The founder of the bookstore Mikhail Ivanov - about fashion for smart books, competition and hangover broths

In early December, on Rubinstein Street, the Black Books bar , inspired by the Book Shop Black Book Shop, was earned by the Frank restaurant. In addition to their own advantages (an unusual selection of wines, inventive snacks and an ironic interior), the institution is interesting in that the team of “Subscribed publications”, one of the most successful independent bookstores in the city, became its co -founder.

Five years ago, the old -fashioned bookstore on Lithuania Prospekt, who was going through the best of time, undertook to redo the hereditary bookshever Mikhail Ivanov. He managed not only to bring the family business out of the impasse, but also to turn “signature publications” into a popular city place: the store cooperates with small independent publishers, brings books on foreign languages, regularly holds open meetings with writers, and in addition, releases his own souvenirs and postcards that are in constant demand and are sold, including large network book books.

This year was especially successful for the store: the team opened the second hall , thanks to which the area increased by more than a third, seriously engaged in the development of the Internet site, in November the “Signature Publications” published the book “Dialogues with Sokurov”, and also in the collaboration with the Public Middle Ages, they released a collection of icons with mythical characters, whose first batch was bought in a matter of hours.

The Village met with Mikhail Ivanov and talked with him about fashion for smart books, competitions on the Internet, the publishing business, as well as why the bookstore of his own bar.

Photos

Victor Yuliev

Mikhail Ivanov

Director of Signature Publications, co -founder of the Black Books bar

About family business, grandmother and success

Our business is very family, with all the pluses and minuses that arise. Grandmother, a key hero of history, still comes to “Signature Publications” every day, gives advice, puts orders. And I must admit, many things, for example, a special atmosphere of the institution, is her merit and my mother.

It all started with the fact that my grandmother went to the book trade college, then entered the press institute, after she began to work in the book of book and extending in the Soviet Union - and by the age of 35 she made a dizzying career, becoming the director of the second bookstore in Leningrad. There was a “house of the book” - the first store, and the second - “Signature Publications”. In the early 90s, the store became independent of the state, the team privatized it, and they began to manage it on their own. The dashing 90s came-really the most fat years, because the state monopoly on the publications of books has gone, many publishers appeared, and the inertia books continued to be sold to giant circulations. For example, they signed 150 thousand people on Tolkien. That is, in one store 150 thousand books of Tolkien were sold, it was, of course, giant money. True, it must be borne in mind that the situation was different, any gigantic money could depreciate the next day. In the 2000s, the first books-trade networks began to emerge-“Snar”, then “Bukvoed”, and the classic format of the store ceased to be relevant. As a result, everything began to gradually come to the decline, until in 2012 I started working in the store and became slowly, difficult and painfully changing it. I must admit that it was a utopian idea to do something from this story. In our time, unfortunately, the book market is very uncompetitive, it is almost monopolized, and, of course, open one store and really earn good money, it is completely difficult to maintain the level.

But we succeeded a lot. I think only over the past year our indicators increased by 35 percent. We opened the second hall, began to actively engage in advance, seriously pulled out the event program. Previously, interesting events happened very rarely with us, and this year only in November there were four meetings - and all this was, as on the list, the most famous people of Russia: we had Alexander Sokurov, Anton Dolin, Mikhail Zygar, Sergey Parkhomenko, Leonid Parfyenov came to us. In general, the autumn was very saturated.

Plus experience, of course, is also growing: we are increasingly offering some new positions, directions, an online store develops gradually. We made a large bet this year, now we are expanding the team, we increase investments in this business, because we saw that he finally gives us some kind of return. Now we do little to promote it, but still on our site stably from a thousand visitors per day. This is probably such an inevitable trend that sales via the Internet will grow, although, of course, we are still nicer than offline trade.

About the opening of the second hall

When in May we started repairs in the second hall and hung a banner in the window, announcing the opening of the bar, it was just a joke. No one was going to open any bar. They simply decided to somehow unusually arrange a showcase: they thought for a long time above the name, there were several options, the working-“Benjamin Buklo”, this is such an important German art critic. And we thought that it would be cool to name an imaginary bar in honor of him, but then we decided that no one would understand. Well, accordingly, at some point the name Black Books was born. A photograph of the window leaked to the social network, and then many media outlets (without asking us about anything) wrote that we were opening a bar. The prank was a success.

Honestly, we hoped that the second hall would help us much more, but it turned out that in order to really change something, we needed three more such halls. Nevertheless, they tried to do something: they arranged more horizontal layouts, which are much more convenient for visitors. Two cabinets with books in foreign languages appeared in the hall, we are now trying to look for all the current foreign prose in the original languages, although this is not easy. Plus, they brought books on art on a separate wall, they occupy as many as six racks, gave the children's department a little freedom. And, of course, sitting places: now we have an additional ten tables, due to the fact that we made the second floor, and at the first we allocated an additional zone where you can sit and read.

About the book trading business in Russia and fashion

On smart books

Most of those who are engaged in private book trade in Russia are fanatics. Many of them lack an understanding of business processes, and sometimes the desire to earn money. Often these are people who do not even know how to make overhead. That is, on the one hand, this is work for them, and on the other, a life hobby, leisure or even a drug. Difficulties are again connected with not very good demand in the country. We have the average circulation of the book - two thousand copies. In other words, in a country where more than 140 million people live, some books are able to read or want to read only 10 thousand.

