What has triggered this blog is more nostalgic than anything else after me seeing a small paragraph in the News in Brief section in the Times Newspaper Business Markets Section on Thursday 6th April 2023.
To be honest I was surprised that just a short few words
were used to announce the closure of the Gloucester based Book Depository which
was such a truly entrepreneurial business. Last orders for the Book Depository will
be accepted on the 26th April 2023 but you can already see from their website potential
new orders are being directed to AbeBooks another Amazon subsidiary with their
Head Office in Canada. This is the closure of yet another exceptional British business
due to the need to shrink the size of a large American corporation with them
deciding that the British subsidiary should be a casualty. What is particularly
sad for me is that I have a lot of time both for Amazon, as a truly
entrepreneurial business, and for the Book Depository which was established implementing
its own unique entrepreneurial culture. But what makes it more nostalgic for me
is I worked alongside one of the Book Depository’s founders, Stuart Felton,
when we worked together at a company called Stoneridge Pollak in Cheltenham,
United Kingdom. Stuart Felton, along with Andrew Crawford (See write up later),
are often acknowledged as the founders of the Book Depository with Stuart going
on to grow the business as the Chief Operating Officer from September 2004 to
December 2015.
Let me first declare my own obsession with book
publication and printing. I have spent much of my life both printing using letterpress,
Gestetner rotary devices and lithographical printers. I acquired the skills in
all these printing technologies although being honest I really struggled with
lithographic printing. Having my own lithographic printer in my garage at home
was never easy particularly where the process is so temperature dependant in
the matching of water to ink consistency. This resulted in me deciding on an
early move towards digital printing buying a top of the range HP Two Side
printer for several thousands of pounds. But I never budgeted for the cost of
the four colour cartridges which were large disposable engineered plastic devices
in their own right. In 2000 digital printing was a costly affair and it remains
so to this day.
At the same time as printing I was creating and
publishing books using a variety of software packages from the ZX Spectrum
through to the PC. I have also attempted twice to create my own software based
book publishing packages outputting to laser printers. With page numbering and
printing on both sides and varying book sizes making this a complicated
software package where the underlying data design is both critical and
complicated without even touching the complexity of driving a Laser Printer
particularly if looking to do automated two sided printing.
Firstly with Barry Walker coding my design in a PC
Database Package called DataEase in the 1980’s. (This DataEase package still
exists in 2023 !!!!). Then in the late 1990’s with Dawn Baggott coding a design
of mine in Visual Basic (VB) over an XML database to create a software product
we called ActivePublisher. Neither had any commercial take up so they were
abandoned although ActivePublisher looked like it might establish itself in
estate agents and second hand car sales. In the case of ActivePublisher we made
a technical strategy error and we should have made it a website development
rather than a standalone PC development. In fact its use of XML as its data language
was very entrepreneurial producing the whole format of a book in XML
essentially a forerunner to the ePub (EPUB) data file standard. Into the 2000’s
I continued to experiment with packages written by the Open Systems community having
lost access to friends programming capabilities and being unable to justify the
purchase of the available PC commercial packages.
The Open Systems packages were never that easy to learn
nor able to effectively produce a book for publication and sale. The effort
that I put into Open Systems solutions in trying to create and publish books
was enormous without me achieving much success. But maybe it is time now (2023)
to revisit open systems since the EPUB 3 Open Systems Community has been
formally established under the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). With companies
like Google now backing this standard to counter balance Amazon’s dominance in
the marketplace with their Kindle eBook. Although the Kindle devices are declining
in use being replaced by the more universal Tablets and Smartphones the Amazon Kindle
Reader Apps on these platforms are still ensuring Amazon’s supremacy.
But it was the so called Print on Demand (POD) concept that
developed in the American marketplace in the early 2000’s that was to give me
the most effective way of writing, publishing and selling books over the
internet. One of the early POD businesses was called BookSurge in 2000 based in
South Carolina. BookSurge later got renamed CreateSpace. It was CreateSpace
that allowed me my first real success in the publishing and printing of my
Digital Workflow paperback book in 2010. This book although now somewhat dated
is still available for sale on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0950871826
The CreateSpace book publishing package was an excellent
and easy to use design. All credit to them they had on an internet architecture
built a very useable book publishing package. Unbeknown to me at the time
Amazon had acquired them in 2005 and there was a link whereby these POD books
could be ordered and delivered by Amazon whilst CreateSpace did the actual
creation and printing aspects. In July 2018 CreateSpace announced it would be
transferring to Amazon’s Media on Demand services. CreateSpace subsequently
merged with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KPD). During this time I
continued to successfully create, publish and sell books through Amazon. Amazon
invested in and improved the book creation and printing processes covering
eBooks then added Paperbacks leading to the addition of the latest Hardbacks
publishing capability. Dedicated book manufacturing plants were added with the
addition of the United Kingdom printing plant which really improved the lead
times on my books. One of my books could be ordered by a customer, printed as a
one off and delivered within just a few days. So in all these respects I am
very positive about Amazon’s strategy in respect of supporting home based
writers and publishers like myself. Although I am a very smaller publisher they
always give me excellent and timely support.
