Free for all @ The Book Barns, Bath Rd.
This Week Bristol saw the biggest ever giveaway of free books. A massive book warehouse off the Bath Rd (A4) was opened to the public and everyone was invited to help themselves to as much as could be carried away. The giveaway was so popular that this outstanding act of generosity by the owners is being continued for another week.
Confusion and rumour surround the reasons for the giveaway. The Book Barns are one of the countries largest sellers of second hand books, selling direct to the public through their own website and selling on Amazon. Their warehouses, one by the riverside in Bristol on the site of the old Paintworks, the others a couple of newer barns down the A37 a few miles with room for far more books and also possible room to expand further into the neighbouring green fields. In total it is estimated they stock over 5million titles. It has been reported that the reason for the giveaway was that the lease they held on the paintworks site is expiring so all stock must go. Though overall reporting has obviously been done quite lazily by the press, with The Sun reporting that the bookbarns are the UK’s largets seller of secondhand books on amazon. They even state that there are 5 million books available for free! Another report read that they were a ’supplier of amazon’!
So where does reality kick in? Well, it’s a genuine story with thousands of books scattered over the warehouse floor and the public is free to help themselves. The Sun article states “not linked to BookBarn International at Hallatrow, Somerset” and that the giveaway is being arranged by the Ashley Nicholson, Director of The Paint Works, not staff of the Book Barns. Unusually for the Daily Mail they do seem to have reported much better than others. - Director of the industrial estate Ashley Nicholson said: ‘We asked Bookbarn to clear the books and they got rid of some of them but there is still a huge, huge number inside the warehouse.’ Rumours that the giveaway was as a result of the company going into administration have strangely not been denied by the ‘other’ book barns, only that they are not associated with them, when only the slightest bit of research shows that the two companies were extremely closely connected only a couple of years ago. Why not simply state that the lease had expired and that the public were invited to collect as much as they could carry as it was not economic to move the remaining, mainly worthless, stock?
On a blog post BookBarns Closing, a Peter Tyson leaves a comment stressing that the companies are not connected in quite an official manner. So, whats the catch? Well, it seems as though Bookbarns set up a new company to run the business on the new site and are now distancing themselves from the expired lease and disposal costs of tons of worthless books they left behind as it was not worth their while transferring this stock to the A37 site.
Worthless books? Some would say it’s a crime to destroy/pulp/burn a book and all books have some value, but how many copies of the 1937 Encyclopedia Britannica are going to be needed, or even bought in the future? The same can be said for thousands of other titles, how many different editions of Dickens have been published, many still exist that are over 100years old, but as they are not first editions they are worth little even in pristine condition. Similair could be said for more modern authors such as Wilbur Smith and Jeffrey Archer, who had hundreds of thousands of copies published, few of which are worth the trouble of storing for the professional bookseller, and even the part-timer with some experience would avoid such titles unless they were a fan of the author. Many book prospectors, or scavengers if you prefer, will be leaving the Book Barns weighed down with books they hope to resell, they may even have used a smart phone to search on amazon to find out prices of books before selecting them. When they get home they’ll be overjoyed to list their box of books on amazon and ‘value’ them at incredibly unrealistic prices due to their rarity or pricematching dodgy american dropshippers that price books at 10x the price of the book available on another website (making profit off gullible customers who only look at one site and do not shop around when buying books). It’s also unlikely they will have checked the amazon sales rank to see if any copies have actually sold. So they may then expect to be storing them until they eventually realise they are storing worthless books that have little to no hope of selling.
Well, I wish them luck, as it is likely that all the stock there was classified as worthless by the owners and this ’stunt’ was a clever way of them not having to pay for the disposal costs themselves and flooding the already crowded shelves of part-time amazon sellers with even more overpriced yet worthless, stock. But with lots of reporting directly connecting bookbarns the ‘amazon supplier’ with the business that did not clear it’s building of waste at the expiry of it’s lease I imagine a lot more statements trying to create distance between the two ’separate’ businesses. The only differences I see between this and flytippping is that it was under a roof and people were fooled into believing that the scrap stock had some value.
Latest news is that they will be open for a further week, though as the story has now made the national press it’s likely that hopeful people will be arriving from even further a field to fill their cars full of tatty books.
Photo of the new bookbarns warehouse
BBC article – very short article, again disassociating the currently trading Bookbarns with the stock disposal.
BBC Video of the Bookbarns clearance
ABE Books entry for The Book Barns, showing email address for current business with the address for the old business at the paintworks – Obviously no connection between the 2 businesses!
More pictures of the Biggest Ever Pile of Books on Flickr
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