Because i didnt plan to publish during a pandemic. Ive been reaching out during that time for friends and colleagues to find out how they are doing and what they are doing. And maybe to take up a little inspiration along the way. Now im speaking with two of the leading lights of the book world today two of my neighbors in brooklyn, one is Johnny Temple of Akashic Books the other is tran eight from the green light bookstore, my neighborhood bookstore. Welcome to both of you and thank you for taking the time to speak. I want to talk shop with you guys and give you some insight baseball about our new lives as independent book people. Ill start with you, jessica what his is done to your business . [laughter] its a lot really fast, right . It has been a real reinvention over the past six or eight weeks. Mid march i feel like there were a couple of days we were like do we need to consider closing and like yes you absently have to. In any also need to send everyone home. That week of transition i think march 21 we close the doors and walked away from the bookstore. That was terrifying we did not know what was can happen next. I feel like we were in a fortunate position that we already had a really well established website and ecommerce website were able to fulfill book orders online. Theres a little while we were trying to pick up curbside and that we could not do that for very long we were able to have people order at greenlight books. Com and have them shipped from the wholesale supplier we can still fulfill those orders. Immediately there were a lot of online orders we started shifting people over to that. We were able to have people have that for work. We did not have we spent a couple weeks how long this would last and what were going to do. For a while we are paying people to stay home, we are not a business that has a cash flow or the reach or resources to do that for very long. There was one really terrible day with a lot of crying for we had to lay off about 30 people. About 30 booksellers because they worked on the sales floor there is no sales floor. We did not have any work for them. Absolutely hope we can hire those people back. One to call unemployment slick it apply for benefits and apply for unemployment get funds from the book industry, Charitable Foundation or whatever was available to them. It was a horrible wrenching decision to make. But we felt like it was the best thing we could do for our employees. Timmy had kind of a Skeleton Crew of people, everyone working from their home mostly on filling the ecommerce orders we said we better fill all these now it will dry up immediately. They never dried up. Its actually kind of grown so we have a team of maybe six people fulfilling spending day after day to get shipped out. I canceled all events honestly that was even before we close the store. And very quickly had to figure how to convert those to Virtual Events. Late march and april and may has already scheduled we were able to honor the bookings we had for Virtual Events. We are hosting events almost every night at the we consume webinar. They are live conversations that are able and hourlong people can login and view them and ask questions of the chat. Those of been very accessible and very fun. So the working . Guest they are working were still trying to crack the nut to sit back and translate into book sales and sometimes they do and sometimes they dont. Definitely way to stay engaged with our community. Redoing a lot to do that. People cant come into the stores like how quavering the source to them . We start a video series called hand selling from homebirth rebecca nine some of the staff talk about books they love. We were able to have one manager be in the store as they do Instagram Stories with a walk around the storage show people what is on the shelves. Were doing tons of social media as everyone does we were able to hire some people back to do digital marketing. There is tons of engagement people are supportive of independent bookstores. Our sales for april were down by 40 better than 90 . In our payroll and the sustainability level right now. Bret the point restart to think about next steps. Its really wild. Hairraising. Will get to the next steps in a minute. Johnny what is your side of this . Whats happening at your Publishing House . Guest more cautious like other Book Publishers and sellers to buy jessica has been saying. We have been really ramping up our social media. Selling books direct, trying to be creative about things, spent a big struggle. Sales are way down. Sort of like jessica was saying, down 40 is better than down 90 . While that sounds obvious, its a difference between life and death for small business. And so, we are treading water is sort of the best you can do. It is still early quite frankly we have a look close at the april number shall be doing that in the next week. Not trying to face it too much. Its been a real struggle we had let go of one staff person and that was heartbreaking because he was dedicated to Akashic Books and doing great work. As a matter of realizing, i had been kind of hoping there is a way to make it through the situation without having to let go of any staff people. And we are not through it yet. Hopefully i will get through it with have only let go of one person and not more. But it would be foolish to think i know its going to happen. But my hope to get through without letting go of any staff people i woke up one day and realized even we stopped social distancing as much, we are going to be looking at a broken economy and so we need to shrink down. Thats when i realize i had to let go of someone was because our new reality is going to be a shrunken reality. I dont know how shrunken it is going to be. It is just the sort of moment realizing its not just getting through the next two, three, or four months. Its getting through until the economy recovers i dont thats mid 2021, late 2022 who knows. As both of you know, and everyone watching knows this is unfolding on the day by day, week by week basis for all of us. We do not know june holds for us. All we know is what the first week of may holds for us. Right. I dont about your warehouse, our warehouse is not processing returns yet. Thats the thing i am trying to forecast. To add on to what i say and on a more positive level with our social media and authors coming out theres definitely positive developments happening in terms of positive developments, hearing what jessica just said, i already feel 8 better than i did ten minutes