So it is not surprising that working alongside Stuart
Felton, whilst he was a Commercial Director for Stoneridge Pollack, I was
particularly interested to hear about his escapade into book selling. From
memory at the time Stuart had also brought and sold film and movie memorabilia
over the internet in his spare time so he had all the signs of being a true entrepreneur
looking for a lucky break. Stuart left and my career approached its end as
Stoneridge Pollack who looked to extract itself from the United Kingdom
marketplace both in terms of sales and manufacturing. With not surprising much
of the manufacturing re-located to China.
With my enthusiasm for books I arranged to visit Stuart
at his small warehouse sited near Gloucester Docks where I owned a flat. My
motive was to have a look through his book store. To my surprise there were no
stored books. The Book Depository business strategy was based upon when they
received your order they immediately placed that order on a book wholesaler and
when it arrived at their warehouse re-shipped it to you the customer. They were
essentially a business based upon the use of fast replenishment systems that
were dependant on fast logistics providers both into their warehouse from the
wholesalers and then back out of their warehouse to the customer. They used an Egyptian internet expert and his team based in Alexandria, Egypt to develop
some really effective logistics business systems inclusive of their excellent
book selling website. But at the same time their marketing messages were new
and very strong with a focus upon an international market in particular
supporting multi – currency pricing and free delivery. They also were good a
sourcing the more difficult rare books and those that were more difficult to
find. In all these respects I was a customer always impressed by their service.
Some of their strong marketing tags are listed below using
their words :-
“We are a leading international book retailer with a
unique offer — over 20 million books and free delivery worldwide (with no
minimum spend).”
“We have offices in London, Gloucester, Madrid, Cape Town
and Chennai, and we ship thousands of books every day from our fulfilment
centres in United Kingdom, and Australia, to more than 120 countries across the
world — displaying prices in 37 different local currencies.”
“Our vision is to provide “All Books to All” by improving
range, access and affordability of books.”
From a customer’s viewpoint they included a clever but
useful gift by including a book page marker in the book you purchased which not
surprisingly included an advertisement for their website printed on it.
As a customer I have come to believe by the service
offered me they valued their staff and knowing the Gloucestershire area well
this type of work would have been sort after by the locals so the statement
below on their website is a true one.
“People are our most valuable asset at Book Depository. A
group of volunteers run the People and Culture programme, to support our aim of
being a company our customers feel good about engaging with and our employees
are proud to work for. By ‘People’ we mean all colleagues that support the Book
Depository business. By ‘Culture’, we refer to our values and how we do things.
We regularly seek feedback from our colleagues on what we should focus on, as we
strive to make Book Depository an even better place to work.”
Unfortunately the fast moving news cycle will have
already moved on from the Book Depository and their loss of jobs and the impact
such a decision has on people’s lives. Would have the Book Depository carried
on trading if it had not been owned by an American Corporate? I suspect it may
well have continued with it trading increasingly upon its “Englishness” in a
post Brexit newly opened up international marketplace. There has to be a market
for an English cultural way of trading with a focus upon books written and
published in England. But unfortunately we will never know.
I want to add into this blog a Times Article written by
Rachael Bridge under the “HOW I MADE IT” heading with Andrew Crawford one of the
founders of the Book Depository as her subject. Stuart Felton would have been one of two fellow Directors mentioned in the
article that worked alongside Andrew in the creation of the Book Depository. Andrew and Stuart were friends that studied at Liverpool University together. It
is a pity the article does not acknowledge more the work contributed by the
“team” inclusive of Stuart Felton and the other director who was the Egyptian IT guy (don't know name) mentioned plus others. The success of the Book Depository will be down to
a team effort rather than just one person although the original knowledge,
determination and finance to start it must have come from Andrew Crawford.
The Copyright of the article is acknowledged as being
owned by the Times Newspaper.
Just a note here in that I have had to re-type this article
from a newspaper cutting I have retained over the years. I have tried searching
the Time’s historical archive for the original article but not knowing the date
of the original publication has not helped me in defining the search criteria. But
one of the real obstacles to the search being effective is the volume of
material found due to Lee Harvey Oswald using the Texas School Book Depository
as the vantage point from which he assassinated John F. Kennedy on the 22nd
November 1963. You can just imagine the millions of words generated by this
event displacing the few words relating to the Book Depository business in the
United Kingdom. So searching for the original article became impossible.
Copyright @ Times Newspaper. Writer : Rachael
Bridge
The Article Start
Former
employee who took a leaf out of Amazon’s book.
HOW
I MADE IT.
Andrew
Crawford
Founder
of the Book Depository
The notion of competing with Amazon, the internet
retailing giant, may appear daunting. But it did not deter Andrew Crawford who
took on the online bookseller and has prospered.
Crawford has had an independent streak from a young age.
His father ran an international trading business in Africa and so he was sent
to boarding school in England from the age of eight. He saw his parents only
during the holidays.
