Tea in the Library (11 page)

I always feel very privileged to be involved in the festival, and lucky to have access to such great minds, who
—
whether you agree or disagree with them
—
always manage to stimulate. There is such a cross-section of authors in the smorgasbord, from the funny to the romantic to the political to the erudite. Sometimes these authors are people who have changed the world, even if you haven't heard of them until their book came out or the festival organizers found them and invited them to Sydney. I was fascinated to hear, on a panel about freedom of the press, from a Russian journalist who spoke about the persecution of the free press which still goes on in Russia today. She had been a person trusted by the hostage-takers in a Moscow theatre some years ago, and so was able to facilitate the release of many who might otherwise have died. I hadn't heard her name before, but listened intently as her translator passed on her comments. Only a few months later, she was killed, shot at home in her Moscow flat, by persons so far unknown. Vale, Anna Politkovskaya.

In the search for our true demographic, I also gathered useful information from the Australian Booksellers Association conferences and meetings. A regular feature was industry statistics presented by Nielsen Bookscan, an arm of the AC Nielsen statistical and polling business. These stats were professionally gathered and presented, and I found them fascinating. They divided the booksellers into three broad categories
—
the independents (which embraced Tea In The Library), the chains (such as Dymocks and Borders), and the “discount department stores” (K-Mart et al). Nielsen would give us statistics on the market shares enjoyed by each of these segments, and then also the profitability. It was booksellers' lore that sometimes independent booksellers could buy popular books from discount department stores at the retail price, cheaper than they could acquire stock from the publisher. There was usually a feeling of mild smugness among the hardy independents when the statistics revealed that the discounters were selling so low, they surely could not be making a profit
—
or not much of a profit, anyway. The prevailing wisdom had it that the discount stores would put cheap bestsellers at the entrance of their stores to “draw in the customers” and really didn't need to make a profit on the books themselves. I have no idea if this is indeed true. But perhaps the most revealing story that the stats had to tell was when it came to the top ten bestsellers lists. The Nielsen presenter would flash up her Power Point charts and show us that there was virtually no overlap between the ten best-selling books in an independent bookshop, and the ten best-selling books in the local K-Mart. Except for
Harry Potter
, of course, but that phenomenon was a blip in the usual universe. This was an epiphany for me
—
while John Grisham and Barbara Cartland were selling out at K-Mart, Tea In The Library's customers wanted to buy Don Watson's
Death Sentence
and the latest Booker winner. In my view, this was wonderful news. It meant that we didn't have to compete with the price-cutters, and that our demographic would come to us to look for thoughtful titles, served with care. And afternoon tea, hopefully.

As to the chains, it seemed to me that the stats put them in the most difficult position
—
their bestseller lists overlapped with both the independents and the discounters, meaning
—
in a simplified way
—
that they had to provide the hand-selling and the ambience of an independent with the cheap pricing of the discounters. Tough.

So rather than find the stats challenging, I found them reassuring 
—
we were niche sellers and we had a niche market
—
people who enjoyed the Writers' Festival!

My bookshop in a box sat in the cupboard. I continued living my life the way I always had, deep in my comfort zone, gradually growing more discontented and discouraged. I couldn't seem to take the next steps towards making the dream a reality. This particular battle was all internal.

If you read the Sunday papers, you'll know that all the best fash-ionistas these days have a “life coach”. This is considered
de rigueur
for the busy career girl, and in fact coaches of various sorts are proving quite successful and are acquiring some credibility in the corporate setting. One morning I went along to a businesswomen's breakfast where the speaker was an experienced life coach. I left all fired up, and called the coach to sign up pronto. This proved to be an excellent decision.

Like the “personal development” books I had been reading, I found that the coaching experience is what one chooses to make of it, or take from it. There is of course a wonderful cathartic feeling to sitting and talking about yourself to someone who (having been paid to do so) listens with complete attention. Try getting even your best friend to do that regularly once a week! But a good coach will also challenge you to try a different approach to life. As the saying goes, if you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same result.

