Bookshop and it survived in falls as a sort of corner of falls for a while, and then it then it died out. Now I'm gonna have to come back to you with the the name [00:06:30] of it. It will. It will leap into my mind. There was another one called sister right in Islington. But that closed ago, Um, there were a few in Australia. There were a lot in Germany, and there still are women, women's bookshops in Germany and quite a few in the States. Although the most on more many of the independent bookshops closed down in the states, Um, including the alternative gay and lesbian ones and the the feminist ones. Um, it was an ex in a way of the feminist publishing movement, which arose because, [00:07:00] um, women's writing was not getting published was not being taken seriously. That changed gradually over the next you know, two decades, I guess. You know, through the eighties and nineties, as the big major publishers came to understand that something like 70% of book buyers are women. There are statistics to show to demonstrate that, um and that in fact, there was money to be made out of women's books. And so they took over, and gradually [00:07:30] the feminist presses disappeared. I mean, the women's press, even in London, has now gone. It took well into the two thousands to go, but it has gone, um, was still there. But most of the women's presses were There was a press in New Zealand that Wendy Harris called new women's press. Um so it was based on the women's press in London, in a way. But it was new women's press, and she published a lot of feminist writing by New Zealand women that major mainstream publishers wouldn't publish. Um, [00:08:00] so it grew out of that really somewhere to then sell the books that the feminist publishers were publishing. And in the in the well, I didn't open until 1989. But in the nineties I mean, it was the tail end of that movement, Really. In the nineties, we did still have a very strong feminist section that then, in the late nineties and early two thousands, I think waned. And it's coming back now. Our feminist section is now expanding. There's a whole new, you know, a lot of feminist writing happening out there. [00:08:30] So it's interesting. I mean, we we did a lot of, um, women's spirituality and and witchcraft and Goddess and that sort of stuff in in that first decade in in Dominion Road, because we moved to Ponsonby in what 19? 90 must have been. No, What are we doing? 2000. We moved here in two years. So I opened in 89 and moved. We were there for basically 10 years. From the end of 1999. I moved here. So because I remember now we had the the millennia happen. Not long after, we'd [00:09:00] moved to to Ponsonby Road. Yes, but in that things changed what became sort of fashionable. And we have a very small women's spirituality section now a bigger Buddhist section and, um, a big mind, A big area of books on mindfulness. So it's interesting how fashions and people's interests change as the years go by. Take me back to, um, that opening night of of the bookstore. What was that like? It was fun. We had I mean, [00:09:30] lots of friends came. It was a bit like a party, Really. But they bought books, and I think I didn't quite expect them to buy books. Yeah, um I mean, Pat, Rosie obviously was there, and some of those friends who helped me get sorted and some of the women from publishing and so on they were all there. So it was a bit of a party. Um and I mean, I think I opened at, you know, six o'clock one night or something. I can't remember the timing now, but I know it was in the evening and we we had a party, but and I was just surprised that people deliberately, I think, to to give me support, bought books while they were there. Yeah, what a shock. [00:10:00] I was actually in business. You know, II, I guess one of the big things with bookshops is actually, um, stocking them and and knowing what books kind of sell and work. How did you How did you work that out? Well, I've got a really good instinct for it. Um, and I've got good staff now who help me. Who? Who've helped me widen a wee bit? Um, a very experienced staff. Um, I don't know. You just know. Um I mean, we focus particularly on certain [00:10:30] areas and obviously gay and lesbian, I think my gay section is probably not as good as it should be. And I probably need a good gay male advisor for that section. Um, there's limited stuff available that's good in the lesbian area. And I'm I mean, um, reps when they come around, publishers reps would always alert me to a book that had gay or lesbian content. Um, there's a lot of of what I would call Mills and Boon type, um, lesbian novels that I order, um, a range of but often only ones and twos. So I've got [00:11:00] the range, but I mean and and women buy them because they're fun. But we have other big areas, like childbirth and parenting, And excuse me, that becomes it. It it's fairly obvious I midwives will tell me which are the good books often, and there are one or two. I don't stop because midwives don't like them. Don't recommend them. Um, there a huge range of really good parenting books? Um, the biggest range apart from literary fiction, the biggest range is the counselling and therapy area and that I didn't set out [00:11:30] to to stop that at all. It was a thing that evolved over the years. Um, and I've been given advice about how to choose the books from that by the counsellors and therapists. It started off I had a personal development section, and so many of the counsellors and therapists are women. And they would come in and say, Can you get me this book by so and so? And I would gradually learn that so and so was a significant and often men, the writers, a significant, um, writer in the in the therapy field. And I would start bringing in their books, and it just snowballed. [00:12:00] It grew and grew, and people gave me more advice. Oh, you've got so and so can you get this one as well? And and it just grew. So the customers advised me. Really? Um and now a lot of male therapists and counsellors come in as well and send their their clients here as well and say, Well, look, the women's bookshop will have it. Or if they haven't got it, they'll be very good at getting it for you because we now have a really good reputation for sourcing books and getting special orders for people. Um, so I learned about the therapy section from the [00:12:30] from, um um, the the the client, the customers and and also the professionals in the field. Um, the cookbook section just grew because they sell. So you learn what sells and you reduce what doesn't sell, and you increase what does sell. We sell a a big range of high end cookbooks, beautiful, beautiful, fabulous cook books and and you know women can't resist them sometimes. So we sell