ago. Excellent im going to make your talk some more get that up to 16. Listen, jessica was talking that some of the new thing she is doing for it i know she left some out i want to hear about you are also doing some great stuff right now particularly with the Author Interviews here. On the Akashic Books website. Thank you for asking about that im doing a weekly interview series both Akashic Books authors and non Akashic Books authors. They are meant to be not overly serious im trying to keep things light and mix humor and wherever possible i had a very fun interview with jones and interview with jennifer egan. Ricardo cortez, these are big interviews that have already posted. Coming up very soon as it interview with marlon james which is outrageous and rrated. It was actually done by my 12yearold son. Getting a great response to these interviews are doing other things as well but perhaps thats a highlight across the social media, instagram, facebook, youtube, twitter, the interview series is being housed across the social media. I know you have been really ramping up your social media as well. Have you had to shift what people are doing . And what is it like to have the staff working from home . It is confusing, it is sometimes exciting, often confusing. Everybody is of course working from home. I will say my whole staff, i dont know than weve ever worked harder than we are working right now because in addition to all doing our jobs, we are also reinventing the wheel. It is kind of hilarious that every new publisher and bookseller is simultaneously reinventing the wheel without being able to share notes too much we are sharing notes as you know dennis we are in touch with you and other publishers. Nobody has that wheel already. We are all doing the same work at the exact same time. It is been really difficult on all this, particularly julie our promotions department. My publicly department which is suzanne and alice, in addition to doing all of their work, we are also doing the extra social media work. Its like an impossible amount of work for all of this, but particularly them. If publicity wasnt hard enough in the first place very two exactly, exactly. And as if they werent in burning their candles at both ends to begin with. So i have an incredible staff, and incredibly dedicated staff and im really lucky. I am running them ragged, which is hard, its a desperate time. Right. Lets get back to some of the new stuff people are doing. Jessica, you are doing a lot of Virtual Events as you have already described. Theres more than that you got this thing coming with this 92nd street thats amazing can you talk a little bit about that . Yes Melville House is one of our first selections. Thats why want to talk about it. I think the partnerships have always been really important to us even more so now. How can we pool our resources into Something Interesting in the they reached out three or four months ago about may be partnering on a book club of some kind are getting are signed First Edition club to their subscribers or Something Like that. Honestly that fell by the wayside. Then i circled back and said is there anything that would be interesting about this now . Is there any version of this that could exist . In this it actually that would be amazing. They are intentionally trying to work with Small Businesses and independent bookstores they are doing it with us in kitchen arts and letters they started these virtual subscription book clubs. They wanted someone from green light to lead the discussion which we have virtual discussions, customers attending his signup from four of them in a row. They pay up subscriptions price includes all of the books to get sent to them and they go into this event and have a discussion on somebody knowledgeable about the book. Decided to do this if we could split it up so shes hosting too and i am hosting to the suggestion was we cant go anywhere, we can go anywhere we want with the books. We did a global to work. Your book is set in iran, south american and a european and asian they are intentionally very international. Thats the theme we came up with. A travel booklet. It is kind of like a travel book club the do anything with kitchen arts and letters were doing a Cook Book Club interactive cooking classes along. That is great in terms of partnership i think it is also indicated of the way were starting to think about how this translates into book sales the ticketed event idea is something everybodys trying to figure out. You sing everyones reinventing the wheel at the same time and you cant just take someone elses best practices because everyones figuring it out simultaneously. Or talking to multiple different publishers trying to figured out that the same time we are. What do we do with these big events we had booked at Kings Theatre we have not refunded those tickets yet. How do we create something thats worthwhile for people . Or do we just refund everything and start over . This response they have a solid platform we are enthusiastic to see out works out so i wish you well with it johnny argue publishing at the moment how are you looking at acquisitions right now i look at things specifically or somehow work with whats going on now . Is it impacting her acquisitions at all . We have slowed our acquisitions way down. As i said, i am trying really shrink a little bit not a lot, but to shrink a little bit. We publish about 40 books a year it would be great to get that closer to more like 35. Looking at very, very few new books now. Having said that for it were Book Publishers so every day. Are you getting more submissions now than ever . I am. That is really interesting because we noticed were getting fewer. Which suits us just fine. One thing i will say, is we tend to not necessarily jump on books about highly topical things. There are exceptions on our list. We did a tom hayden book in their iraq war came out. But to me the idea of books around covid, im really not drawn to this. I have been proposed by 16 anthologies because they have the famous water series in seven different series is based around cities thats not based on what is happening today, its a city or geography based city every fiction writer is experiencing covid talk about the three of us reinventing the wheel. Every fiction writer is going through this traumatic experience. I am not looking forward to reading the fiction that comes out of covid. Im personally not interested in books. Obviously its important to Society Needs to wrestle with this. Akashic books