[Feature: Encountering Books] Roundtable Discussion: How to Create New Spaces for "Encountering Books" Today

It is often said recently that books are no longer selling. This spring, the temporary closure of large-scale bookstores in Tokyo became a hot topic. On the other hand, there is a situation where the opening of select-type bookstores is becoming active in various regions.

As digital content increases exponentially, I believe the form of reading is also changing, but where does the appeal of "books" lie once again? Today, I would like to ask those on the front lines.

In recent years, the way sellers and writers operate has been changing rapidly, such as publishing light novels on SNS and making a debut after gaining fans. Also, there are many people like Mr. Kobayashi who start their own bookstores, and I think long-established stores like Kinokuniya Bookstore are in a situation where they have no choice but to change to compete with online bookstores such as Amazon.

First, I would like to ask Mr. Miyagi about how long-established bookstores are trying to undergo changes now.

Kinokuniya Bookstore marks its 96th year this year, and in four years, it will be the 100th anniversary of its founding. I joined the company 23 years ago, and as is often said about the publishing slump, I have worked as a bookseller during this time without experiencing growth in the Japanese publishing industry. I believe other bookstores are also in a situation of various trial and error.

Our Shinjuku Main Store building was completed in 1964, the year the first Tokyo Olympics were held. In recent years, we spent nearly four years from 2019 performing seismic reinforcement and updating core facilities, while simultaneously proceeding with the renovation of the sales floors.

What President Takai was particular about during the construction and renovation was to continue operating in the same location without closing during that time. Therefore, construction was started floor by floor, and there were times when half of a floor was a sales area and the other half was under construction. We repeated the process of moving products from the sales floor to other floors more than a dozen times for the construction.

It might have been cheaper and easier for the employees to rebuild the building. Even so, the reason we insisted on continuing operations was largely due to a sense of mission that we must maintain the state of having a large-scale bookstore that serves as a landmark of the city in Shinjuku.

Moving books floor by floor is heavy labor, isn't it?

Another difficulty in closing the store is that all inventory must be returned once. The sales area of the Shinjuku Main Store is about 1,400 tsubo (approx. 4,600 sq meters), and if we were to return that much inventory, the burden on publishers would be significant. Wanting to avoid such a situation was one of the reasons for the decision to continue operations.

As is commonly said, the environment surrounding bookstores is very severe. In such circumstances, a major theme for us as a company engaged in the business of selling books is how to continue management in the future.

Currently, a project toward the 100th anniversary milestone has begun, and I also serve as its secretariat. A call has been issued by the president toward the 100th anniversary, aiming to increase the number of domestic stores from 68 to 100, and overseas stores from 40 to 100.

How can we increase the number of bookstores in a situation where the number of physical bookstores is gradually decreasing and it has become a topic that about a quarter of municipalities have no bookstores? This has become a major challenge for our company as well.

While bookstores continue to decrease, I think increasing the number of stores is difficult. From the perspective of the future of physical bookstores, Mr. Iwao, you spoke about a unique image of a bookstore under the theme of "Fantasy Bookstore" in the newspaper (Yomiuri Shimbun, January 15, 2023), didn't you?

That was because I received a request from a newspaper company to "draw an ideal image of a bookstore."

The "Fantasy Bookstore" image I drew consists of a pure white room with two types of bookshelves: physical bookshelves and projection-mapped bookshelves. As a customer circles the room while choosing books, the system senses human movement and replaces the shelves with a different selection of books. I thought that by doing so, it could become the world's largest bookstore even in a small room (laughs).

This might sound like a bit of a wild idea, but I believe books are a product area with great potential from a business perspective.

From the perspective of management studies, which is my specialty, bookstores have a major strength in their business model. That is the point that bookstores basically do not carry inventory risk. Japanese bookstores mainly conduct consignment sales through the resale price maintenance system, which allows them to freely return books to publishers. This is a major strength that would be unthinkable in other industries.

In such a situation, the challenges for bookstores would be rent and labor costs. However, I now believe that there are forms of physical bookstores that do not fit the traditional image.

For example, in regional cities, there are areas facing the challenge of becoming culturally impoverished because there are no bookstores in town. However, in such regions, there are powerful local business owners. How about suggesting to such an owner, "Why not turn the first floor of your head office building into a space that serves as both a bookstore and a library?" If we can place physical books on the first floor of a local company like that, it becomes a bookstore of a certain scale.