It wasn't long before I was pouring out to my coach the story of the putative bookshop. “Well, why don't you do it?” she asked. About three dozen excuses followed. The coach wasn't dismissive of these, but patiently helped me list all the steps I could take to overcome each hurdle I put up. She also said, in so many words, that she would support me all the way. I was being handed the tools to lift myself to the next level.

There was an important concept I decided to accept from both my reading and my coaching experience and that is that each person has ultimate control over what happens to them. An abundance mindset brings abundance, and a failure mindset brings failure. This is a natural extension of the idea that you get what you focus on
—
the renowned “power of positive thinking”.

The whole thing began to acquire rather a spiritual feel. I began a regime of thinking positively, of trusting the universe to bring me my bookshop. I viewed set-backs as valuable learning experiences and major road blocks as lessons in patience. (I have stuck with this approach, and it has come in handy!) I certainly became a happier, calmer person. But action was still needed
—
coaches are big on “action points”
—
if the bookshop was ever to be.

The biggest hurdle was the question of financing the venture. I decided to open myself to whatever the universe wanted to tell me about this intractable difficulty. There was a certain amount of selectivity in this
—
for example, my financial advisor told me to wait a couple of years until I could put aside enough money to start the shop. But that piece of advice
—
excellent, of course
—
was out of synch with my intense wish to start the shop, find some new hori-zons, take some risks and have an adventure. But how to fund it?

A few more weeks went by while I waited for the universe to speak to me. One day a friend spoke about putting her apartment on the market and said that a real estate agent had quoted a surprisingly good value for it. Within a few days, another friend asked over lunch when the bookshop was going to get started. As usual, I replied a bit gloomily that it wasn't looking likely, as I couldn't raise the funds. My friend suggested that I might sell an investment apartment that I owned. A couple of pennies dropped together.

Selling a valuable asset to invest in a hair-brained retail venture was something not viewed with equanimity by my financial advisor, who by now was close to tearing his hair out over me. However, deciding that I was ready to put my money where my mouth was marked a new stage for me. I contacted a real estate agent, was quoted a good likely selling price, and started the sale process. It seemed more than co-incidence that the agent who took on the task was married to someone who worked in the book trade. We had some useful conversations about the book industry. The apartment duly sold well, and I had a nest-egg. It all seemed “meant”.

The nest-egg wasn't enough. But by now I knew not to sit around making excuses, but to explore every avenue. I ran through in my mind the names of anyone I knew with enough money to invest in a likely business venture, but everyone I could think of viewed retail with horror. Next, I called a finance brokerage that had organized car loans for me in the past. I had a meeting with the broker, handed over the necessary information, and a week later
—
lo and behold! 
—
loans had been approved.

There were now no excuses at all. The shop HAD to be opened.

I proceeded to spend the bank's money.

Location, location, location

There are those who believe that Tea In The Library was located in an abysmal site for a bookshop café. There have been days when I would agree with them.

The shop was right in the heart of Sydney, a great world metropolis. It was just two blocks from the major shopping precinct in Sydney, Pitt Street Mall, where astronomical rents are the norm. It was just across the road from the beautifully restored Queen Victoria Building, one of the great shopping precincts of any city anywhere. It was right on a bus interchange and a couple of minutes walk from a train station and Sydney's Town Hall. We sailed in deep waters.

As to size, we had 200 square metres, including the kitchen, loos and office, which left about 145 square metres for bookshelves, café tables and retail space. In addition, we had another 20 square metres outside on a landing, with more café tables. The premises was cosy and welcoming. It was also quiet, a valuable feature with a busy street outside. So what was the problem?

A couple of things. For a start, there's no disguising it, we were in a basement. While a basement can be made cosy
—
and ours was 
—
the problem remained that we had no street frontage, no shop window, no prominent display and no proper signage on the street. Sherlock Holmes himself could look for us and miss finding us.

Secondly, the building we were in, while not in the heritage category (and not beautiful), was also not young, shall we say. It had “maintenance issues”. And our kitchen door opened onto one of Sydney's unsavoury back lanes, which was occasionally used for various interesting activities. Our drain was in regular use as a urinal, and our garbage bins have been a drop-off point for thieves who favour expensive fragrances.