those the literary fiction which we sell. And I mean, I have a line where there are writers who [00:13:00] are below the line, and I don't stop them. And it's not just me being a snob. They actually don't sell because our customers read the sort of things I read. I read fiction avidly, and I recommend it and my customers trust what I say about a book. So I put little, little handwritten notes on the books I've read, and I would never say a book was good if it wasn't If I say it's fabulous and I loved it, then it's true and other people usually agree with me. Um, we do stock a lot of the high end fiction by men as well. You know, um, Ian, [00:13:30] M and Sebastian fools and so on but predominantly women. So what we're trying to promote is women. And I do that quite deliberately because I still believe, even though we're now, you know, 2013 that there are. There are basic cultural assumptions out there that are very underlying, and and people often don't recognise them at a conscious level that what men say is more important that what men write is taken [00:14:00] more seriously. I mean, one of the reasons that the women's fiction prize, as it's now called, it's been the Orange Prize. For more than a decade, Um, and Orange have, um, which is a communications company are not sponsoring anymore. So it's just become the women's fiction prize. The reason that was set up was because some of the literary women in Britain did a really detailed investigation of the Booker Prize, and they found that it really did favour men. I mean, occasionally a woman won it, but really, um, there's, uh, an elimination [00:14:30] process at the very beginning and that publishers are limited in the number of books they're allowed to submit for the Booker Prize. And they were submitting their men. So some of the good women didn't even get submitted to start with. But if they did get submitted, they usually didn't win it. And so they set up the Orange Prize, which became, then very controversial because at the time it was worth more. It's still worth £30,000 which has been donated anonymously, and that at that point was worth more than the Booker Prize was worth. So it was very controversial because men weren't eligible for it, of course. But [00:15:00] it was. That was a deliberate, proactive policy to to get women's writing recognised. And, of course, it's just been announced this year. One. It had the biggest short list and, well, not the biggest, the the most prestigious shortlist this year that it's ever had the six finalists were, um, Hillary Mantel. You know, who's just won the Booker Prize? Barbara King Sova, Um, Kate Atkinson and, um a couple of others not so well known, But, um AM Holmes, an American writer [00:15:30] who I feel I haven't done justice to. And I'm going to go back and read some of her backlist because I love the one that won. It's called May We Be Forgiven. It's the most incredible black satire about American society. It's hilarious, but very dark and brilliant. I loved it, and I was thrilled that it won and that it's actually beaten all those big names like, you know, King Solver and Atkinson and, um and Hillary Mantel. So it's and it really does have the effect of promoting women's writing because it's very prestigious. Now it has the same sort of [00:16:00] almost as high a status as the Booker. I'm going off on all sorts of tangents. Talk to me about the space, and I'm wondering, Are there things that you do in this space that make it, um, a women's space? Well, I don't know whether I can quite identify it, but, um, because it's a very small space. And every now and again we we sort of my staff and I roll our eyes and say, Oh, we need a bigger shop. We haven't got enough room, [00:16:30] But one of the effects of having a small space is that it is crammed full and interesting and inviting and enticing. Really, Um, we sometimes feel we can't display things you know well enough because there just isn't enough space to have enough things face out and often spine out and so on. Um, but people do say it's a lovely space and that it feels safe now. I don't quite know how we achieve that. Um, [00:17:00] one of my old drama colleagues from the drama Teaching Days said, Um, well, you're a drama teacher in your bookshop, Really, you you create the space and you invite the participants in. You know, um, I don't know what it is about it, but people do love it. They and and the fact that it's called the Women's Bookshop is interesting. I mean, in some ways, in this day and age, it's an anachronism, and I in some ways I'd love to call it the People's Bookshop because men are welcome and lots of men come. But [00:17:30] I could never do that because it's this huge following of women for whom it is the women's bookshop. And the fact that it is labelled the women's Bookshop makes it a safe space because there are very few places on the face of the Earth that men have to sort of maybe hesitate before they come in. Um, and most men don't. But occasionally a man will stand at the door and say, quite seriously and respectfully, Is it OK if I come in? And I say Thank you for asking? You're most welcome, you know, because the world is, you know, accessible to all men. [00:18:00] It's not necessarily to women. And so the fact that it's labelled a women's space does make it a safe space, and a lot of women meet up here. They say, Oh, meet you at the Women's Bookshop. It's just yeah, and people who come in with problems like women will come here and they'll just be looking and they'll start. They'll ask us a question or two. And sometimes coming to look for a book on relationships, for example, is their first, um, their first step towards dealing with some problem in their life. And so sometimes [00:18:30] you find yourself in a listening role and, uh, in an encouraging role. Well, I wouldn't ever go as far as saying a counselling role because, you know, none of us are trained for that. But we've learned to listen to people and, um, and just guide them. Sometimes occasionally there'll be a woman who come in and wander around the shop and gradually make her way towards the lesbian section. And to actually stand in front of the lesbian section takes quite a lot of courage. So I often will wander over and just quietly in a very unobtrusive way, identify and and make it known [00:19:00] to her without being too obvious that, you know, I'm a lesbian, and it's OK to be here and to be standing here and, you know, yeah. Um, so, yeah, women do feel safe here. Um, and I don't quite know how we've managed that, really, But we certainly have talk to me about some of the the kind of community aspects of of the bookstore. Well, we do. We sell heaps of tickets, and at times it drives us totally crazy. particularly at