If reception employees respond as booksellers and manage sales on tablets, the challenges of rent and labor costs can also be cleared. Companies that own buildings in the regions can make a cultural contribution to the area, and I think there are many local dignitaries who would be happy to display the sign of the long-established Kinokuniya Bookstore, but what do you think?

Is it an image of an individual, in a sense, trying to manage a bookstore as a public good?

That's right. By utilizing spaces such as the first floor of a company's factory or office building to create a place for encounters with books, the company contributes to society. I think such a business model is entirely possible.

As Mr. Iwao says, a bookstore is a business of how to generate profit after bearing the costs of rent and labor. It is certainly quite difficult to create new stores in a situation where the minimum wage is also rising.

What I remembered hearing the story of the "Fantasy Bookstore" was at the "NEXSTO—Next Generation Store Idea Contest 2022" hosted by Tanseisha, which handles display design.

Mainly students and young designers in their 20s applied for this contest, and members of our company's 100th anniversary project participated as judges. Among these applications, there was a project called "Wall Bookstore." It was an idea to stream sentences from novels like projection mapping on the walls of urban underground spaces, and we selected it for the Judge's Special Award.

We have also been having repeated discussions about whether such new styles of stores are possible while searching for a way for bookstores to exist that is different from before, and I felt that Mr. Iwao's idea exactly connects to our direction as well.

On the other hand, Ms. Kobayashi is a publisher and editor who runs a publishing house called "Yohakusha," and at the same time, she is the manager of a unique bookstore called Marginalia Books. You are doing everything from publishing to sales, but with what thoughts did you open the bookstore?

I really like the naming of "Yohakusha" and "Marginalia Books." When I buy old books, there are often notes written in the margins of the pages, and I like reading those too, so I felt that using these two as trade names was very unique.

Thank you. Since I originally come from a publishing house, looking at the industry from that position, I felt that there was an overwhelming lack of sales floors.

Large stores like Kinokuniya Bookstore handle books from small-scale publishers as well, but there are inevitably books that are not in stock. Japan is a country where tens of thousands of books (about 69,000 in 2021) are published annually, so that is no wonder.

On the other hand, I thought it was very important for publishers themselves to create good books and have sales floors in terms of direct market development.

Opening Marginalia Books was based on such thoughts. The direct trigger was that there was a vacancy in a tenant of a building in front of Bubaigawara Station, the nearest station where I live, and I was able to calculate that it would be viable managerially.

Bubaigawara Station is a station where two lines, JR and a private railway, pass through, and the total average daily number of passengers exceeds 60,000, but there had been no new bookstore in this shopping district for a while.

There was talk that the number of municipalities without bookstores exceeded one-fourth, but I think we should look at the ratio to population rather than the number of municipalities. Then, the reality emerges that it is actually the suburbs of Tokyo and urban areas that lack bookstores despite having many residents.

Looking at each municipality, for example, it leads to the talk that bookstores should be built even in municipalities with small populations and elderly people who have moved away from reading, but that's not the case, is it?

The reason why the number of stores is decreasing in Tokyo where there is demand is, I think, largely due to the problem of rent. Due to the soaring rent of buildings in the city center, let alone in front of or directly connected to stations, the areas where business was viable are decreasing.

In the first place, the reason rent becomes a major issue in the publishing industry is that the gross profit bookstores obtain is low. The profit margin for bookstores in book sales is generally around 20-25%. If it is made into a non-returnable purchase through direct transaction, it is often set at 30-45%.

When a 1,000 yen book is sold, the impact is different between a 200 yen profit and a 400 yen profit. When gross profit increases, there is no longer a need to sell as many.

I think it is a bookstore as a place open to the people of the town, but are you making the store while thinking about the people of the region after all?

That's right. When running an independent bookstore, I am often asked if the books lined up are books that I like.

For example, at Marginalia Books, there is a sports book corner, but I myself don't have much interest in sports. However, since there is a Toshiba rugby team and a racecourse in Fuchu, and a large soccer stadium in neighboring Chofu, there are many people nearby who like sports.

