http://www.writewords.org.uk/news/826.asp

350 complaints about the proposed Waterstone's/HMV takeover of last remaining indie chain Ottakar's, and a few top authors, and the Fair Trading Commission is 'looking into the merger.' I don't know why I feel ridiculously pleased about this, but I do. Obviously, more choice in books is a good thing, no?

Definitely!

Cath

Having worked for Waterstone's I can honestly say, woo hoo! However, on the other hand, Ottakar's probably don't look or pay their staff any more and therefore boo hoo.

I don't know about the pay, but Ottakar's staff have a great deal more control over what's bought, what's promotoed, and what happens within their shop, which appeals to good booksellers, so good booksellers would rather work for them.

A friend of mine was manager of several big Waterstones. When he finally resigned in disgust at the way he had to spend his time juggling stock numbers and accepting from on high what the promotions were, and not on running a bookshop, no one in Waterstones management ever asked him why he was resigning.

Ottakars have just employed him to open a new branch for them.

Emma

How very refreshing. Let’s hope independence wins the day.

Dee

At Waterstone's you can go under the radar. I remember taking over the Philosophy dept which until then had been New Age stuff like astrology, The Alchemist and the like (okay, to those that like that I am not saying that is bad, just it isn't philosophy and so on and so forth) and as it wasn't really a productive dept I managed to reinvent it with primary text Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Foucault, Socrates, Aristotle (it was only one bay hence the the big guys) so that was fun. But the FRONT OF STORE PROMOTIONS....hmm...

THe only good thing was the BOOKSELLERS CHOICE and, whilst not wanting to ingratiate myself with the founders of this site, on joining in 1996 (I think) I promoted our own Anne Reynold's Insanity which then sold well. But they were only pockets of happiness I am afraid. I am equally ashamed to say that I have since lost the aforementioned book but I do seem to remember that Ms Reynolds looked rather fit in the author picture. I didn't buy it for that though and I could be wrong and there was no picture at all! Right, onwards or else I'll need to crawl under the rock from whence I came.

To budding authors, by the way, in order to get on the list of MUST HAVE IN BOOKSTORE AT ALL TIME (the A list) a novel must have a turnover of 4 (sell 4 books per year) - backlist only of course.

I can see why running a bookstore would be fun mind, if you have control. I got out because working in central london for 11k wasn't good enough frankly, no matter how much you like books.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1667640,00.html

Another article

And this is a good article as well on UK Bookshops...

http://books.guardian.co.uk/shoptalk/

I'm going now, bye.