After school he studied engineering science and
industrial management at Liverpool University and then worked for his father,
who was by now running his own business in the Midlands selling agricultural
equipment and running car franchises. Crawford worked his way around the
business but after three years decided it was time to move on.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t really work for my father,” he
said “it was a difficult relationship. He expected me to do 100 things
perfectly all the time. But it gave me a very good grounding in business.”
Crawford then spent two years on a management trainee
scheme at Group 4 Security but hated it.
“I have always been a bit of a maverick and I wanted to do things my way. I
just couldn’t fit in.” he said.
By now 26, he got a job with a small company called Book
Pages, which sold books over the internet when the medium was still in its formative
stages. He had finally found his niche. ”I really enjoyed it because it was
very different and nobody quite knew where it would go or really understood
what they were doing.”
Then in 1997 the American firm Amazon.com brought out the
company to use as a base to set up its British arm. All the existing staff
became the founding team for Amazon.co.uk and Crawford spent the next three
years learning everything he could about how the business operated, ending up
as senior operations director.
By now 29 and having made some money from stock options
given to him by the company, he decided it was time to start a book business of
his own, reckoning there was room for a competitor in the market.
“When Book Pages was sold to Amazon I was a bit
disappointed because I thought Book Pages had some legs on it and could stand
up against Amazon in the UK market. I always has this hankering to take it
further.”
Under the terms of his contract he was forbidden to start
up competing business straightaway, however, and so initially he became a
consultant for start-up companies. But by 2004 he was free to follow his dream
and so, with £10,000 of his own savings , he built a website and the Book
Depository (Thebookdepository.com) was born.
The company has a single simple aim – to try to make all
books available to all people, Crawford said “If there is knowledge out there
we should be trying to distribute it. That basically has been my mission all
the way through.”
Crawford introduced another enticement – free delivery to
anywhere in the world, even for a single book. “You can buy a 20p book on our
sight and we will deliver it to Australia free.” he said. “We are very good at
supply chain and we work out that we can afford to do this.”
His instincts were spot on. In the first year the Book
Depository had sales of £2.2m and was profitable from the first month. By the
second year sales had risen to £11m.
Last year Crawford started a publishing programme in
which the firm republished 200 titles that were out of copyright and out of
print.
Despite breaking away from Amazon, he still has close
ties with the company, to the extent that customers on his site are offered the
choice of buying a book through the Book Depository site or through Amazon.
“We
complement Amazon in some ways because we provide the books that they can’t get
hold of that easily.” said Crawford.
The
philosophy has paid off in spades. This year the company’s turnover is expected
to be at least £35m.
Now
aged 36 and twice married with one child, Crawford is clear about the secret of
his success. “For me it is having an intimate knowledge of the book supply
chain. I have been doing this for 10 years, so I am very experienced in it.”
He owns
60% of the business . with the rest split between two other directors whom he
brought in to help run the business.
He had
this advice to give budding entrepreneurs. “Experiment. Fear of failure is a
stumbling block for most people. Get over that one. If you fail, don’t worry
about it- go on and do something else. I think that stops lots of people from
setting up a business.”
The Article End.
Copyright @ Times Newspaper. Writer : Rachael
Bridge
The
Book Depository was acquired by Amazon on the 4th July 2011.
In
2012, Book Depository was a finalist for the Fast Growth Business Awards'
Retail/Leisure Business of the Year award, and won two UK Start up
Awards,
Online Business of the Year and Retailer of the Year.
In
2013, it was ranked 5th in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100.
In 2009
and 2010, it won Direct Bookselling Company of the Year at the Bookseller
Industry Awards, and the Queen's Award for Enterprise.
So even after all these accolades the business was to cease in 2023.
It
looks like Amazon are retaining their Abebooks subsidiary I suppose with the
possibility it can take over the Book Depository customers. It already acts as
a “hub” to a number of other independent book selling businesses whilst it had
a focus on old and rare books this can now easily be redirected to focus upon
new books.
In
retirement since I have established a DMB Publishing Historical Books Division I
have used AbeBooks services frequently and they are very good. This was
particularly the case when I was buying old second hand books to support me writing
my Domesday Book. The AbeBooks links to independent booksellers often allowed
me to source particularly rare books and these booksellers operated very
effectively within the AbeBook’s processes and procedures.
With me
currently researching a new book on English Maps they are just as effective at
sourcing particularly rare books. Importantly AbeBooks are supporting the small
independent booksellers businesses giving them access to a very large internet
marketplace based upon their brand. I am not sure why the Book Depository could
not have just operated as a bookseller within the AbeBooks business entity
surely with this able to offer some cost reductions at management and corporate
levels. As a customer it seems to me they would have complimented each other
very successfully particularly in an international sense with AbeBooks Canada
based and the Book Depository United Kingdom based. But as a customer what do I
know ?
Link to
my Domesday Book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0950871869
The Guardian Newspaper to their credit did write a larger article about the closure.
