Is Accrington being dumbed down?

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by garinda

Since the busiest day in Accy is Thurday's 'flea market' day, (read tat too bad for the jumble and knock off goods,) perhaps we should hold an annual Festival of Rubbish.

Who could secure us some funding?

Definitely NOT me!!!!

[mani]

what about the sex festival?

i'm sure pb wud b more than "up" for it

[Margaret Pilkington]

No......we already have a good supply of rubbish, what we really need...or perhaps what i would like, would be a range of different shops. Not the homogenized shopping malls that are everywhere. You could be in any town in the land and still be faced with the same range of shops selling the same tired ranges. Individuality, that is what I crave!

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by mani

what about the sex festival?

i'm sure pb wud b more than "up" for it

Are you suggesting that he is some sort of sex god?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Gayle.......I have to ask this....have you got dyslexia? Did you mean Dog...because I think that is terrible to demean a poor defencelss creature like that.....the dog, I mean.

[Acrylic-bob]

While the net book agreement was in effect there was a level playing field when it came to selling books and everyone got a share of the profit from bestsellers. That profit went to support the shelves and shelves of books that were not such hot sellers but were necessary and desireable and which went to make browsing the shelves such a pleasurable way to spend time.

With the ending of the agreement ASDA, Tesco and the others decided that they would discount the bestsellers, pile em high and reap all of the profit, though you would never get them to admit as much at the time. To hear them talk they were engaged in opening up the book market and making more books more widley available to more people. Have a look at the shelves in ASDA or Tesco; do you see more choice? Do you see even so much as a hundredth of the books that Wardleworth used to stock? No, of course you don't, because as far as they are concerned it is better to make a penny on a million books than it is to make a pound on a thousand. Sod Choice! Sod passion for literature or specialist knowlege. Books now rank in the same category as baked beans; to be used as "Loss leaders" when it suits the supermarkets. And they have used the same tactic in every area of retailing.

[Margaret Pilkington]

A-B you are a mine of information......I never knew about the net book agreement.
I don't buy my novels from the supermarkets......and you can't buy textbooks from Asda can you? I liked Wardleworths and Seeds and Gabbutts for their technical books......I don't know where students buy their books now.
The internet may be a good source if you know exactly what the book contains...but if you don't know then it is a pretty useless source.

[WillowTheWhisp]

There was a lot in the news about the losing of the net book agreement at the time. We feared it would be the death knell for bookshops like Wardleworths and it proved to be true. I used to love being able to go in and order an obscure book. You don't even know they exist these days let alone have the chance to order them.

[mani]

*lmao* @ dog....

[mani]

i agree about the selection at asda

recently i had to hop onto ebay to buy soem books by maya angelou - it was rock hard to find them elsewhere too tbh

[lindsay ormerod]

Use it or lose it is the short answer.When I worked in a "specialist" music store we could order anything in for customers and carried classical/world folk/blues/jazz and a decent selection of everything else.As a result of having lots of "deadstock" in the store and varying levels of mismanagement at a higher level we went bust! I am amazed that Reidy's is still going;it's all down to the prices of the musical instruments and probably a decent rent deal after all this time.
Seriously folks,your local music shop will not be around forever if the downloading and ordering from Amazon takes hold;at least you know who you are dealing with when you shop personally and can have a good look at the product!

[katex]

[QUOTE=lindsay ormerod
Seriously folks,your local music shop will not be around forever if the downloading and ordering from Amazon takes hold;at least you know who you are dealing with when you shop personally and can have a good look at the product![/QUOTE]

Yeh, think you correct here lindsay, although my son does buy music from the Internet still gets great pleasure from browsing and consequently buying from the stores ... Shakermaker : what do you prefer ?

Like to think of this in the same context as books also. Presume Wardleworths closed 'cause their 'books' weren't balancing at the end of the day. Why, I wonder ? Was a good percentage their bread and butter from the non-fictional books, and students came to browse/buy when researching ? Maybe, when we obtain a 6th Form college in Accrington, will there be an increase in demand again ?

Was lucky enough to be able to send my son to an Independent Grammar and he has never lost his taste for browsing the book shops, whether fictional/non-fictional. (me I like it 'cause of the pictures). He now lives in Manchester and as a University Town, the book shops do well.

Asda/Tesco do not do this type of book do they ?

Maybe, students will still buy their text books from Amazon, but feel sure lots would prefer to browse around the wonderful lines of shelves.

Just a thought.

[shakermaker]

Originally Posted by katex

Yeh, think you correct here lindsay, although my son does buy music from the Internet still gets great pleasure from browsing and consequently buying from the stores ... Shakermaker : what do you prefer.

For me; buying music isn't 'buying music' unless it is bought over the counter.
Now I don't know if I'm on my own here, but I take great pleasure in going & browsing a record shop, finding an absolute gem; paying with what money I have, then reading the sleevenotes all the way home. I think it just validates the experience of adding to my collection.
However if there's something out of the ordinary that MusicZone doesn't stock (I categorically state now that I have nothing against MusicZone - for my personal taste it has a great selection) I will search the tinterweb (eg eBay/Amazon) for it.

[Madhatter]

Amazon also forces it supliers to supply at a discount.

Hay on wye is a manufactured book town, set up by richard booth, a friend of james hannah that is setting the booktown up here. The shops opened, then the festival happened, because thats what happens at booktowns. Hay is lucky in that it had no competition from other booktowns when set up, and had press backing, it got established, with good shops run by people with a knowledge of the book business. The festival has backing from large organisations. The town gets trade because it's got 20 good book shops in it, people come from all around the world to hay.
blaenavon just up the road seems to be failing, it's only got 2 shops left out of 8. and that already had a tourist trade and has world heritage status. The idea was that they'd feed off each other, but it hasn't worked. here, it's taking off very slowly, we're up to 4 proper bookshops in the town, a hotel with a good selection of books for sale along one wall of the library, a guest house that sells some, then in the surounding towns we have another bookshop, mpc publications outlet wharehouse, which is ian allen transport books, and the huge astley bookfarm, plus several places by appointment only, an aviation book seller, an occult book seller.

Other town, do antiques instead of books, some do parties and casinos, some do history and heritage.
accy could do music, or books, redcar was to be james hannahs next project, but they backed out for some reason, perhaps fear of failure, there is a booktown further up, but that still leaves a gap up your end of the country.
perhaps accy should be music and arts capital of the north.
What do you think mr britcliffe?


http://atherstonbooktown.com