Bookselling in his blood

As the new figurehead of the Booksellers Association, Martin Grindley is, in the context of his business interests, a small bookseller in a line of presidents who have been drawn mainly from the larger independent groups and chains. But Mr Grindley is a small bookseller with a broad perspective. He is well known and respected in the trade for being a forward thinker, aware of the issues of the day and, importantly, at the cutting edge of information technology. He is not afraid of moving with the times and of applying the lessons of change to his own business.

His bookselling pedigree is impeccable. The son of Elspeth Grindley, the much-loved doyenne of independent bookselling in the 1960s and '70s, and the grandson of a Southend bookseller, Martin Grindley grew up over the bookshop his parents set up in Leigh-on-Sea in 1946. "They were keen young booksellers, and the shop was the backcloth to my childhood—every Sunday there would be a new book at the end of my bed."

Mr Grindley speaks of his mother with great affection, and recalls a different era in bookselling. "The book market was totally different then. Immediately after the war paper was rationed, but people were desperate for books for advancement and self-improvement. My parents' business grew rapidly. My mother was the driving force behind the bookshop, a big personality and not afraid to speak her mind, but she had no idea of stock control or stock turn—and probably didn't need to; she just loved being with her customers and selling books to them."

Paddling his canoe

The young Grindley did not go into bookselling immediately, initially choosing to follow his father into journalism. After 10 years working for regional papers in the Westminster Press group, he opted for greater independence: "I wanted my own business. I just was not a corporate man and I wanted to paddle my own canoe."

There followed a short spell working in Leigh-on-Sea, but he quickly moved on to set up Browsers in Brentwood; later Browsers expanded with a general shop in Woodbridge, featuring a bold Italian-style café. In 1997, against a background of increasing competition in Brentwood, Browsers received "an offer we couldn't refuse" for the surrender of its lease. Woodbridge became the focus of Browsers' energies, and a children's bookshop was opened. The original Grindleys in Leigh-on-Sea is still in the family, owned in partnership by his brother and sister.

If the chains do not move into the smaller towns, and "other things being equal", Mr Grindley would not be averse to further expansion, but he does not see himself as a bookshop magnate: "I can sell books; I can't sell bookshops." He still tries to spend one day a week serving behind the counter at one of the bookshops, but he is mindful that he has a business to run—and that there is a life outside bookselling: his family, other interests such as sailing, "and, for goodness sake, reading".

The other element of his business, information technology, is also enthralling and time-consuming. He is the inventor of Book Wizard, a CD-ROM-based system designed to help children choose appropriate books for their age and reading level. He is planning to offer it online this year.

Another online project he is working on is the development of a Website with Richard Elsley, managing director of the Bookland group. Together they have been experimenting with "fuzzy logic" to produce a new search engine for online bookselling that "will make Amazon and the others sit up and take notice". It has developed, over a fairly lengthy gestation, out of Book Wizard, and is aimed at bringing books online closer to the consumer and making the process more user-friendly. It is due to launch in the next few months.

Mr Grindley, who has just celebrated his 49th birthday, had a politically active and interesting '60s and '70s. He can sometimes be prevailed upon to talk about them socially. During this interview, however, he looks slightly disapproving when asked about reports that he used to be a mod (he wasn't really a full-time mod, he explains) or when asked to explain how a pair of his flares came to be on display in the Victoria & Albert Museum. He is much more intent on talking about matters to do with bookselling, the BA and the BA presidency, on which subject he is generally optimistic, enthusiastic and thoughtful.

Heavy commitment required

The mantle of the presidency does not fall out of the blue. The post requires a significant commitment from an individual, who will usually progress from BA council member, to member of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, to the two-year tenure of treasurer, followed by one year as vice-president before the two-year office as president; even then it is not over, as there is a further year to serve as vice-president.

This inevitably allows for plenty of ringside training, and Martin Grindley pays handsome tribute to his predecessors: "I have learned so much from previous presidents. John Hyams, the wisest and most insightful of men; John Elsley, who had an incomparable understanding of the trade; Willie Anderson, who was stunning at a time when the trade was in turmoil; and Jonathan Chowen, both thoughtful and on the ball, again during a period of great change." He admits to feeling excited at the prospect of being BA president at the turn of the millennium: "I'm very honoured; it's a great challenge."

Although Mr Grindley's business typifies the smaller members of the association, he feels the BA has much to be proud of in the way it looks after the interests of all booksellers, whether small, large, traditional or non-traditional."We have one of the finest trade associations in retail, if not the best. The staff are a really professional and dedicated team. When we benchmark ourselves against other associations we always score incredibly highly, and the range of services we have on offer is extraordinary."

Size doesn't matter

Another measure of the BA's success is the fact that some of the larger bookshop chains have outsourced their training to the association because of the quality of its resources. "We can hold our own in the services that we offer to just about any size of business, and that's very rare among retail trade associations."

In addition to the satisfaction of helping maintain the standing of a good association, there are sound business reasons for having agreed to play a senior role in the BA. "From my own point of view it gives me much more intelligence about the industry than if I were not actively involved. And this is incredibly useful."

