Books about pubs, beer and brewing, a non-fiction post from the bookshop.

With Kent being the hop and oasthouse centre of the world and with me publishing the only book in print about Thanet’s pubs, well I guess also because of the resurgence of the small brewery and so many new micro pubs opening. People who collect beer related books often come to my shop in the hope they can add something to their book collection.

Questions like: What have you got on coopering, hop picking, brewing, pub games get asked frequently. The most difficult one for me is, have you got Old Ramsgate Pubs, as you can see from the Amazon listing

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ramsgate-Pubs-VERY-SCARCE-FIRST/dp/B001ONLMS6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421161575&sr=8-1&keywords=ramsgate+pubs+Mirams   

this doesn’t necessarily mean that people would want to pay the price it sells for if I had.

Anyway having just had a professional brewer in adding to his book collection and so found him everything we have at the moment here we go.  

 above are the books about this subject on the shelves in the bookshop, priced between £1.50 and £20 with the prices aimed at being a bit cheaper than the same books are on the internet.

 this one on the East London coopers didn't say anything on the spine so a separate picture.

 this one in the £65 ballpark, with books like this, if a customer is interested in it I look up the price on the internet and offer it fror a competitive price as  prices fluctuate on a daily basis.

 this one in the £80 to £90 ballpark

 and this around £25

 this two vol set around £150

 and this a presentation copy signed by the author £35

 these ones £1.99 each

 pub walks £2.99

and our own publication available online here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/thanet_pubs.htm 

This brings up the obvious question, are the books above available on the internet? The answer to this one is not yet, but if they don’t sell to a walk in customer in my bookshop then they will get put on Amazon, where I would expect them to sell for around the prices I have indicated.

I guess this leads to the why not put them on Amazon straight away? Question.

The answer here is a bit complex and is to do with the difference between making the most profit and having an interesting bookshop. 

What really remains of the independent bookshops in the UK is; a few new ones that are very expensive situated in wealthy areas, a few secondhand ones where nearly all the decent books have been sold on the internet, a few very expensive secondhand ones where most of the stock is antiquarian or collectable and for the most part much more expensive than the internet.

I guess what I try to do is something a bit different and at the moment it seems to be working up to a point.