the time of, um of [00:19:30] hero or it's not hero anymore. What was it called this year? The Pride Pride Pride Festival? Because we ended up with so many tickets that got, you know, got slightly out of hand. Really? But, um, but we do that as a free community service. We don't take a cut on the tickets. We just do it. Um, you know, Sissy Rock runs a runs a women's dance out in West Auckland several times a year. We always sell the tickets for her dance because, um, women who don't live out there who live more central and want to go to the dance can just pop in and buy their tickets. Here, we sell [00:20:00] tickets for the lesbian ball every year. Um, we sell tickets for some, um, gay male events. Um, certainly, in the, uh, the all the gals concerts, for example, we sell tickets for, um the the only complication with it is people have to pay us cash because we can't actually put it through our through our and and um system and so on, because if it goes into our bank account, you get into GST issues and all sorts of things. So we just say we'll do it for cash, and the person we're doing it for has to come regularly and take the cash away, which they do. [00:20:30] Um, it just got a bit confusing. Was it during the pride parade? Because we had so many tickets. I was saying, Now, which one is that? 00, right. And it was sort of taking up our time when we should have really been selling books to customers, but yeah, but I'm happy to do it. I mean, we're a public space that gay and lesbian people can come into and and buy tickets. So that's I will continue to do that. Yeah. What? What impact does something like the Pride festival have on on on your sales here? Oh, none, really. I mean, not very little. Um, [00:21:00] I do always take a bookstore to the big day out, and I do actually sell quite a few books in the park. I always think it's so funny selling books in the park, but, um, but it's worth going. I mean, more than covers my costs. Um, people who come in to buy tickets, buy tickets and leave again. They don't They don't buy books with some of them might occasionally, but it doesn't have a huge impact at all. It is merely a community service, and I think, well, it's a good thing that I can do. I mean, I believe very strongly and running an ethical business. [00:21:30] And I think that what what you do comes back to you in all sorts of different ways. So, um and I mean, that works, though. One of the questions you talked about earlier was the the Volunteers. I mean, we have a lot of women who volunteer to help us, Um, and that's part of that whole community thing as well. Um, we don't do the newsletters as often. We used to do a book choice newsletter really regularly, but it's got so expensive and postage is so expensive that we're doing far more E newsletters [00:22:00] now, which don't require volunteers to help us. But over the years we've had dozens of women who come and we I serve pizza at sort of seven o'clock and Johnny's wonderful pizza from, and I mean we have a glass of wine and we move the move the shelves back in the middle and set big tables out. And we all have a dozen women all sitting around with a glass of wine, all stuffing newsletters into envelopes. Then when we all get hungry, I go and get pizza and we all stop and have pizza. And the conversation is good and the job is boring. But it gets done, and they're very happy to do it. [00:22:30] You mentioned just before about, um, being an ethical retailer. What does being ethical mean to you? Um, being fair, I guess. And, um, not ever, ever doing any business practises that might be the slightest bit, um, at all. Um Oh, it's hard to Yeah, um, I guess I just try and live an ethical life and and, um, and run an ethical business. [00:23:00] And it's hard to explain what I mean by that. Really, Um, like for, for example, we're all we try to all be equal with the staff, like, obviously, I'm the boss, and in the end, it's it's my money and so on, but, um, but we consult with each other. We make we make group decisions. Um, we we're tiny, and we're, you know, the the most. It will be three people involved in making a decision. But, um, the staff are totally involved in the operating of the shop. And, um, [00:23:30] I would always totally trust them to make good decisions and, you know, do the right thing. They'll they'll arrange things in the shop and they'll, um, yeah, and they'll I. I do the buying, but I'll often ask advice from them. I'll consult, particularly with Children and teenage books. I'll say to Tanya. Oh, have you heard of this? Or do you think we should have this or not? And she'll get involved in the in the buying of things when reps come, Um, so it's a sharing. Um, it's a trying to have, um, everyone have a, you know, a similar sort of status as far as you [00:24:00] can. I mean, ultimately, I'm still the boss, I guess. But, um, and and that works for the volunteers as well. I mean, there must be very few businesses where, um, volunteers come in and help us. I mean, we don't do the newsletter anymore, as I say, or we do a very occasional newsletter now, but women still help us run big events like we've got two big events coming up later in the year that we we used to do one every year. We now do two because they're so popular, called ladies literati the afternoon teas with, um, with a whole lot of New Zealand women writers. I'll maybe tell you more [00:24:30] about that. When I finish this point, we have to run that to to serve afternoon tea to 300 people and run the whole event with the big book store out the front and and, um A you know, a large number of authors, a dozen or more authors at a signing table in the in the interval and so on. You need a team of people. And so I have this large team of 10 or a dozen women who will come and just work for me for the whole day. A whole Sunday, um, as volunteers and, um, I give them a book voucher or something to thank them. But they do it because they love [00:25:00] it. And and I I couldn't do a lot of the activities I do without the sort of team of women around me who who are just a fantastic support person, a support group, and they do it because they love it, and they obviously get something out of it, too. But, um, but it's to do with sharing and being fair and involving people. And yeah, so I guess that's what I mean by ethical. They're a bit more about the ladies literati. They, um I mean, it was one of our, um, part time staff Sarah Moore, who came up with a title. [00:25:30] We were just, um, dreaming up this event and she said, It's on a Sunday afternoon afternoon tea. Oh, you have to call it a literati. So it became a lady's liar hyphen TE A, which is a delightful title, And it it is so popular. As soon as word goes out that tickets are on sale