Tea in the Library (25 page)

One evening when a speaker had got the crowd talking, I fell into conversation with a visitor from Malaysia
—
his hotel down the road had recommended our shop to him (love those concierges!) It turned out that he was a
Dato
(senior Malaysian lawyer). A few days later he was back, this time with an Indonesian journalist who was in town to cover a political convention. We shared a fascinating chat. You never knew quite who you would meet at Tea In The Library.

Our dear customers also made up the members of our bookclubs. These clubs were provided by Tea In The Library to encourage avid readers, and provide a venue for these enthusiasts, and hopefully also to sell a few books. There was some debate amongst ourselves about the “if and how” of the bookclubs. In retrospect
—
such a useful thing!
—
we provided a lot of value-added service for little return. Under the terms of our offer, the clubs had between five and ten members, and read a different book each month. They met at the shop at about 5.30 pm, just before closing time, and continued for an hour or so. A “bookclub supper” was available for purchase, along with wine. One of Tea In The Library's staff was of course present 
—
usually Emma, who worked hard also preparing materials (and reading the relevant books!)

The bookclub members were also entitled to a 10% discount, not only on their purchases for club reading, but they were also given a discount card for general use. It was rather galling, then, when some members would borrow the club book from their local library but still come along and use all we provided. It all turned out to be a lot of hard work for Emma
—
at one stage we had several clubs in operation. There was the “Fictitious Bookclub” that met on Mondays and read
—
predictably
—
fiction. The “Chesterfield Bookclub” met on Tuesdays and read non-fiction titles
—
ensconced around the fire on the chesterfield sofas. At the ungodly hour of 7.45 am on Fridays the “Brekkie Bookclub” met; and the “Novel Ideas” bookclub also favoured fiction. They read titles like
The
Piano Tuner
by David Mason;
Vernon God Little,
DBC Pierre's Booker winner;
Seven Types
Of Ambiguity
by Elliott Pearlman;
Elegance
by Kathleen Turner; and
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Our Bookclub Motto was:

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long
day makes that day happier - 
(Kathleen Norris, Hands Full Of Living, 1931) 

The bookclubs worked well with our ethos, and made us a destination for literary aficionados, but they certainly didn't give us any reasonable return for our cost and effort. We also had a similar “deal” for outside bookclubs, which allowed a 10% discount if they purchased ten or more copies of the one title for their reading, gave them coffee loyalty cards, and added them to our mailing list for regular emails and newsletters. We didn't attract much attention with this angle, but if I were to do it again, bookclub support would be limited to such outside groups
—
the “in house” clubs were not productive. Although Emma certainly read a lot of good books!

The day to day life of running the shop and enjoying its quirky and sometimes chaotic struggle to grow and survive was absorbing and challenging, and very often a LOT of fun. Some vignettes from life at Tea In The Library:

Hot off the presses
—
our newsletter, the
Tea In The Library
Examiner.
Every good bookshop needs a newsletter, and ours was no exception. The name suggested itself very easily
—
we commonly abbreviated the name of the shop, when writing, to TITL 
—
so,
T.I.T.L.E.

We brought out our first edition within a couple of months of opening. In total, we managed the production of three editions. It was intended as a roughly quarterly publication, but after nine months we ran out of steam
—
and money. Despite being a thing of beauty the cost of printing and distributing
T.I.T.L.E.
was not matched by a discernable equal return.

The vision was a newspaper-style publication, about the size of a Sunday paper
—
only one sheet, four pages, black and white. The paper was set out like a newspaper with headings and sub-headings, in columns. The designer, Danielle, helped with the layout and design features of the first issue, and we repeated the design themes in subsequent editions. It sounds modest, but was expensive to have printed. Because of the size, it was not a “desktop publishing” job. Perhaps once again we were too ambitious, but
T.I.T.L.E.
was a lovely publication.

We featured stories about our events, including pictures. Also lots of book reviews. To make these more interesting than simply repeats of publishers' blurbs, we encouraged our customers to submit reviews. I also wrote a few. We had a “Meet the Staff” section, and printed our menu, our wine list, and descriptions of our selection of nineteen teas. We had information about our book clubs, our philosophy, and good causes we were trying to support.