Now there is a certain trend - reading is becoming fashionable. It is very good that this happens. I can’t understand why, maybe this is due to the fact that the standard of living has increased, requests for better changes in society have appeared. It can be seen that completely different people begin to get involved in reading. I noted many times how the sales ratings are “smart”. If we look at the list of bestsellers ten years ago and today, it seems that these are two different countries. If earlier it was the country of the fourth world, now we are approaching - and in many ways we even overtake - to advanced states. But this does not cancel the fact that a monstrous mess is happening on the market.

There are big problems with unregulated dumping from online stores. Many buyers, comparing prices, do not think that this is a marketing move, and think that small bookstores or even large networks are deceiving them, making some crazy margins. In fact, this is not so, just due to pressure on the publishing house, due to free money, total sales, online stores are sometimes able to offer super-low prices-often only to attract a certain audience, and then sell it boots, soap, electronics and receive their margin.

The state is almost not engaged in the promotion of reading. Maybe this happens at some level, there are some television programs on the Culture channel, but it should still be done in a different way. As soon as on federal channels in the prime time, they begin to at least mention books, we will wake up happy. Now many opinion leaders begin to advertise books, they talk about what they read for free. Urgant, Sobchak, cords are regularly done - and this incredibly affects sales. You need to understand that selling good smart books to people who read them already is not difficult. You need to sell good books to everyone.

About the book of Sokurov and publishing

From the very reason, we are friends with the “open library”. We started working at about the same time. Together with Kolya (Nikolai Solodnikov, the creator of the project. - Approx. Ed.) We thought for a long time about creating a book - and now he had the idea to make “dialogs” with Alexander Nikolayevich Sokurov. We took on all the moments related to the publication: we processed the notes of meetings, all edited, handed over to print - and the book turned out. It seems simple, but I can say that here we, for example, produce hundreds of thousands of notebooks a year, and making one book of 3 thousand copies was much more difficult. The book was now presented at the Non/Fiction Fair in Moscow, they say that there were very good sales, we also have it in the first place, it is often ordered, we sell it in many large stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg. That is, the experience was very interesting and inspiring, but at the same time there was absolutely, of course, a non -profit project.

If you are seriously engaged in publishing, you need to invest a lot of money. To enter this market, at least 20 million rubles are required, according to my estimates. This is approximately like with souvenirs: if you have less than 100 items, it will be quite difficult to gain a foothold. These are economic laws. And so far we have no way to do this. So I think these will be one -time projects - for the soul. At the end of January, we will have the next book, I can’t say which one, it will be small, but quite interesting.

About the Black Books bar on Rubinstein, love for trifles and aesthetic broths

After that story with a comic sign on Litein, there were many responses: some were upset, offended on “signature publications”, especially fans of the series. Then the thought appeared: why not the truth not to open a bar? We consulted with the guys from Frank and did everything quite quickly. In just two months, Black Books was designed and built.

From the very beginning they decided that we would not try to please the fans. People have a formed image of Bernard (Bernard Black is the main character of the series. - Approx. Ed.) , Which smokes, washed at work, sends everyone, but we ourselves are very well -mannered and friendly, so we understood that we couldn’t behave like that. Therefore, they limited themselves to thin references, quotes, but they didn’t go further, otherwise it would simply turn into a fan club, which would be completely incomprehensible to many.

I really love different little things, I am attached to them, I worry very much because of them. For example, we have a sign made of wood, each letter is coated manually. Or a portrait of Bernard on the wall in the ancient frame of the 19th century: the picture was written to order, the head of Bernard, and the body - the English writer Robert South, who wrote the fairy tale “Three Bear”. The original of this picture hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. We made a wooden floor, bought and restored vintage Swedish chairs. Collected a collection of black books. It was also such a challenge, because it turned out that there were not so many books with black covers in general. There are now, it seems, 240 - and that looks empty, we will try to bring to at least 350.

We tried to make a professional wine card - a balanced, interesting and unusual one. Plus they wrote in detail about wines. It is usually assumed that you have come, as if you had already read all the wine guides and reference books, and the names themselves are told about something, but, for example, the wine card is usually told to me, with the exception of conditionally three types of wine that I like. Everything else for me is a dark forest. We now see that many people are sitting and reading the menu for a long time, because it is fun, funny, but professionally it is written about why this or that wine should be drunk. We also offer English imported beer.

Our brand-chef is Anton Abrezov (a noticeable St. Petersburg chief chief , known for the restaurants of Gräs X Madbaren and “Dreamers.”-Ed.) . He made a line of snacks: tartars, pastes, cheeses, meat delicacies, and also special ham that we serve only on weekends - they are pickled for weeks, then languish for several hours in special furnaces. Plus, they came up with such an unusual format - broths that we serve in wine glasses. It looks quite aesthetically pleasing. The idea is that you can even quite battered, after night sortie on the bars, go to us, drink good broth - and start all over again. I must say, they really save, we have already tried it ourselves repeatedly.

Starting next year, we plan to arrange some mini-polishes with writers, journalists, and critics. But it will not be like events in “signature publications”. Rather, it will be reminiscent of the apartment: it will be possible to ask a question without a microphone, and the invited guest and visitors drink together.

For me, a bar is also a preparation for the opening of a second store, which we now think a lot. We have a lot of ideas that we cannot realize on the foundry due to the lack of free space. So far, I can say that it will definitely be a bookstore, not a restaurant-for example, a bookstore of someone’s dreams.

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How “signature publications” became a landmark of St. Petersburg and opened their bar