Such intelligence, he adds, is becoming more important as the rate of change in the trade continues to accelerate. "The trade has now reached the point where the landscape seems to look completely different from year to year. Twenty years ago the trade was pretty much set in stone, whereas now the industry is so fast moving and so much more exciting, with new challenges coming down the highway at an ever increasing speed."

Because of his interest in and hands-on experience with information technology, Mr Grindley is likely to prove a president for the times. The possibilities offered by the Internet, whether they are perceived as threats or opportunities, will be at the forefront of trade issues for the foreseeable future, and these are issues he understands. "If you had said even five years ago that there would be a completely new channel for the distribution of books, one that would set new standards of accessibility and customer service, people would have said you were dreaming."

He is confident that the BA will be up to the mark when it comes to meeting these new challenges and helping its members to do so. "In two years' time the BA will be a much more wired up and online organisation, with a great deal more experience with its own Website. We will be using this initiative in all sorts of interesting ways. There is enormous potential both here and, through Book Tokens, with batch.co.uk." Batch.co.uk is the electronic payment service being developed by Book Tokens in conjunction with Vista.

Making any confident predictions about the directions the trade will take in the future is almost impossible now, says Mr Grindley. "It is such a moving target—in a fortnight it could be different." However, he feels that an important driving force of change will be the increasing influence, and demands, of the customer, to which booksellers will be forced to respond. Retailers, he says, will have to develop to meet consumers' demands for different formats, channels and styles of bookshop, a trend that is happening elsewhere, most notably in the fashion industry.

"The trend of consumers seeking different styles of retail outlets is going to accelerate. The challenge for terrestrial booksellers will be to translate their core values and their commitment to the book into these new channels, whether that is through the Internet, digital television or whatever. I think there is still scope for better bookshops. Consumers are demanding a wider range of bookshop styles, and I think we will see a greater fragmentation over the next few years."

He sees this as a positive development. "Ottakars has proved that the market was not saturated by Waterstones and Dillons, just as Waterstones had proved that the market was not saturated by W H Smith. I think that the market will remain buoyant just so long as margins are not completely undercut."

Reasons to be optimistic

There are other reasons, says Mr Grindley, to be optimistic about the prospects and opportunities for the book trade and for booksellers of all types and sizes. "The products that are coming out of British publishers are world class and have never been better. The range of authors, the quality of production and marketing are excellent. That's got to be good news at the retail end."

The political climate, both domestic and on the wider European platform, also seems likely to be beneficial. "This government has been much more supportive of the book and the book industry than its predecessor. We've seen good support for the National Year of Reading, a Literacy Hour, extra money given to schools for books, and we've seen support for all sorts of book-based initiatives. It is very encouraging."

At the European level, he does not accept that recent pressures towards tax harmonisation make the imposition of VAT on books more likely. "That's not guaranteed at all. I do not accept the argument that says there has got to be a positive rate of VAT for zero-rated products and services. We will fight very hard, along with the Publishers Association, to make sure that this government holds out for a band at the lower rate which includes zero. We have a government that is committed to education and literacy and that commitment is no less strong in other European countries.

"And we have the argument on our side. The only danger is that there will be political horse-trading at the last minute. There may be an impasse and some deal may be done at the last minute when finance ministers have been living on black coffee for 24 hours."

Another possible cloud on the horizon is the chance that a trade-wide price war might break out. "If there were a price war to a level at which margins were seriously undercut we could do ourselves a lot of damage." At the moment, however, he sees little evidence to suggest that price is becoming a battleground or to suggest that online booksellers will fuel a deeper discounting war, either on or offline.

His only other significant concern for booksellers is the need to address the increasing difficulty of finding members willing and able to devote enough time to fill the senior positions in the BA. "It is quite a commitment in terms of time, and I think the length of commitment may prove a problem in the future as the pace of business accelerates for everyone in the industry. I think it will become increasingly difficult to get people of quality from the chains." Although the trade has become more competitive, he rejects the idea that the shortage of good booksellers from the chains to serve their association is caused by a more guarded, less co-operative culture among the large companies.

The prospects for the continuing health of the association are good, he insists. Membership is steady among independents; by and large they have not suffered as dramatically as some had predicted, and many, he maintains, are positively thriving.

Crossing the divides

In recent years BA presidents have increasingly had to deal with the big/small divide and with elements in the membership who have sought to split the association; the entrance onto the scene of new retailing channels threatens to widen the parameters of that controversy. But Mr Grindley feels that there need be no natural enmity between different sizes and types of bookseller and that the association can continue to offer a valuable service to all. "I don't see a real rift in the association between small or large members or between terrestrial and online. We have to represent new channels that come on stream. It would be a weaker organisation if online members were not our members. "

He does not see his own background as a smaller independent bookseller limiting his ability to carry out his new role, and he says that there will be no special bias towards independents. "Any officer of the association who simply comes with their own agenda and who is concerned solely with their own problems would not really be in a position to make a useful contribution. I always try to remember that we represent members of all sizes and all channels of the market and it's important that the Booksellers Association continues to reflect that approach.

"There is a certain misty-eyed 'You've Got Mail' approach to small independents, that somehow they have the right to exist. I never felt that. The book trade does not owe small booksellers a living. I don't think any member expects the association to offer a lifeline to them. It is not our role. That said, independents have to have the skills to survive, and the BA is one way to ensure that all booksellers have access to the skills they need."