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The Book Business
The store now has more
than 1,500 titles, about 65 percent of which are read books, according to Conde. The group does the bargain hunting. "We, and not some clerk, personally select the books that we put on sale. So we actually claim that we have the best collection of read and new books."
"I think this business model, if you may call it that, will work because it taps into the Pinoy's tendency to bargain hunt. It will encourage reading, I hope," he says.
Rowena Carranza-Paraan, another
co-owner, and editor of the news website bulatlat.com, has no expectations of earning from the bookshop. She says the "profit" she expects from the enterprise is "to have around us hundreds of titles that we can read."
Likewise with Bernadette Sembrano, one of the news anchors
at ABS-CBN, and the group's manager. "I didn't put up the bookshop to earn. One gets into something because one loves it, she says. "And quite remarkably, people share the same passion." Sembrano's contribution to the shop are Bo Sanchez books, Kerygma magazines and inspirational CDs.
To sustain the business, the group plans to keep their overhead small.
"We're not hungry for huge profits, so we don't have to have huge markups," says Rodriguez. They have hired one full time staff to handle the day-to-day store transactions. Whenever they are around, each
helps guide buyers on what they think is the best choice of read for those who ask their advice.
Part of the proceeds from the little markup that they put into the book prices goes to NUJP's Defense Fund that will help threatened journalists and relatives of slain ones sustain
expenses for their search for justice, as well as journalists' training for safety and protection.
Catching fire
Their optimism has caught fire. Conde's e-mail blitz soliciting books both for consignment at the shop and donation for NUJP has resulted in dozens of
journalists donating part of their collection for the journalists' guild.
More than 500 titles, generated through "guerrilla marketing" tactics, have so far been donated to NUJP as of the end of their
first month of operation, Conde says.
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