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Well, all… this year has been a doozy for almost everyone! We don’t know a single soul that was completely unaffected by this global pandemic, and many sadly affected in traumatizing ways. The bookselling community has done its best to stay connected and functioning during this time, and we thought it might be a good idea to pick the brain, almost a year later, of our fearless commander Vic Zoschak Jr. on how Tavistock Books was affected by these past many months and what he sees for bookselling in the near, vaccinated future!
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Q: So Vic, over a year of bookselling during a global pandemic has passed us by! How did you, personally, fare, and how did your patterns or habits change throughout this time?
It’s been a YEAR has it not Ms P?! Despite the retail challenges posed by COVID to many businesses, it’s my understanding that most in the antiquarian book trade did ok. I know that’s true for Tavistock Books. Sales were stable, but expenses declined significantly [no travel, and no employee expenses], so revenue actually increased over 2019. And to be honest, the lack of general public foot traffic in my shop turned out to be beneficial, in that I was better able to concentrate on cataloguing, & quoting, material from my backlog.
The one significant habit change for me came about mid-summer last year… after Samm left to head back East, I started closing up the shop at 3 pm. I’m getting to be of an age when I just want more leisure time!
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Q: Did you see any shift in what was being purchased (less of one thing, more of another)?
Not that I could readily point a finger at… my sub-specialities haven’t changed, so those continued to be patronized by those interested in that sort of thing.
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Q: What are your thoughts on the many virtual book fairs (in terms of both selling and buying), and how do you think they impacted the world of antiquarian bookselling and book collecting this year?
I think they are here to stay. While a VBF can’t offer the same breadth of material in one’s ’stand’, that’s counteracted by the fact that expenses are but a fraction of what you would spend to exhibit at, say, an ABAA fair. For example, the Feb 2020 ABAA fair in Pasadena cost cost me, with booth fees, display cases, travel, meals, etc, etc around $10K to exhibit; in contrast the most recent ABAA VBF was under $1K. As a result, just in terms of $$ & ¢¢, the most recent ABAA VBF was much more profitable.
What is missing from the VBFs are the intangibles… dinner with colleagues, the chance to personally interact with customers walking the aisles, that sort of thing.
I suspect in the future, once the nation has moved beyond the COVID restrictions, we’ll have a hybrid schedule of both types of fairs.
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Q: What do you see for the book world going forward? For example, do you think virtual book fairs will become a new norm in a post-Covid world? Do you think people might have taken up collecting during this time? Any insights you may have in the shifts of our little corner of the world we’d love to hear about!
I’m of the opinion the recent VBFs proved the viability of digital book fairs… I remember, oh over a decade or so ago, there was an attempt at an ILAB on-line only fair. I participated. The mechanics were a bit clunky & it was poorly attended. I did not sell a book. I don’t think another such was planned until COVID made it necessary to do so.
So again, I think VBFs are here to stay, though it seems they’re popping up every time I turn around. I don’t participate in all of them, and to be honest, I don’t shop them with the same diligence as I did a year ago when they first came on the scene. Probably that’s to my detriment, but to be honest, I find I’m very much missing the real thing. I loved hoping on a plane to Boston in November, primarily just to shop the fairs … I’d spend an hour just in Peter Luke’s booth, flipping through all his boxes. That is, me, and at least 20 other customers/booksellers. I currently don’t have that motivation for the VBFs. But still, I’m also appreciative of not having to pack/schlep/unpack/display/repack/schlep/unpack & re-shelve 15 boxes of books. I’ll try to find a happy balance that works for me.
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Q: So tell us… what’s coming up next for Tavistock Books?
The $64,000 question! Well, I did sign a lease extension through 2022, so we’ll continue to be at 1503 Webster Street for a bit… as to the immediate future, Jim Kay has said he’s planning an in-person Sacramento fair for September, so given I’ve gotten my shots, I’m inclined to exhibit there [presuming no big COVID surge between now & then]. And theirs a couple VBFs coming up in which I’ll participate, the next one being the WESTERN STATES, April 29 – May 2nd. Come visit!
Find out more information on the Western States Book & Paper Fair at www.rarebookla.com
Starting with a short overview of the story (for the .000001% of you that have been living under a rock these past 160 years), we can come to look at the “expectations” housed within and see what we can decipher from the moral tale it holds. When young orphan Pip encounters an escaped criminal hiding in a churchyard one Christmas Eve, it gives him the fright of his life. The young boy is scared into thieving for the convict, and though the criminal is recaptured and clears Pip of suspicion, the incident colors Pip’s outlook on life. The young boy is sent to the house of the spinster and slightly mad Miss Havisham, to be used as entertainment for the lady and her adopted, aloof and haughty daughter Estella. Pip falls in love with Estella and visits them regularly until he is old enough to be taught a trade as an apprentice blacksmith. Four years into Pip’s apprenticeship, however, a lawyer arrives with news that Pip has anonymously been provided with enough money to become a gentleman. An astonished Pip heads to London to begin his new life, assuming Miss Havisham is to thank for his unexpected new windfall. Once in London the young Pip is introduced into some society, and makes new friends. His heart still belonging to Estella, he is ashamed of his previous life and expects his social advancement, new wealth and sudden social standing to sway her emotions towards him more favorably. It does not, Estella remains cold as ever, and Pip’s illusions are finally shattered when he realizes that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham at all, but the escaped convict Magwitch whom he helped in the churchyard all those years before. Through many mishaps and misfortunes, Pip and his friends attempt to help Magwitch escape England (which is ultimately unsuccessful), where he had returned to simply to make himself known to Pip. Pip learns valuable lessons throughout the story – interestingly not necessarily from those with money and social standing, but more often than not from those in his own class. The story has a kind ending, with Pip and an altered, warmer Estella walking hand in hand over a decade after her initial rejection of him (though Dickens originally planned a more likely, yet more disheartening end to the story and was convinced by Edward Bulwer-Lytton to change it).
Before Dickens published A Christmas Carol (written in only a six short weeks, and published the week before Christmas at considerable expense to Mr. Dickens), he and his wife Catherine were experiencing your average hardships. They were expecting their fifth child, and supplications of money from his aging father and family, with dwindling sales from his previous works had put him into a tough financial place. In the fall of 1843, a 31-year-old Dickens was asked to deliver a speech in Manchester, supporting adult education for manufacturing workers there. His extreme interest in the subject (one that hit a bit too close to home, I believe) and his resolve to aid the lowly pushed an idea to the forefront of his mind – a speech can only do so much… to get to the crux of the matter he would need to get into the hearts, minds and homes of his readership and country. As the idea for A Christmas Carol took shape and his writings began, Dickens himself became utterly obsessed with his own story. As his friend John Forster remarked, Dickens