In Fuchu City, there are Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and Hitotsubashi University and Tsuda University are also nearby. Since there are many university-related people and students who buy books, I also stock more humanities and science-related books. In this way, I select books while also considering the town and the location.

Earlier, I mentioned that bookstores do not carry inventory risk due to consignment sales, but in fact, I think bookstores have a hidden inventory risk called missed sales opportunities.

A bookstore is a business format that bears the so-called information provision function, saying "there are books like this." By lining up and introducing a large number of books and being able to return them even if they don't sell, they are supposed to be able to avoid risk.

However, even if they say they can return them if they don't sell, rent for that area is being generated during that time. I feel that people in bookstores are doing business without thinking much about these costs.

I understand Mr. Iwao's awareness of the problem well. I think "marketing" is a word that is not used much in the bookstore industry.

A bookstore is basically a place where everyone, young and old, male and female, is welcome. Especially a large store like Kinokuniya Bookstore that stocks all kinds of books is unlikely to have the idea of targeting a specific segment in the first place. It is a stance of having everyone come and buy the books they like.

That may be correct in its own way, but on the other hand, it can be said that there is little marketing-oriented thinking. I think there are parts that do not subscribe to the way of thinking such as which segment would buy a lot or that sales would increase because of that.

How about the issue of gross profit that Ms. Kobayashi mentioned in large-scale bookstores?

I feel the issue of gross profit is significant regardless of the scale of the bookstore. It is very low compared to other industries. Our company often opens stores in shopping centers, but if rent is set under the same conditions as restaurants or apparel stores, it becomes difficult as a business.

Of course, not having to bear inventory risk through consignment sales is a major advantage. That said, I think there are aspects where we are complacent about it. To put it extremely, because we can return them anytime, it's okay to make a slight mistake in ordering.

Also, there is a special mechanism in the industry where books are delivered based on the discretion of publishers or distributors even without an order from the bookstore side. However, as a result, the industry average return rate is over 40% for magazines and in the high 30% range for books. Our company's return rate is lower than that, but it is still around 30% on average.

Publishing logistics is also one of the major problems now. The distributors, especially the two major distributors, Nippan and Tohan, bear most of it. However, looking at the latest financial results announced the other day for the distribution business alone, Tohan has a deficit of about 1 billion yen and Nippan about 2 billion yen.

In other words, with the current way of doing things, it has become a business model where losses occur just by transporting. Furthermore, in the logistics industry, there is the "2024 problem" where overtime hours for truck drivers will be limited. We have reached a phase where we must think about how to make publishing logistics more efficient from next year onward.

In 2015, Kinokuniya Bookstore stocked Haruki Murakami's "Novelist as a Profession" (Switch Publishing) as a large-scale non-returnable purchase, didn't it? What kind of discussions arose within the company at that time?

There was a background where our president had been saying for some time that bookstores must also take risks in order to solve the challenges of publishing distribution.

In that flow, we tried a case of direct transaction between the publisher and the bookstore as a non-returnable purchase instead of consignment sales on an experimental basis.

It means the bookstore takes responsibility for the inventory, right?

Yes. We traded with a scheme where Kinokuniya Bookstore bought 90% of the first edition copies and our company further wholesaled them to other bookstores.

That's a bold challenge.

It certainly became a topic of conversation at the time. Even within the company, there were discussions about how to respond while operations were systematized on the premise of stocking through distributors, and I remember there were many irregular responses.

The fact that we were able to make such an attempt was also against the background that our company had many overseas stores. Gross profit margins differ between domestic and overseas; for example, in the US, bookstore profit is roughly 45% per book. In exchange, if they remain unsold, they will be sold at a discount bargain.

Since the US is Amazon's home turf, online sales increased, and various chain stores besides bookstores were affected. Long ago, there was a bookstore chain called Borders, but it went bankrupt, and another bookstore chain, Barnes & Noble, was also down significantly for a while.

However, in the US now, bookstore sales are recovering, and a phenomenon of independent bookstores increasing is also occurring. People like Ms. Kobayashi run stores they like, which play a kind of community role, and customers who want to buy books at that store are attached to each. The influence of such stores is very significant.

