No Alibis heralds importance of local literary scene ahead of high street voucher distribution
Anna Royle
Since Amazon has taken over the book-selling scene in 1994, independent bookstores haven’t had it easy. Even bigger chain bookstores have felt threatened, resulting in Waterstones opening its first “secret” bookshop in 2014.
The independent bookshop is based on Botanic Avenue
It was called Southwold Books, located in Suffolk and appears to be an independent shop, but was instead a Waterstones in disguise. But shops like these may trick customers into thinking they are straying away from Amazon and supporting something local when they are taking customers away from genuine independent retailers.
David Torrans, the owner of No Alibis Bookstore on Botanic Avenue, stated that as an independent retailer, the bookstore has always been able to adapt. No Alibis was established in 1997, so Torrans was always aware of the looming effects of Amazon, but suggests that indie bookstores offer more than just books, with No Alibis describing itself as a “community” bookshop, holding concerts, book launches, poetry readings, and lectures.
When the pandemic hit, No Alibis had to adapt once again, as Torrans describes the move to online as “crucial”. Even with restrictions lifting and the shop opening again, the events that are so integral to No Alibis’ community are unable to go ahead, with indoor capacity being limited due to social distancing.
Torrans describes how losing these events affected their business, “It was a blow, commercially and financially…[the events] are crucial to commercial viability”, as well as truly missing the sense of fun and community that these occasions bring.
While physical bookstores were forced to close, in July 2020, Amazon posted its highest profit yet, causing Jeff Bezos’ wealth to grow from $113bn on March 18 to $189.3bn.
To put that into perspective, all of Amazon’s 810,000 US employees could be paid a $94,000 bonus with this increase. Yet in 2019, Amazon paid just £293m in UK tax, despite having sales of £13.73bn, an increase of 25 per cent, as well as accusations of unsafe working conditions.
In October 2020, the American Booksellers Association launched the “Boxed Out” campaign, in which independent bookstores plastered their windows with anti-Amazon slogans, such as “Books curated by real people not a creepy algorithm” and “Buy books from people who want to sell books, not colonise the moon”.
As Torrans points out, No Alibis provides a space for local authors, for those who are less likely to appear in chain stores or supermarkets, which may help the Belfast arts and literary scene. The money spent in the store keeps the money within the local community, as well as paying the staff locally.
Applications are now open for the £100 voucher to spend on the high street, in an attempt to recover the economic damage of the pandemic. And No Alibis is donating 20 per cent of the value of each transaction made using the Shop Local card to literacy charity Fighting Words.
The No Alibis store also sells books required by Queen’s University Belfast for a range of courses and modules, as well as providing student discount, personalised recommendations and personal customer service. You can check out their website here, where they have staff recommendations and a click and collect function.
Anna Royle is deputy culture editor at The Scoop and is an English and Creative Writing student at Queen’s University Belfast