Independent Bookseller of the Month: Kemptown Bookshop, Brighton, West Sussex
Every month we feature a different bookshop – we ask them to tell us what makes them special and what they like most about what they do. This month it’s the turn of the Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton.
Please tell us when and why you set up your bookshop?
The KempTown Bookshop under its present owner has been going for about fifteen years. It was one storey high back then, and sold a mixture of dusty second-hand books interspersed with shelves of new but poorly maintained stock. It did have regular customers, however, and one such customer, Darion Goodwin, interrupting a very different career trajectory, decided on a whim (and a fervent prayer) to become a bookseller. Since then the Bookshop has grown tremendously. After a few years a roof was built upon the flat top of the building and this houses The Bookroom Café which sells organic, locally sourced produce, and such things as home-made soup, salads and delicious sandwiches. After establishing the Bookroom Café the unused basement was opened up, and within a short period of time the Bookshop had three times its initial capacity.
Please introduce your staff.
It’s the people who make the difference: Darion Goodwin is founder, manager and all round busy body; Kristian Berggreen has more bookselling experience than seems possible and Nic Oestreicher has travelled the antipodean world to sell books. Eleanor Beeton reads more than anyone else; Denise Faben plans world excursions to find the places she reads about; Donna writes books (well, almost) when she isn’t reading them, and Seagh – well Seagh’s cooking at The Bookroom Café is testament to the kind of reading she prefers.
Are there any specialisations, enthusiasms, interests you and your staff have that are reflected in the shop’s stock?
The owner of the Bookshop has had a particular interest in book illustration. During the early first few years of the Bookshop he started to print woodcuts as greetings cards and to sell these in the shop. This venture – Artisan Cards – he sold to a London greetings card publisher; but seeing that there was such a wide interest in illustrations from books, The Bookroom Art Press, publishing limited edition art prints derived from 20th century British artists (like Eric Ravilious, Bawden, Nash, Ardizzone and the Grosvenor School) was started. These prints are now sold at The Kemp Town Bookshop, but also to many other independent bookshops (see: www.bookroomartpress.co.uk).
Do you work with local authors, hold regular events and readings, etc?
The Bookroom Café space turns into lecture theatre where talks are given; classroom when fiction writing courses take place; small cinema when films or slides are shown; studio when such things as drawing classes or bookbinding workshops take place, and even auditorium, small though the space is, when local artists come to sing. On most evenings and the occasional Sundays, too, some such course will be held. During the week we have two on-going events: on a Wednesday we have a children’s drop-in reading circle (for the very young and their parents) and once a month a children’s bookclub – ‘Bookworms’ (for the slightly older children).
What are you reading at the moment?
- Darion: John Piper, Myfanwy Piper, by Frances Spalding – great book.
- Kristian Bergreen: Dead Tomorrow, by Peter James
- Eleanor: Noise of Strangers, by Robert Dickenson
- Donna: Precious Bane, by Mary Webb
- Denise: White Tiger, by Arvind Adiga
- Seagh: Bill Granger, by Bill Granger
- Nic: Lean on Pete, by Willy Vlautin
What are your criteria for any book promotions (e.g. 3 for 2, window placements, etc) you may run?
We do have sales and cut price stickers; but we rely more on such things as our own letter-press printed vouchers to entice customers to return. We do also give out coffee-cup vouchers: purchase an armful of books and benefit from a coffee on your next visit.
What makes your shop the shop to visit when in town on a book-buying mission?
Enjoyment of the retail experience – both though such things as home made soups and sandwiches in the Bookroom Café, but also in the general aesthetics of the place. We take seriously the idea that display entices and that the right retail environment can be commercially beneficial. In this time of e-commerce, to provide a place for people to shop – one that is nicer to spend time in than the on-line environment – is, we believe, what gives us the edge. And we sell more than books – we have a large stationery section with cards, notebooks and pens, etc; a games section with chess, backgammon and scrabble, and we sell the limited edition prints from the Bookroom Art Press. Collectively it seems to work: thankfully people keep coming to visit us!
Kemptown Bookshop, 91 St.George’s Road, Kemp Town, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 1EE
www.kemptownbookshop.co.uk