sells out. Um, we run them now at the, um Ray Friedman Art Centre at Epsom Girls and that theatre seats about, um, not quite 300. It's actually somewhere over 2 50 but with all [00:26:00] the volunteers and the writers and everyone, there's around about 300 women at the event. So, uh, we we serve, we have about a dozen writers and they all at the first half this half a dozen or so up on stage and I share it and they each get about 20 minutes and then we stop and I try and get a real mix. So we have fiction, poetry, nonfiction, cooking, the whole range range of things, depending the the criteria is you've got to have had a new book published that year. And it, I mean, they keep coming. There are so many new books being published by New Zealand women that are [00:26:30] wonderful. I have to select and drop people out. I can't fit everyone in. It's exciting. I mean, it's a problem, but it's a good problem to have um and so we we line them up for the first half and then we stop halfway through the afternoon and we have this magnificent afternoon tea set out in a a big room. It's actually a big rehearsal room and some girls next door. And we have all these lovely tables set up with nice nice cloths and three tiered cake stands on and the most amazing traditional afternoon tea. Um, things that Grandma would have made, you know, [00:27:00] um, lamingtons and tarts and melting moments and all those those things. And then when we've finished that, we go back into the theatre and have the other half of the women, and it's just fabulous. It sells out. We do two a year now. Well, the first one is the 25th of, um, Sunday afternoon, the 25th of August. And then there's another one on the third of November, and they sell out because they're, you know, it's a wonderful, exciting range of writers accompanied by fabulous food. Hm. [00:27:30] Um, we also do events in the bookshop. Um, and that's when I'm actually doing fewer of those because it's a lot of work and we have to take book shop to bits, basically, and I usually do the food for that. I've got very good at making my famous guacamole. Um, we joke. We say there there are some regulars who come to the bookshop events who come for the guacamole, not the author. But, um um, you know, cheese and and and, [00:28:00] um, you know, nice tapa sort of things and wine and juice. And the publishers usually help pay for that. I do fewer of them now, but, um, I do when? When people ask and and often, I mean, publishers ask me to include their authors in the ladies at, and publishers and authors will ask to have their book launched here. So, um, the only one we've done in the shop this year so far is, um, the launch of Elizabeth Smithers. New poetry book. Um, and she actually asked [00:28:30] if she comes from New Plymouth, and she asked if she could have it launched at the Women's Bookshop. So she's a wonderful writer. I admire her. So I was very honoured that she asked to hold it here. Um, we're doing another poetry event, um, in July and then, um um, other launches throughout the year. And we do have events when there's a new thing out. Sometimes a new book out, and it's very relevant to women. But I'm it's a lot of work, and I'm doing I'm being a bit more selective now about which ones I do. I think I've got to that stage where where [00:29:00] I can be selective and not just do everything that everybody wants because it's so much work. I think Oh, I'm getting old. I'm gonna slow down a bit. The other thing we do is take what I do. Really. It's usually me who goes is take books out to the to the public and you cannot. I think you cannot and and this is, you know, relates to the whole issue of of competition from, um, chain bookstores and from Internet booksellers. And [00:29:30] the whole the whole Internet thing that E readers and so on is that you cannot just sit in a bookshop and assume that people are gonna come to you. A. It has to be an active and exciting place to come to, which is why we still do the events in the shop. Um, but B, we take the books out, so I go particularly to, um, counselling and therapy conferences and other conferences. But it's the counsellors who invite me to come because they know I've got the best range of books and I will import books specifically for their conference, particularly books written by [00:30:00] the keynote speakers. So they're bringing over a very famous international, um, psychotherapist or or a particular type of therapist, and I will import, and it's a reasonable financial risk. Sometimes they sell a return, but usually it's too expensive to send books return books overseas, so I have to gauge the right number and import them in plenty of time for their conference. So I will like this year. I've actually had a really hectic year this year. In 2013, I went to Dunedin for the clinical Psychologist Conference [00:30:30] and imported a lot of Alan Carr's books for that because he was the keynote speaker there. Positive psychology is his one of his key books. Um, and then I went, I've been to the psychotherapist conference here in Auckland at the, um um, I've been to Wellington for the women's studies conference. I've been to Napier. I drove to Napier with a carload of books for the NZ AC conference. That's the Councillors Conference. And then in May we, of course, had the Auckland Writers Festival. Um, and we're involved in the bookstore for that. So it's been absolute hectic first [00:31:00] half of 2013, it's never usually that busy. It's like it felt like everything came at once but me taking the books out there and setting up a A really extensive bookstore is so worth it, particularly for the professionals, it's worth it. It enhances their conference, but it's and it's worth it financially for me. But it's it's so good for them. They see a range of books laid flat on tables that they ah, do you normally stock this and often I do. But it's been spying out on the shop, and, you know, they haven't had time [00:31:30] to spend looking in the shop. So works works always. How do you know your readers so well? How how do you pick the right books? Well, the keynote speaker ones are obvious, but I also I mean, I know that, um, for example, psychotherapists will be, um, much more targeted, whereas counsellors will read more widely and and read a whole range of things and will also buy books that that are relevant for their clients, not just from a professional point of view, but also from a client's [00:32:00] point of view. Um, I just Excuse me. I've just learned over the years I don't know how I know. I mean, they they advise me. They will often say, Make sure you bring so and so um yeah. Make make sure you bring Bruce Perry's books because one of the speakers is gonna recommend born for love, so I'll make sure