It’s not easy being an independent publisher right now. We’re not the first small publishing house to point this out – it’s a regular theme on Twitter, and a pressing concern for a lot of small businesses – but we thought we’d give our take on just why selling books has got so much harder over the past few years.
We see three contributing factors, each of which is putting a squeeze on our market.
- Brexit. And yes, it was always going to be a disaster, despite the blind faith and beflagged exceptionalism of its true believers. Since Brexit, our sales to Europe (previously as easy as posting to Edinburgh or Exeter) have dwindled to nothing. We now warn those few customers who still try to buy from us that they may well get asked to pay a substantial customs duty when their book arrives. Salt Publishing have done an excellent thread on Twitter about just what a royal pain this now is, and you can read that here.
- Social media algorithms. There’s surely a valuable lesson about the wisdom (or not) of leaving social media platforms in the hands of men who are richer than Croesus, yet hunger for more. We can remember when posts from a small publisher on Facebook would be seen by anyone who’d chosen to follow our account. Over the years, it’s grown incrementally more difficult to reach potential customers, and we long since stopped using the Ignite FB page, as the hoops we needed to jump through grew ever more onerous. Twitter is now run by a man-baby whose every move makes his platform less attractive, and we have neither the time nor the inclination to keep working out how to mitigate the effects of his latest changes on our business, or where we’ll find the loophole which will mean folk actually see our posts. All we want to do is sell books. This should be simple.
- The cost of living crisis. This is the big one. If your landlord has raised your rent, or your mortgage has gone up, you’re less likely to have money to spend on books. If your gas bill has gone through the roof while your wages haven’t, heating your house takes priority over visiting a bookshop. If food costs more, where’s your spare cash for treats? We could go on, but you get the point. Unless you believe that books should only be read (and written) by wealthy people who are insulated from the financial difficulties so many folk find themselves in, then this needs addressing. Sadly, our major political parties seem to have no interest whatsoever in doing so.
Those are the clouds. They’re big, and getting bigger. But we wouldn’t be in this if we didn’t keep our eye peeled for silver linings. And they are there. They’re the networks we build. The authors we work with. The stories we hear. Community-organised events like Margate Bookie. Dynamic individuals – like author and librarian Stu Hennigan – who do so much to promote independent publishing. And above all, there’s the feedback from our readers. You have no idea how much it means to hear from someone who’s taken the time to email us to let us know the book they read has moved them. That’s what it’s all about, and long may it continue to be so.