I met Yu Bing in 2018, when I first started making books. She left her job for her ideals and opened her first bookstore on Central Street in Harbin. She invited me to Harbin to share my experience in the bookstore, and we got to know each other. Five years have passed, and she is now the Bing sister of the famous Douyin book blogger "Bing Jie Pai Shu", but she still has a heart to open a bookstore. She said: "From a salaried bookstore worker to a bookstore entrepreneur fighting against the odds, I think it is more important to make the bookstore interesting than meaningful." Let's listen to a bookstore owner from Snow Country together in winter. Her views on the bookstore, let’s go together to trace the footsteps of spring.
——Sun Qian
It has been 10 years, will bookstore people have to go through the same old path again?
This is the topic I most want to talk to bookstore managers after watching the third season of "Book Views". I once "hated" bookstores very much, because when facing investors, your mission, feelings, and social significance would be completely stripped away, and then you would get straight to the point: What is your business model?
This is a very thorny question for bookstore people. I think of when Sisyphus Bookstore entered the shopping mall, traditional bookstore people doubted it; I thought of when Eslite Bookstore was imitated, traditional bookstore people only took great pains in decoration design; I thought of when short video sales took off, traditional bookstores Bookstore people sneered at it...
We did not see the business model during the transformation period, only whether it made sense. Since the authors of "Shujian" are all bookstore people, then do we dare not to follow the old path of 10 years ago and stop being traditional bookstore people! From my narrow perspective, the business model may be the thinking direction that the new generation of bookstores lack, and it is also a self-revolution that the new generation of bookstores have to face.
01
scene reconstruction
Let me make a bold statement: bookstores may become "further and further away" from books.
When books, a standard product, are being sold at low prices by major e-commerce platforms, purposeful book consumption has become dispensable. At the same time, under the agitation of such a price vortex, bookstores are forced to get "closer and closer" to the book itself.
When bookstores are trying to find ways to present the contents of the books to readers through events, curations, salons, performances, etc., they may be trying to complete a redemption of the bookstore. Let the space scene of the bookstore come alive, let readers participate, and turn everything into a waltz between readers and books, a museum of reading and life.
Li Jiexiu, general manager of Eslite Bookstore, once said: "The retail service industry has evolved from monopoly to complex in the past ten or twenty years. Among all retail industries, only one industry has always adhered to professional management, and that is The book industry is like this, not just in China, but all over the world. Is this a professional necessity or a self-limitation?" This sentence came from the opening of Eslite Bookstore in Suzhou, and it is still a topic worthy of our thinking today.
02
identity
Compared with community operations, I prefer to call it identity.
From studying product selection to community operation, it is easy to say, but for bookstore people, it is difficult to operate. Mr. Fei Xiaotong once summarized the basic structure of China's rural society as an "acquaintance society" based on blood and geography. In this system of acquaintance society, how to reconstruct the group experience of public life, how to establish a unique intimate relationship with readers, and how to give readers an inner sense of security and belonging? This is the core performance of bookstore people to make the physical space of bookstores interesting. The salon is not just an event. It allows people to gradually become friends in offline gatherings, and then spontaneously find book friends with similar interests. Each lively community continues to grow in the space of the bookstore. Book selection, cultural and creative selection, how to make better coffee, break away from the commodity-oriented model, find ways to manage people, and manage the emotional community and spiritual community that have been accumulated over time. Perhaps this is what we are Issues that require action.
03
Cross-border interaction
Let me boldly say it again: only when you leave the bookstore can you do a good bookstore.
In 2007, when Sisyphus Bookstore was transforming, it said: There is no one to imitate in the industry. We have set our sights on the retail field, such as first-class retail chain companies such as Uniqlo and Starbucks. Perhaps it was such an attempt to "leave the bookstore" that allowed Sisyphus Bookstore to embark on a chain operation path independent of Xinhua Bookstore.
Regarding the thinking of "leaving the bookstore", the person who inspired me the most is Teacher Wang Xu. He is the dean of the Boao Cultural and Creative Institute and an architect. What he practices is cross-border interaction, using another thing to create a sense of familiarity and strangeness, making commonplace things come alive again. The design of business models often occurs quietly in this cross-border situation.
I really like what Professor Ding Xiong of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts said: The state I enjoy most is walking on the edge of my major. I often think about which industry should the new generation of bookstores learn from? In addition to the various book fairs held regularly every year, I sincerely recommend all bookstores to participate in other creative design forums and exhibitions. You will receive different surprises.
"Book View" is now in its third season, recording the development of physical bookstores in China in a unique way. I would like to thank Ya Qian, the editor-in-chief of this book, for leading everyone to pay attention to the bookstore industry and bookstore people. It was interesting for me to read this book. As a bookstore owner, when I look at the living beings of bookstores, it is just like Borges said, "Time is forever bifurcated, leading to countless futures." This ancient and young industry is undergoing a self-revolution and heading towards countless futures.
I would also like to talk about the story between me and Sun Qian, the other editor-in-chief of "Shujian". I resigned from a state-owned enterprise to start my own business. Although I had already reached the position of executive general manager, when I started my business, I discovered that I knew nothing about the bookstore industry. I didn’t even know what ERP system a bookstore should use (I had been using Xinhua before). system). Just when I had no clue, Sun Qian extended a helping hand. We had never met, but after just one phone call, she connected me with a lot of professional resources, even though she had just started her own business that year.
I responsibly tell you that in the bookstore industry, you can trust Yaqian and Sun Qian.
Finally, don’t forget that being interesting is more important than being meaningful.