I've got enough stock of that. Make sure you bring counselling and the law and ethics and practise so they sometimes the conference organisers sometimes advise me. Make sure I've got enough stock of of key books. Um, but [00:32:30] and the women's studies becomes obvious. I take my whole feminist section and and I take a range of of high end women's fiction and I. I took quite a lot of this one or two. Quite funny, wonderful comic sort of things about feminism and women's issues these days. I took those. You take a whole you gear it for the for the audience. We're just going back to to to kind of ethics for a minute. And I'm just wondering, are the books that you would not stock? Oh, yes. So that's a good point. Yes. Um, [00:33:00] there are gay male books. I wouldn't stop because I don't think they're appropriate in a women's bookshop, and they might be fine for men elsewhere, but I wouldn't have them here. Some of them more, um, visual books and some of the, you know, lending towards soft porn sort of books. I wouldn't stop. Also, with the women's one, there are one or two women's ones that sort of are tending towards soft porn. That I wouldn't I wouldn't stock either. And I can choose to stop that or not stock stock or not stop them. So to some extent, you're a gatekeeper. Um um, [00:33:30] but yeah, maybe you're more of a, um AAA selector of I mean I. I think that's why it's so important to have a whole range of small, independent bookshops where the passions of the individual owners are are there and and, you know, the focus is different. I mean, the focus at Unity books is much more on on writing by men because they're right in the middle of the city and they get a lot of of business men there in lunch hours and things. They know far more about male writers than I do. And I know far more about women writers [00:34:00] than they do, which is why we work together so well for the writers festival, I think, but, um, there have been, um I mean, there was a book about, um, women that some guy wrote, and I can't remember his name now that we got asked for the female something I I forget. But a man had written it, and it was it was a misogynist book. I mean, it was it was really antiwomen, and I just refused to stop it, and I would say, No, I don't stock it. There's another one we had, Um, we didn't have I refused to stock That was really popular [00:34:30] for a while, and it was about I can't remember his name Now. It was about a white woman who went and lived with Aboriginal people in Australia and wrote this book, and the Aboriginal people objected to it, and so I wouldn't stock it and people would ask and ask, and I would say, Well, um, I don't stock it because aboriginal people objected to their culture being interpreted through a white woman's eyes, you know? And yeah, so I do. I do make decisions about what? Not to stock, and I don't stop Dan Brown. [00:35:00] Why would I bother everyone at all? The big chains are are, um are, you know, slashing the price on them and having a price, war and competing. And I haven't been asked for him. That's really good, isn't it? I did in the end have to stop the 50 shades of grey we resisted to start with. And I was just It's total. Um what can I use a polite word for it, You know, total nonsense, really. But it was so popular that in the end I had to stock it. And [00:35:30] so we had a little phase of a few months where we sold all of the 50 shades of whatever, um, handover fist. And then it went out of fashion, and we don't stock it anymore. Interestingly, there's a wonderful feminist book now called 50 Shades of Feminism that had deliberately has a grey cover. And they've got 50 of the most famous feminist writers in the world to each write a very short piece about feminism now. And it's wonderful. It's funny and entertaining, and it's a brilliant take on that whole 50 shades of grey. Um, you know, cult [00:36:00] hit sort of phenomenon. But so sometimes I'm forced to take things that I would prefer not to. Yeah, because I'd be mad not to make money out of it. Basically, yeah. Can I just go back to working with Unity Books um on the Auckland Writers Festival because I think it's a wonderful example of cooperation between two businesses that could be seen as rivals. And I think it ties into the question of ethics and it ties into the whole sharing thing. Um, [00:36:30] the book, the Auckland Writers Festival, is a huge success, and I'm on the board of that festival. So I sat around Stephanie Johnson's kitchen table. You know, more than a decade ago where we discussed all the ideas with Peter Wells and others, and, um, and it's now this huge phenomenon. It's wonderful. It's so exciting. But the bookstore is ginormous. It's so big that it can't what's never been able to be managed by one shop. We've always done it between us, and we run. We actually operate a separate bookstore that is the Auckland [00:37:00] Writers Festival bookstore, and I do half the ordering, and Carol and Unity does half the ordering, and we we literally do half the work each and it's a It's a cooperative store that we run that where we work together and we have lots of meetings. Carol and I to um to decide how many books of each author we're going to get and how many events they're in and where, where the books have to go. So there's a huge logistical exercise in the quantity of books, but also where they're going to go because there are multiple venues, [00:37:30] the centre, but also the art gallery and restaurants and hotels and all sorts of places. Um, and that is a huge, huge undertaking, and we do it together cooperatively. And I think it's a marvellous example of of two businesses that could be competitive, actually working very cooperatively for the benefit of each other and the festival. And and we sold a lot of books at this festival. It was wonderful. You mentioned just earlier about, um, independent stores and also maybe the larger chain stores. Where [00:38:00] does something like the Women's Bookshop fit in with the other larger chain stores? Well, we're tiny, and we can't compete with them on, um, on the price discounting that they do so we compete with them on good service. Um, I think there's no doubt that the informed customers know that the small, independent bookshops, the good ones, have staff who actually read and who can help them choose books and and who provide good service and all [00:38:30] those things that in fact, in a big chain store you don't get. I mean, it's interesting that borders collapse not just in New Zealand, but internationally. There is no borders chain in the States now, I think, because so often they're just about they're a business operation. They're about making money. They're about the bottom line. They're not about