publishes fiction and nonfiction books et cetera. In terms of the beating heart i always think of that is literary fiction. I am just worried about all these fiction writers being put to the same funnel. Two words, lockdown memoir. That is our future, john. Its coming at you. Jessica, go ahead. Is just going to say i think writers, couple of writers ive talked to at least have the same kind of reaction like i am not looking to do that anytime soon. But how can they avoid it . Maybe it translates into some dreamlike form or something. The great writers are whatever impacts them a be wonderful and amazing. I am more worried about the writers the commander the voice et cetera im worried about what mediocre writers will be doing with this. It will be about war novels its usually a few years after the war ends that you start seeing the fiction about it. Of course now we are in more wars than ever. Maybe it will take it while before we start seeing how this really impacts fiction anyway. I think we will see a lot of nonfiction pretty quickly. Theres got to be, the world has to figure this thing out and books are an incredible tool for people to try to figure out what is going on. What is Melville House doing . You seem to have a really Quick Reaction to topical times of events. We working on customer. We crashed a coronavirus book by a psychiatrist its about how to keep your head together. Was a very short pamphlet and we did it and giving all of the proceeds from it. Its a book that an irish publisher did i read and i said weve got to do this its a beautiful little thing about dont panic, keep it together, you can do it. Thats what we crashed. But we are taking a step back and doing fewer acquisitions and trying to think about what the nonfiction is going to be about. We have the same determined about fiction. I want to ask you though just that what selling . What are the trends im sure you have a lot of childrens books because everyones home with the kids right now. I also know right now that is the biggest selling thing going on in our industry, what else is moving . Are you seeing any trans customer. That is interesting i feel like we are selling a lot of childrens books across the board not one big stand out though. Its like everything from classics to recent stuff its not about bestsellers. And rebeccas better at identifying these kind of trends and i am, her back is mike coowner and buyer for green lights. Before this we had been seeing such a shift towards nonfiction in the books that were really being talked about and the events that were working really well because as the world is so strange with the Political Climate and everything now we are seeing a shift back to fiction. Because so much nonfiction does not seem that relevant right now youre not tying what this world world it does not seem relevant. Well fiction always be relevant . It somewhere else to go beside your own room. That is been an interesting thing to watch its been a big non fiction swinger going back the other way but. Industry wide by the way ive seen some current steps nonfiction is way down, fiction is up, front list is down back list is up. Thats nationwide. That is the challenge for us is to make sure were putting the new titles out there because we want authors to get results thats familiar and comfortable thats a lot of what is appealing at the moment. I just bought this from green light. Good job. [laughter] weve got this. Lots of harry potter boxed sets im hearing. I interviewed james because he is writing fantasy now, he talked about it being a good time to be a fantasy writer because he can just leave this world. He talked about the difficulty the psychological difficulty of stopping writing and reentering. I know in coming back in your leg dont make me. I have been recommending ursulas collection. Its in a different world. Fantastic. Im gonna wait longer than i mentioned because you guys are too interesting. Here is the last question for you both which is what new thing are you doing to cope with her situation that you think you will take into the Bright Future ahead of us, knock on wood. What will you keep . I think Virtual Event so be around for a long time. Think even when we are able to get back into the store we will not be hosting big gatherings for a lot longer. And it seems like people are getting comfortable with this. It actually opens up other possibilities we did not have before like geographies the capacity is much less of an obstacle we can have five hunter people very easily in any given weeknight. Hopefully that evolves into something more interesting we can some people sign books or be streaming from the stores or Something Like that thats going to stably find it super useful in bringing that to schools. Again im an author visit thats for five public Elementary Schools in brooklyn are interacting with an author on a given day we could never think that worth the authors timer our staff time to be able to do that. It was a physical traveling thing. But we can do it if its virtual. Im hoping we are able to translate that into increasing accessibility in some ways in a positive way for a while. Sue backed thats great i think margaret cannot pioneered this into doing virtual book tour way back when . I thought people were ready for. Hope so havent you johnny . What are you doing now thats new you will continue to doing after this is all over . Along the lines of what jessica said. More Virtual Events with their authors, and like jessica said you can actually cover a lot more ground. An author can now do a National Tour in a way that was never before possible. Im not saying that is easy to do for an author you can set up a bunch of events and theyre all going to be successful. Its easier to swallow an unsuccessful event will the eight people turn up you have not left her house. Thats better than having traveled to some city to do a reading for eight people. But for me also the main thing is im really enjoying this Author Interview series i am doing. Right now im thinking i will continue doing it even after the quarantine is over. Because it is really interesting to talk to people while they are in their own home. Its covid that gave rise to this at Akashic Books but some the realize, i can interview any author at any time. There is accessibility that was always there. But there is a different light shining on it now that may keep shining on it even after we are not social distancing anymore. Lets hope so lets hope so. Thank you both for speaking with me today