Luke Johnson - Chairman of Borders UK & Risk Capital Partners

Somewhat of an interesting person to give a key note to booksellers. Self confessed ‘Unrepentant Capitalist’ Luke who bought Borders last year seems an odd fit with a book trade more used to calling itself ‘Reluctant Capitalists’.

He has been given 20 minutes to talk on books and bookselling. This is his first BA conference after buying Borders and his talk started with what could be seen as a statement about how much he loves books and understands the important culture of books. Perhaps aware of the trade’s questioning looks.

He feels that Borders brand is underexploited, and that there is room for more competition online. That books are coping relatively well with the new environment as opposed to television, newspapers and other entertainment industries.

Safe, remarkably stable, growing market - he sees the book trade as pretty stable compared to many other trades. Odd given the pressures highlighted by BML and Henley Center this morning.

He gave a very superficial overview of different outlets selling titles and claimed that supermarkets aren’t a threat, because we can offer a social experience - [that said this changes the economies for us as independents] he moaned that supermarkets sell coffee for more than books [don't Borders have Starbucks?]. Borders.co.uk to launch in a ‘number of weeks’ - with communities around their stores.

“Surely printed paper is at the heart of what a bookshop is” we should explore own published titles, and create live experiences different from the internet. None of us want to spend our lives online [ref back to Henley earlier that the two are blurring!]

Borders staff are at the heart of the business because they can earn equity in the business. Browsing online you don’t get the serendipity of finding titles you can find in a bookshop ‘we very much look forward to our new web site’.

[Odd talk to be honest - wasn't very sure where he was headed. He read it and meandered all over the place, just on the topic of books - if this is the book world's 'key note' then I fear that we're looking to the past rather than really embracing the future, as the 'note' was pretty much 'more of the same' and that books is a model that works just fine. He fell back on the 'unique staff book loan system' Borders has and that there could be friendships between booksellers and book buyers - this is all fine as far as it goes, and you don't need to be jumping at eBooks to try to grasp the future - however this wasn't it.

In a way I wanted to see the unrepentant capitalist in him - this just sounded like he'd bought into bookselling because he's a book collector - he just went an extra step. Man with a vision - not sure.]

Summary of the key points from the Presidential Address from Graham Rand:

More than a nod to the independence of the trade
Small unit growth and low cash growth - but better than a decline
We should take urgent steps to ensure we are environmentally friendly as a trade, from bags to books
Strong emphasis that any moves to ‘firm sale’ cannot be unilateral and must be agreed across the trade, to ensure fewer books aren’t stocked. Recognise that overselling as well as over buying are issues.

How and where will book sales be made during the current economic climate. We don’t know what the pattern in book sales will be in this recession. In all our interests for independents to survive and one of the best ways to do that is via wholesale (nb. Graham works at Bertram’s) although this was said with suitable self awareness.

Short period of publication pre-Christmas questioned. We could also try to make a profit - by not cutting prices to nothing. How we expect the public to value books if we don’t.

Digitalisation - more will be sold in the future, but any other answers than that is we really don’t know. It is being taken seriously though. The BA has now commissioned a new report into what it all needs (following the previous excellent ones).

Move this year from the paper book token to the electronic voucher later this year.

I’ve read many a blog that posts from the most exciting tech. conferences in the US. I’m not 100% sure it qualifies but I’m going to be blogging almost live from the 2008 Booksellers’ Association conference in Brighton UK!

This year actually has a good line up and quite a bit about the web and social networking so very relevant for BookRabbit and also good to get some new perspectives. I’m taking part in the last session - a sort of group pitch on ‘the next big thing’.

Next post from me - Brighton!