anybody loving books that, um that that's their weak point. Really, the fact that we love books and we might be very tiny, but we we can, um, talk to people about the books we read. We can recommend I have book clubs, come to the shop in the evenings, and I will talk to them about all [00:39:00] the new fiction that I've read. And they will choose books for for their reading for the rest of the year. Um, and I can have it on our books for ages. Um, I do actually review a lot as well. That helps. I review on National radio and Catherine Ryan about once a once a month, and then I do a a TV programme with Lindsay Dawson. Let's talk on, um, face TV it used to be Triangle TV. It's now face TV and I do that once a week and those are live. Um uh you know, um, broadcasts [00:39:30] of me reviewing box live are available on our website and on on YouTube, obviously, and on our Facebook site. So there's me reviewing the box live, which is great. So I'm very good at talking about the books I've read and that that helps our customers. There would be very few staff in large change stores anywhere in the world who could do that. So it's one of our advantages. We also when goes to great lengths to find books for people that are obscure and difficult to get, and she will find them for them. So we take the time to find special orders for [00:40:00] people we've got into the whole technology thing as well, because, um I mean, I think we don't make any money out of it out of ebooks or out of selling E readers. But we sell Cobo E readers, and, um, the reality is people are gonna buy kindles. Every cobo that I sell is someone who hasn't bought a kindle, and that's a good thing because Kindle is linked to Amazon and Amazon really are the enemy. I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair last year and there was a two day international booksellers conference held within the Frankfurt Book Fair [00:40:30] that I was at. And there were all sorts of countries, you know, from Latvia to I mean, not just not just America and Australia and New Zealand and Canada and so on. But there were Russia and Latvia and all sorts of European countries, and so on. Large number of countries, um, wide range of countries represented there that at that international conference and one of the discussion topics was what is the biggest threat to your industry and with or to your independent book, the Independent Bookshops in your country and without fail? It was Amazon in every single country [00:41:00] in the world, even the countries where Amazon hasn't quite got there yet. They said they know Amazon is coming, and Amazon is the biggest threat. They're using books as lost leaders so they can sell gum, boots and anything else. Um, they're quite unethical in what they do. They encourage people, they reward people for going into bookshops, real bookshops with their smartphone taking a photograph of the of the, um, bar code on the back of the book and then ordering it through Amazon. And they get they they get a discount if they do that. So it it is a very unethical business practise. So, um, I am quite [00:41:30] public about my, um, opposition to Amazon and kindles are linked to Amazon. So I sell Cobos and say Cobos have and And you can just click on the Cobo button on the top left hand corner of our website go into 3 million titles, which is at least as many, if not more, than what Amazon have got. And they are an ethical company. And you can you can download, um, Cobo apps onto your, um Sony E Reader or your, um, iPad or whatever. And you've got access [00:42:00] to this vast, vast, um, library of books. You know, um, 3 million books that you can buy and they're a much more ethical company than than Amazon. I mean, I we're not gonna make any money out of ebooks, but I think we have to be up with the play. They are a reality. I don't think that um real books are going to disappear at all. But there's going to be different ways of accessing the material, and you're gonna either read it in a real book or you're going to read it on a little screen. So we have to be involved in that and provide that service [00:42:30] for our customers. We also have to be seen to be up with the play where we're you know, we're up there with the big boys on a very small scale. Why do you think, um, physical books won't disappear? Well, they might long term long after I'm dead. I don't know when there are enough generations of kids who've grown up only with screens, but, um, there are at the moment too many people who just love real books and who will do a compromise. I know a lot of people have got both, and they particularly love their E readers when they're travelling. I mean, it's perfect. You're sitting on a plane [00:43:00] and you've got, you know, 50 books on your on your, um, Cobo E reader or on your your iPad or whatever, and you don't have to carry any books with you. It's perfect. I will do the same. When I travel, I'll take a Cobo E reader with me, but actually in bed at night, reading a book. I want a real book and a lot of people love the feel and the smell of books and want to be able to just turn the page and mark where they were. Go back and find something and mark it with a pencil. And yeah, it's interesting. I mean, [00:43:30] eventually, who knows what will happen? I do think we're in the middle of a revolution. Um, it's a bit like the printing press, you know, But, um, yeah, it'll be way in the future when enough generations of kids have grown up only with screens, not with not with paper books, I think. And I got so used to screens that doesn't occur to them to read any other way. But that's a long way off still, and until then I mean, I'll be dead by then. I feel as I'll be a bookseller long enough before it all happens, and then I'll either have died behind the counter saying Hang on, hang on. I haven't finished [00:44:00] the chapter or not that I read in the shop, but, um, I don't have time, but, um, yeah, yeah. Do you find that, uh, a lot of people come into the store, browse, but then actually go and order somewhere else? I mean, is that I'm sure that happens. I'm sure that happens. They browse and they go and order from Amazon or whoever. Yeah, um, and they they sometimes don't understand that we're an online bookshop. They will say, if we haven't got it, they say, Oh, I'll get it online. And I said, But [00:44:30] we've got an online bookshop. We can get it as quickly for you as going online. We're online as well, and they don't quite understand. They think of online as being Amazon or somewhere. You know, Um and, um, I mean, all our books are online. We have a really good database, and we we're actually linked to on a system called Circle System that is developed in New Zealand for small, independent