Sour article “Beware the behemoths” (July 14) draws a direct parallel of the crisis independent bookstores face in the United Kingdom with the situation in South Africa. I would argue that these contexts are so vastly different in nature that drawing a parallel is not only unfair but simplistic and seriously flawed.
It is true that Exclusive Books is the biggest book chain in South Africa. But big, on its own, can hardly mean bad news. It means that more books, and more South African books in particular, are available at more places than ever before in South Africa’s history. Still, even as a chain that is 40-shops strong, we do not abuse our position. In the main, we do not buy books centrally. (Overseas, central book buying has been blamed for the dominance of a few bestsellers and thus compromising range.) In the UK, the deep discounting of bestsellers by book chains has stripped independent stores of their bread and butter. At Exclusive Books, our primary focus is on range, rather than volume — exactly the opposite to the UK. We are happy to share malls with independent bookstores.
The threat to independent stores in the UK (I presume here that you refer to the Waterstones’ Ottakars buy-out as the prime example) is simply not relevant here. There are no takeover bids, swallowing of small stores into our chain. Our enormous challenges in South Africa are the dire lack of reading culture, a dwindling reading population, low library subsidies, youth who choose technology over books, distribution of books in all South African languages … I really doubt that even the smallest of South African bookshops would cite “behemoth behaviour” as the primary threat to their survival. In fact I would argue that the threat to their survival is entirely the same as ours. We need more readers. We need more libraries. We need well-stocked libraries. And a drive to encourage people to use those libraries.
In South Africa, Exclusive Books caters for different markets, needs and geographical locations from independent stores and, I think, happily so. The relationship between us and many of the independent stores is friendly and supportive, and in many ways unheard of in any other industry. I really do not believe that there exists a “them-us” relationship. The reality is, that with the demise of an effective mass book retailer (whose demise is in no way a result of behemoth behaviour by Exclusive Books, I might add), it means that a range of booksellers, including Exclusive Books, is necessary and vital for a vibrant book culture.
We applaud the work of independent bookstores in this country, and in fact, it is they who get a good range of books to areas we would not have the resources to access. We really do want more books in more people’s hands, almost despite good business sense at times.
Also unheard of for a retail chain of our size, is the level of independence Exclusive Books store managers retain over their stores. Each store manager selects his or her own range of books, a range tailormade for their market. Although national promotions such as Homebru are centralised and every store participates, many campaigns are driven solely by one shop for their shop (such as a recent mind-body-spirit festival in Tygervalley).
For me, resorting to an oversimplification of the problems facing books in South Africa prejudices the chances of correcting the real and urgent ones. Planting a seed of discontent over a concern that is not a real and imminent danger (like behemoth behaviour) is irresponsible, given the many real challenges we face to reading and books in South Africa. As important as it is to focus on our challenges, harping on this one distracts policymakers from the very real and pressing issues that demand immediate attention.
Batya Green is the marketing manager for Exclusive Books