Could a bespoke book subscription service break you out of your reading rut or encourage you to explore new genres?Heywood Hill bookshop has stood on the same spot since 1936. It inhabits a Georgian townhouse at 10 Curzon Street in Mayfair, London, a blue plaque outside commemorating its most famous employee, Nancy Mitford. Behind its heavy wooden door, a customer explains that she is visiting the UK from Australia, and would like to speak to someone about the shop’s subscription service. The word has clearly travelled far.From chocolate to coffee to beer to grooming products, subscription boxes are big business, and books are no exception. There are countless online companies that ship out a monthly read, some adding artisan teas, hot chocolate, or an adaptation on DVD of the book. But Heywood Hill’s subscription is as bespoke as possible: each package is individually tailored to the reader’s tastes following a conversation between the subscriber and a bookseller. Camille Van de Velde, one of Heywood Hill’s five booksellers, takes me down a rickety staircase into the basement from where the scheme is run. Staff are at work in a series of pokey interlocking rooms, stacking titles on shelves, ready to be wrapped, packed and shipped. They won’t be specific about numbers, but each has hundreds of people to choose for each month, and it has, by all accounts, transformed the business.Suddenly I realise just how intimate a simple question like ‘What is your favourite book?’ can... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-02-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
With fewer than 1,000 stores in the UK, a number of online initiatives are aiming to help shoppers find their way back to local independent bookshopsThe rise of online retailers and ebooks have had a devastating impact on the UK’s independent bookshops. According to the Booksellers Association,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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London bookshop Heywood Hill has appointed Charlotte Merritt to the new role of the shop’s Hong Kong-based bookseller-at-large. Heywood Hill, which offers bespoke bookselling, private library building and monthly book subscriptions, with customers in over 60 countries worldwide, said that... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The biggest players in the online publishing space converged in Barcelona this week to discuss the wholesale transformation of the industry into a digital and multiplatform phenomenon. We asked a handful of them one simple question: What's next for native advertising? The post Where top... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2014-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When print was thriving, advertisers would simply use brands as a proxy for the audience they wanted to reach. Want moms? Buy People magazine. Now marketers know more about their targets, have better tools to find them and more ways to reach them. And traditional publishers stood by as... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2014-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We asked a handful of Digiday Publishing Summit attendees at legacy media outlets one simple question: What has been the hardest -- or most surprising -- part of transitioning from a print to digital model? Here's what they told us.The post What’s the hardest part of digital for legacy... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2014-03-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At the heart of the debate between publishers and libraries over ebook pricing and lending is a simple question: do libraries increase book sales or cannibalize them? Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-12-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The battle to keep online advertising yields and returns high in a market of infinite volume and little scarcity rages on. But some publishers are deciding that it's not their fellow broadcasters, magazines and newspaper who are the problem but t ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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