bookshops. And it's an excellent system because it's linked directly to Neil and book data, which is the international database of everything in print and English in the world [00:45:00] that most booksellers internationally use. It's linked to that So, uh, someone asked me for a book. I haven't got it. I go into Nielsen, I copy and paste the ISBN onto my system. Click a button and it pulls it over from Nielsen onto my database and puts it straight up onto my website with a picture of the cover. In most cases, a picture of the cover and a blurb about the book. And it's on my website. And so everything's online and you can order online from our website, and we do get a lot of orders every day. And so it's, [00:45:30] um, a small but important percentage of our business. Um, we will see. I mean, there's some you can see some yellow courier bags sitting down there. Now we use those yellow padded courier bags, and we will send out often a part of those every day all over New Zealand. And sometimes I have to take things down to the post office, too. There's international stuff as well. New Zealand books that overseas people can't get over there and so on. Um, are you finding a lot of international orders coming in for New Zealand? A. Few, Not not a huge amount, but Yeah, enough [00:46:00] Enough. That's, you know, it's another little tiny portion of our business. Yeah, uh, varies incredibly, but And the Internet orders vary incredibly, the online orders. Some days we'll have, you know, a dozen. Some days we'll have only two or three. It varies hugely, Um, but it's it's important, and it's a good service that we provide, and we can get things as quickly as not as cheaply as Amazon. I mean, I'm on the I. Well, I'm leaving now, but I have been on the board of Booksellers New Zealand for a long time, and [00:46:30] one of the issues that we booksellers New Zealand as an association and Lincoln go the the CEO there is fighting is the whole GST issue, and we're trying to get the government, and there is some movement on it. Get the government to start charging GST on small things that come into the country, because at the moment, it's an unfair playing field. If you order from Amazon, uh, they they're not. There's no GST on the book, so it's going to be cheaper than I can provide it, because I have to charge GST. So, um, once that playing field is IED out, and it will [00:47:00] take a few years, I think, to finally become law. But it will happen eventually that because the government is losing out on a huge amount of money by all the small things, not just books, but all sorts of stuff coming in, um, from overseas, with no GST on it. So it's quite a big, important political and economic issue that we're fighting as booksellers, New Zealand Association. Are there many independent booksellers still in New Zealand? Not as many as there were, but there are still some good ones, Um [00:47:30] in Wellington and Auckland, particularly, I think we have, I mean, unity Books in Wellington is is magnificent. The Auckland one is great, too, but the Wellington one, particularly just because it's so spacious. It's just fabulous. But there are good ones there. There's time out in Mount Eden. Um, there are lots of lots of good small ones. Um, prices in just closed down. I think. I think in smaller areas they're finding it more difficult. Um, and there aren't so many in Christchurch, obviously since the earthquake. But you've still got Scorpio [00:48:00] and and one or two good ones in Christchurch. So, um yeah, we're a bit thin on the ground, but I think the ones who are still there we're there because what we do, we do very well. And we're passionate about what we do. And if you're committed and the owner operator needs to be there and be involved and be hands on and passionate about what they're doing and be a reader, and then I think I think those ones survive. And where does your passion for books come from? Well, I was [00:48:30] an English teacher, I guess. Um, and and I did an English degree, obviously. And I and I taught drama. Um, I don't know. I've just as an adult always read. Um, I don't particularly remember that we had a lot of books in my household as a child. Um, but certainly, you know, I had masses of Children's books for my kids and and I now have this total joy of a two year old grandson who walks into my apartment now and says, uh, read books. Nana read books. Nana. It's the first thing, and he's mad [00:49:00] keen on books, and he's got to the point at two and a quarter where he can read some of the pages to me because they're so familiar now, particularly the ones with rhythm. He will. He will. I'll open the book and he will read me the first page. You know, it's wonderful. So he's a kid growing up with with real books? Not not eBooks. Um, I don't know. I've just read good fiction all my adult life. I guess, um And I think back, you know, that there's such good teenage fiction now. But when [00:49:30] I was a teacher of English all those years ago, 25 years ago, um, there was such a limited range of books. Now I think it would be wonderful to be an English teacher now and have these fabulous novels that you can you can teach to teenagers that are, um, just inspiring and at their level, their interest level, you know, really interesting, well written stuff. It's a huge, vast range of it out there. Um, Mandy ha is writing some of that some some good New Zealand writers who are writing really good issues [00:50:00] and interesting topics for for kids to discuss that those books weren't there when I was teaching English all those years ago, I used to search for them, but, um, I don't know. I guess I've I've always loved books. I'm wondering, can you talk a wee bit more about the relationship between, um, the bookshop and women writers in New Zealand? Right. But I, I do see one of my roles is to promote women writers, New Zealand women writers particularly. And they understand [00:50:30] that and appreciate it. I think, um, we have fantastic writers here if you think of of, um uh, Fiona Farrell and down in Banks Peninsula. And I mean the broken book is what? That where she was writing about travelling. And then the Christchurch earthquake happened. And she broke the text up with these poems all the way through about the earthquake that were stories that that earthquake survivors told her, um, and they they appear through. They break up the text like aftershocks. It's just [00:51:00] the most wonderful book. Fiona Farrell is a total gem. And then Fiona Kidman in Wellington. Wonderful writer. She's got another new novel coming out later this year about Jean Batton. Um uh Stephanie Johnson, who I think is often underrated, doesn't get as much publicity as she should. She's a marvellous