I was very proud of
T.I.T.L.E.
. To distribute it, we used several avenues. Our first edition was a large mailout, and we used a mailing house to fold, envelope and mail it, as it was too big a job for us to handle alone. Our subsequent editions went only to our own database of people who had “opted in”
—
we were careful about our privacy policy. New laws about this had recently been enacted. Our database held several hundred names by this time (we had hoped for more, but it was fairly respectable). On this scale, we decided we could manage the envelope stuffing and mailing ourselves. Of course, you could always pick up a copy in the shop, and we devised a poster that announced the new editions and screamed, newspaper-style, READ ALL ABOUT IT!
T.I.T.L.E.
and all its back editions were also posted on our web site in PDF format.

Actually, stuffing the envelopes to send out T.I.T.L.E was a job that fell to my son Evan and his friend Justin, who were doing a few shifts at the shop in the uni holidays. Louise had concluded that we could manage the mail out ourselves, and save the money which would otherwise go to the mailing house. However, after we had paid the two boys to sit and stuff for two days, plus the envelopes and postage, it is doubtful that we were very far ahead. Evan would shake his head.

One of the best moments in the life of the newsletter was seeing the reaction of customers and readers who had submitted book reviews which we then published
—
a lovely thrill. They were allowed short by-lines:

Jocelyn
— Trained as a librarian in Adelaide and worked first as a
reference then a school librarian. She has also been a teacher. At the
moment she claims to have retired and “dabbles” in writing.

Claire
— Booklover, writer and (because she has to!) sometime legal
eagle.

Myra
— Brekkie Book Club Member.

George
— A Sydney writer and media advisor, with a long term
interest in popular culture. He's also an avid reader and book collector. 
George enjoys a wide variety of writers, ranging from Malcolm Brad-bury to Soren Kierkegaard, “though”, he says, “It's best not to get the two
confused late at night”.

However I really enjoyed re-publishing an article written by a little old lady, Mary Whitton, for her seniors' magazine. Mary was happy for us to reproduce it, and we were certainly happy to do so!

Just before Christmas, tired and over-loaded with shopping, I longed for
a quiet pot of tea. The QVB was crowded, so I went outside to York Street. 
There, the chatter and clatter from the footpath cafes competed with screeching buses — not what I needed.

Glancing across the road, I saw a sign, Tea In The Library. Next door
 
to Newton's Pharmacy and a few steps down, I found paradise! In an
oasis of peace and quiet— comfortable armchairs and elegant coffee tables
surrounded by shelves of beautiful books — I ordered a pot of tea and home-made toasted banana bread.

From my armchair, I took down a fine leather-bound book, “The Devil's
Collection: A Cynic's Dictionary”, compiled by Maggie Pinkney. My tea
arrived, served on a silver platter with a huge crisp damask napkin. Oh, the
luxury! I asked my hostess (waitress fantastique) if I could purchase the book
without leaving the comfort of my armchair (I'd already discreetly removed
my shoes) and she obliged. I felt like royalty.

I looked up “tea” in my new Dictionary and found: “Something to amuse
the idle, relax the studious and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use
exercise and will not use abstinence. (Samuel Johnson)”.

Tea In The Library's website had a rocky start, being put together on the cheap by a young mum from Newtown whom I met through a friend. It looked OK, but had little functionality and it was problematic to update. We were finding that the website was one of our most useful marketing tools
—
more so than the printed newsletter 
—
so after a few months we had a website design company upgrade it for us. The new site worked really well, and Emma could update it herself (and me too, if I consulted the instructions). So our events list and bookclub activities were always up to date, and our front page changed regularly.

We didn't feature many book reviews on the website, but there were some, particularly the books of authors who had events at the shop. We did get to the stage where it was possible to purchase some of those books on the site
—
our IT/website company provided the secure server. This looked good, but I don't believe a sale was ever made from the website. Amazon.com we were not!

But our strongest use of our customer database was a regular Friday email, which Emma would send, eventually with the help of the IT company. The email was just a paragraph or two with an update on the next week's event, a new book just released, a bit of news. Our customers seemed to love receiving this short and sweet reminder that we were thinking of them.

We struggled initially to find contact management software that could handle a bulk email mailout. Despite buying the version recommended by several advisors, and paying for the software rep to train the staff in its use, eventually our database became too large (although it was never as large as we kept hoping!) and our contact management software would crash repeatedly. The weekly email became a headache for Emma, who spent hours of valuable selling time sitting in front of the computer screen attempting to get the message out. Our miracle-workers, the IT company Bossa Group, came to the rescue. We would give them the text and the current file of customer addresses from our computer system, and they would email it
—
on the Tea In The Library “stationery”
—
with their more powerful system. This cost us $60 per week, but I thought worth it in time and frustration savings
—
plus preserving one of our most important marketing tools.