Bookshops reinvent themselves

"These days, who reads books?" I've just made myself comfortable at a table in a cafe in People's Square, Shanghai, on a warm Saturday evening when Hua Chun, 27, started griping about how superficial the world is.

Earlier she had taken a stroll along Huaihai Middle Road with a girlfriend. But no sooner had they entered the huge Muji bookstore, said to be the largest in the Chinese mainland, they were hightailing it out of there.

"It was too crowded, and I didn't see many books in there, just a few scattered among clothing and other products, so we headed back to the Shanghai-Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore," Hua says.

A display of books by female authors at Eslite bookstore in Suzhou. Yang Yang / China Daily

When they arrived at that shop four minutes later it was almost deserted.

"What a contrast," Hua says. "These days, most young people seek pleasure in food, drinks and other entertainment rather than reading books".

Hua is a serious reader, a lover of classic English fiction and of bookstores. That day she bought two books from Sanlian: The Women in White by Wilkie Collins and Selected Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Tracy Zheng, 32, of Nanjing, buys all her books online. She is studying for a doctorate in English language and literature at Nanjing University. When we meet at Librairie Avant-Garde, a 15-minute walk from the campus, she says that in the month since Spring Festival she has talked to no more than five people in the flesh and has not been into a bookshop for about seven years.

"I don't have time. Honestly, the Internet is so convenient and you can get any book online. Why bother to go to an offline bookstore on a day like this?"

It was a freezing day in early March and raining, perfect for staying indoors and finding warmth in a cup of hot tea.

If all the physical bookstores closed, it would probably come as no shock to most. In fact, since 2010, offline bookstores in China have gone through extremely tough times, with a great many closing due to the impact of e-commerce, rising costs and plummeting patronage.

The nadir came when sales in physical bookshops around China fell two years in a row, 2012 and 2013, says the industry monitor, Open Book.

However, in line with the Taoist saying that once a limit is reached a change in the opposite direction is inevitable, in the past two years there has been a revival in private bookstores. Even as the government has urged people to read more, these shops have changed the way they operate to meet the expectations of buyers and are beginning to prosper once again.

Last year, nearly 10 bookstores, big and small, opened in Shanghai, including chain stores such as Sisyphus, Yanjiyou and Muji Books, and smaller stores such as Mephisto and Rhino Library.

In other cities, large chains are shooting up like mushrooms after rain. Taiwan bookstore Eslite opened its first outlet in the mainland in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, at the end of November. It will open another in Shanghai this year.

Librairie Avant-Garde, based in Nanjing, has opened 11 stores since 1996. Last year, it opened a philanthropic library in a place of residence for the She ethnic group in Tonglu county, Zhejiang province. It will open another two bookstores this year.

Zhongshuge, a bookstore brand in Shanghai, opened its first shop in Songjiang district in 2013. By the end of this year it will have three stores in the eastern city. A branch in Chengdu, Sichuan province, is also on the drawing board.

Tao Shuting, 27, has worked for Zhongshuge in Songjiang for three years and is now general manager. She loves Chinese literature and is convinced that physical bookstores will not die.

"Just as a person needs to read good books for his or her soul, a city needs good bookstores for its soul," she says. Although Zhongshuge has reported losing money, "we're very likely to make a profit in 2016", she says.

Colin Lang, of Taiwan, has been busy since Eslite opened in Suzhou. The store started in Taiwan 27 years ago and has run at a loss for the past 15 years, according to media reports. In the three months since its Suzhou shop, Lang, who is operations director, says business has been good.

For him, the closure of offline bookstores provides a good opportunity to reflect on the reasons.

"While a lot fail, many others still exist and are even expanding, which means people still need bookstores," he says, as he sits in the store's Blackpages Cafe sipping coffee. "The question is whether the old ways can meet consumers' expectations today."

At Librairie Avant-Garde, I order a latte as I wait for Zhang Xing, the operations director. He has worked there for 10 years.

"The time for traditional bookstores has gone forever," he says. "They sell books only, but the new fashion is to diversify. Bookstores are going through a transformation, and each newly opened bookstore has its own characteristics."

He agrees with Lang in that "in a new era, readers have new expectations".

