Four Months After Opening a Bookshop, What Have I Learnt?

It seems incredible that it is just over four months since I launched The Book Room. Some of you will have been on my journey from the beginning since owning a bookshop was but a seed of an idea and started with a wing, a prayer and a credit card. I have shared every cough and spit of it with you (which sounds pretty unhygienic in these Covid times), but still, you know what I mean, you’ve seen me face challenges, make mistakes, and you’ve shared in my lowest lows and my highest highs.

This month, I’m pleased to report, has been a highlight. My debt of thanks must go to Fleet, the publishers of HAGS, who picked The Book Room for a special promotion. Why me? I asked (while biting their hand off!), I’m still not sure, but it has been wonderful not only in terms of sales, but bringing new customers to my online shop (hi all – so happy to have you here!). The deal was that for each copy of HAGS I sold, I would give out an exclusive hag badge, and I’ve sold 130-odd at last count (there are still some left).

While I was grateful for every single sale, it wasn’t without its challenges. For example, I had dozens and dozens of orders but what was I going to post all these books out in? I wanted something that would keep the books safe but also be environmentally friendly. I found some great envelopes that were not only waterproof but made from recycled material, but I wanted them to be printed with The Book Room logo, and that was only possible with the envelopes that weren’t waterproof. Gah!

So I got myself a stamp made and set up a ‘printing factory’ on my breakfast bar and quickly covered myself in black ink – which I can assure you is not conducive to handling books (note to self: let the ink dry first).

In the middle of my little two-up, two-down is another room which is my ‘quiet’ living room and home to my library which makes this council-estate girl sound awfully posh but means in reality, I don’t have to listen to hours of Wednesday, or Bluey, or worse still my 10-year-old daughter and her mates playing Roblox in the front room. I cannot see my own books now because all the stock I left the pop-up shop with is stacked in boxes in front of my own bookshelves, each box numbered so that when I get an order I know where to find it which makes me feel like an organised person for perhaps the first time in my entire life.

Next up, postage. Thirty-plus parcels were leaving my house every day a week or so ago, and you should have seen the human-chain that took place in my living room: me and my mum and two Royal Mail postmen in their hi-vis peeling off stickers and fixing them on each parcel and then scanning them ready for the tracked 48-hour delivery.

This is the reality of life running The Book Room as a one-woman band (not counting Mum and the postmen). But you know what, I’ve finally got orders licked, and I’m really proud of how far I’ve come, and it’s been incredibly exciting.

The other thing I did last week was the poetry event with Henry Normal which was a great success. I sold 25 copies of his new poetry collection, THE FIRE HILLS, but my first event also posed new problems, for example how many books do you order from the distributor? Not enough and you’ll miss out on sales and disappoint people, too many and you have to send them all back. It was a complete dilemma.

It was great to sell out of all the launch books, and I bought the last one, so I didn’t leave any customers without their own copy. But I ordered ten copies each of his COLLECTED POEMS: VOLUME ONE and VOLUME TWO, yet I only sold two of those, so now I need to pay to post eighteen back to the distributor, which of course eats into profit from the night, but my approach to this is the same as it’s always been – it really is a case of suck it and see (why do all these expressions sound so unhygienic now?!).

So what’s next? Well, suck it and see is the approach I will be continuing with… People have been asking me if there is any news on getting a shop, but honestly, I’m so busy with lots of other exciting additions to The Book Room that I haven’t had time to focus on that recently.

Here are a few of the new and exciting things coming up:

Firstly, paid subscriptions to this newsletter now get ten per cent off all The Book Room purchases. That’s something new I’ve added, and you can subscribe for £5 a month here:

Tomorrow, I will be announcing my new The Book Room Book Club, a subscription book club that I think you’ll love the sound of and it’ll mean we can all get together online once a month – we can meet in real life, or at least, the virtual world.

Next week, I’ll be sharing details with you of The Book Room’s new writing retreats, these are for working writers, aspiring writers, or avid readers. Each retreat in the 2023 programme comes with a brilliant author attached and I know you’ll love them and I hope to meet many of you there.

Due to the success of the HAGS promotion, I’ve also got another exclusive promotion coming up in April … more details to come, top secret for now, but music fans keep your eyes and ears peeled.

Also, don’t forget I’ve also now started doing gift cards, send me a custom order if you would like to buy one and I will personalise it for the recipient.

Plus, look out for The Book Room appearing at festivals soon as bookseller, I’m in talks about that this week, and hope to grow that area of the business steadily.

And, remember how customers to The Book Room pop-up were lucky enough to – quite literally – bag a cotton tote bag? Well now, if you would like to support The Book Room and sport one of my cotton tote bags, you can buy them on the website – tell the world you support an indie and help spread the word about your favourite bookshop, honestly all the cool kids have one!

And of course, I am in the middle of writing a book at the moment, my ‘day job’ still being writer of books.

So phew, four and a half months in, this is the reality of life as a new indie bookshop. I’ve been loving every minute of it, every challenge, and I’m excited about where we go next.

As always, thank you for all your support.

• Thank you to all who have been ordering from my online bookshop in the last week. Remember you can still support THE BOOK ROOM while I am waiting to open my physical store again by shopping online, in fact now I would appreciate the support more than ever. I can order ANY BOOK for you and you will receive it within 48 hours. It has never been a more important time to support both writers and independents bookshops, and by buying from me, you are doing both and contributing to a vital ecosystem.