writer. She wrote a historical New Zealand novel last year called The Open World, and this year has written this hilarious, wonderful novel called The Writing Class, which anybody writers listening to this should should buy because it's [00:51:30] a novel that works beautifully as a novel. But the main character is a tutor and who runs a writing class, and the novel teaches you how to write a novel wonderfully clever. So we we have a whole range of of, um, of novelists and nonfiction writers and poets and poets like the wonderful Paula Green. Um so I I do very much see my role as, um, giving the New Zealand writers a voice. I mean, through through the events that I run, having [00:52:00] launching their books in the shop or having them as taking part in the, um, in the ladies literati, Um, but also making sure that they have a good space in the shop, that I read their books and I'll write my comments on them and I will encourage people to buy them. I'm just about to read, um, the elusive language of ducks with an incredible title by Judith White. It's just arrived in store, and I It's my next book on my power to read so that I can talk to people about this new New Zealand book. So I make a point of reading the the the novels that [00:52:30] New Zealand women write and recommending them to people if I really like them. It's an important role that I play. I think How big is your pile of books? Oh, someone once described in my bedroom as a New York skyline pile teetering piles, um, and I. I never have enough bookshelves, but, um, and I and every now and again I have a slight sense of panic that there's so many books I can't ever read them all. And I it's not fair to the women I can't read. And I think so. You know, whether [00:53:00] I read them or not. It is not that important in the great scheme of things, but, um yeah, I. I don't read fast enough. I wish I could get through them faster, really. But, um, picking and choosing is sometimes difficult, but it But it gets dictated like I've got. Eleanor Katon is another wonderful, very young New Zealand writer. Her new novel, I've Got a Reading copy of Already. It's not coming out till later in the year, The luminary, but it's 800 pages. It's sitting by my bed, and I know I've still got quite a few weeks before it hits the shelves. So I've got time to read. There's 800 [00:53:30] pages, but I will read the elusive language of ducks by Judith White right now because it's just arrived in the bookshop and so that that dictates the order in which I read them. Um, I'll try and read stuff, you know that's coming imminently or has already arrived. And publishers give us lots of advanced reading copies of things because they know and they do that with a lot of the good independence. They know that if the good booksellers read them and like them and recommend them to customers, there's still that hand selling thing goes on, you know, [00:54:00] can't beat it. Do you think it's easier now for women in New Zealand to be published? It has been, but it's gonna get harder because there's this whole revolution going on with the publishers and they're moving to Australia. Um, Harper Collins have just announced they're actually going in July this year, Um, penguin and random, emerging internationally and becoming one company Penguins Warehouse is already in Australia, and it's quite likely, I mean, it's possible that Random Houses [00:54:30] warehouse will move there, too. McMillan moved there last year, and there's just a fear about what will happen to the publishing arms of those New Zealand publishers. Um, hopefully, there will still be editorial teams for Penguin and random still in New Zealand, but I fear that it might be actually harder. They're only going to be able to publish things that they're pretty sure are going to sell because it has to be commercially viable. So I'm not sure how how the future looks really for for New Zealand publishing in general, [00:55:00] not just women's books. I think we have to be careful. We have. We have a unique voice. We actually publish brilliant nonfiction stuff. If you look at the The Book Awards every year, the New Zealand Post Book Awards um, the fiction and poetry is fantastic, but there's a huge range of stunningly beautiful nonfiction books. We're very good at publishing, and we we need to preserve that Well, I wonder just in in kind of finishing off if, uh, you could tell me where you think the [00:55:30] women's bookshop is going or you know what? What? What is the future of the women's bookshop? Well, I do wonder if it has a long, long term future. I don't know. Um, someone once, um, a businessman once said that, um, you know, tiny businesses only only start to make money once they have at least a minimum of three shops. And so you need to get some other branches and have three shops. And in the discussion we were having another woman [00:56:00] said, But you can't clone Carol. So to some extent, it is a personality driven business. Um, but I'm sure there are wonderful women out there who could take over from me. I don't know. I have friends who say I should have an exit plan. I have no exit plan. Apart from dying, Um um I don't know, Um, I My main aim for the future is to keep going to keep surviving and, um, keep being a flourishing tiny little bookshop. [00:56:30] And I think there's a good chance that as long as I'm fit and healthy. And for the next few years we can achieve that. What will happen after that? I don't know, really, whether, um with the long term, there's a future for a women's bookshop at all. Silver Moon was the bookshop in London, Silver Moon I. I talked earlier about the the famous Women's Bookshop in London. It was called Silver Moon. It was in Charing Cross Road. It was there for a very long time. That was the one that moved to Foyle and then closed down. Um, so [00:57:00] I mean, I feel I do feel as though if Silver Moon closed down and eventually there is no place for women's bookshops, who knows? Because I mean the feminist movement is is is strong again. So, um, and there are young women now who are who are quite active as young feminists who are not just taking for granted some of the privileges that they've got that they don't even understand that my generation fought for, um so I I do. I do think there's a continued need [00:57:30] to make sure that women's voices are heard because we still do basically live in a male dominated society where men are taken more seriously and and it's as I said before, it's sort of underlying probably unconscious, sort of assumption that's made. But, um so I believe there is still a place for women's bookshops. But whether whether we'll survive long, long term, after I'm dead, I don't know.
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