"Readers now pay more attention to what happens in the space because they come here not only to buy books, but also to communicate with friends, for exhibitions, to attend a lecture or learn a skill, which means bookstores will become comprehensive cultural spaces. Eventually all bookstores will be like this, otherwise they're not going to survive."

These days, many bookstores have space set aside for lectures and discussions. Periodically, they host exhibitions and talks by writers.

In Taiwan, Eslite hosts more than 5,000 activities a year, including dance performances. In Suzhou, its outlet offers more than 300 activities a year.

Anyone who hopes to deal solely in books is likely to be forced out of business by e-commerce, or other modes of doing business, Lang says. "But if bookstore space is closely connected with consumers' lifestyles or hobbies, it'll be rather difficult to replace."

I missed out on a treat that took place in Suzhou the day before I arrived, a talk by the Taiwan writer Pai Hsien-yung, but it was a delight to see the works of all my favorite female writers on display for International Women's Day - Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, Eileen Chang, Hannah Arendt, Emily Dickinson and Yang Jiang.

While trying to get an idea of the range of books available at Librairie Avant-Garde I came across a great many acquaintances, at least a couple of which I had recently finished reading: Charlotte by David Foenkinos and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

At Zhongshuge I found myself surrounded by a sea of books - beneath the glass floor, above the glass ceiling, below the stairs, and on the walls.

The bookstore managers interviewed for this story emphasized that they are first and foremost there to sell books, although Eslite in Suzhou rents out 41,000 square meters of its total 56,000 square meters to clothiers, caterers, and dealers in culturally creative products, and strategically arranges products among books.

For example, near books on travel you can buy suitcases, aircraft models and globes as well as book flights.

Cultural products are also important moneymakers for Avant-Garde, while Zhongshuge relies heavily on food and drink sales to bolster its income.

The bookstore managers seem proud of the books they sell. They do not sell textbooks and other learning aids, and they avoid self-help books. Avant-Garde and Zhongshuge focus on literature, arts, history and philosophy. Eslite has opened special sections on travel and lifestyle.

As someone who appreciates Vincent van Gogh, I was happy to see a translated copy of Lust for Life, about Van Gogh, at Eslite. The four copies of its Taiwan edition were put on the shelf among its books of the month. Around them were The Poems of Emily Dickinson, The Illuminaries by Eleanor Catton and The Blind Massage by Bi Feiyu. These selections, an Eslite tradition, are picked by a team of 50 to 60 people from the mainland and Taiwan.

Avant-Garde's Zhang Xing says many people today are keen on opening bookstores, but being able to compete with others lies in the skills and knowledge of the people shops employ.

"We have two staff members whose specific job is to choose books. They have followed the publishing industry for more than 10 years. You can't just recruit a person with a PhD to do the job. It's not that easy."

Indeed, it costs a lot to run a store covering 3,750 square meters, not to mention one that runs at a loss year after year.

At Avant-Garde, two solemn, black crosses that hang overhead are inescapable, as are the 72 steps that take you to the entrance of Eslite bookstore, at the right side of which are book titles that mark the bookshop's growth. You also can't miss the starlit ceiling of Zhongshuge's room for art books.

All of these shops are renowned for the flair of their design and their ambience, which has helped turn them into must-see destinations for tourists.

Asked about the difference between buying books online and in physical shops, Lang equates it to the difference that a devout believer would find in praying at an online church and going to St Paul's Cathedral in London.

"We want to change people through books. Or we just offer them a space in which the music, the smell of drinks or food, the beautiful design of the products, the touch of a good book, the names of the authors or the book titles, run to you, bringing with it knowledge, broadening your view, cultivating your tastes and in the end helping to mold your personal disposition."

The new generation of book buyers in the mainland, mostly under 25, are different in the way they buy things, he says. Social transformation through urbanization is also bringing about new ways of buying and marketing. Looking attractive has become critical to bookstores, which have become places where people are looking for themselves through books.

"Each Zhongshuge is different in terms of design and market niche, but they have one thing in common," Tao says. "They are all highly attractive, and that is one of the essentials."

yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 04/01/2016 page1)