I also hear talk that Amazon's sales are currently stagnating. Readers may be rediscovering the importance of buying books at physical bookstores. I think such a model is viable because the profit margin is large. Even if the same thing cannot be done immediately in Japan, I think it is necessary to seek ways to secure new profits by using different methods than before, sometimes with bookstores taking risks.

However, if bookstores make non-returnable purchases, they carry inventory risk, don't they? As a result, doesn't the risk of "first-week velocity-ism," where 10% of the first edition must be sold within a week of release, strengthen?

To avoid falling into that, for example, I think it would be better to have a method where for books targeted for non-returnable purchase, you observe the situation through consignment for about half a year or a year to identify what is truly selling, and then switch to non-returnable purchase.

Nowadays, there are books written by YouTubers or influencers that have high topicality and good initial momentum, but it's questionable whether there are true readers. Making such things non-returnable purchases could also lead to management risk.

I think first-week velocity-ism is something that publishers, especially major ones, are conscious of rather than bookstores, but how much are you conscious of it, Mr. Miyagi? I feel that in reality, you are thinking about how to develop them over a slightly longer period.

For example, placing YouTubers' books on the first floor of the Kinokuniya Bookstore Shinjuku Main Store is also because of creating a buzz and the nature of the Shinjuku area as a busy district, right?

Of course, we also check the actual number of sales, but in our case, we entrust the authority for stocking to the person in charge of the sales floor. Naturally, there are various pitches from publishers, but each person in charge judges which books to sell in the end.

Of course, I can't go so far as to say that all people in charge are not into first-week velocity-ism, but I think we are on the side where the intentions of the front line are reflected to some extent.

For example, is a judgment such as "this is a good book, so let's keep it on the shelves from a long-term perspective" allowed?

Yes. There are parts that differ depending on the store, but our company has a side where we can get away with "if the person in charge wants to do it, let them try."

When a publisher sees that 10% has sold in a week from release, they might immediately order a reprint. If that happens, pressure is put on the publisher's sales staff anyway. So, even if it's not actually selling that much, they will pitch to booksellers saying it's an immediate reprint. Booksellers also take that at face value and place dozens of copies in inventory for a week, two weeks, or a month in face-out display.

When dozens of copies are stacked in the most prominent place, they naturally stand out, so they sell a little. However, what should really be looked at is how much sales effort was put in when dividing the rent by spine-out, face-out, and flat-stacking.

A large amount of face-out display incurs significant sales costs even in terms of rent. But there are cases where only 10 copies sell in a month despite 100 copies being displayed face-out. On the other hand, a book that sells one copy spine-out and the replacement also sells immediately has sold two copies with minimal sales costs. Looking only at the numbers, it seems like the face-out display is selling more, but when compared, you can see it was a book that didn't have as much power as the effort put in.

I call this situation where books that sell are driven out by books that don't sell "Gresham's Law in bookstores," following "bad money drives out good."

The reason publishers have become focused on first-week velocity is that they have become focused on the number of titles. Roughly speaking, if the publisher's sales are the number of titles issued × the number of copies issued, the number of copies per title is decreasing, so if they want to secure the same sales as last year, they have no choice but to increase the number of titles.

Suppose there is a publisher that must put out 100,000 copies a year. Whereas they used to only need to put out 10 titles a year when 10,000 copies were sold per title, if only 5,000 copies sell per title, they won't be able to keep the funds circulating unless they create twice the number of titles.

As a result of new publications continuing to come out incessantly and competing for sales floor space, initial movement became a strong indicator.

I see. So that's the background.

Books are certainly items to be consumed, but I also want to value the physical sensation of actually picking one up and flipping through the pages. What are you all focusing on to convey the charm of books as things to be encountered and read with care?

Ms. Kobayashi, what kind of initiatives are you working on to create encounters with books?

First, as a physical bookstore, I value how we engage with the local community. It's very old-school, but we post flyers on a sign set up on the street. It turns out quite a few people look at them. I'm often asked, "Do you have the book that was written on the flyer on the sign?"

Ultimately, information that customers see becomes a clue for them, so I think about how to increase those opportunities. Nowadays, social media is a big factor.

I currently post on three types of social media: Twitter, Instagram, and RED (Xiaohongshu), which is aimed at the Chinese-speaking world. Customers often visit our store after seeing Instagram, pull out their screens, and ask, "Do you have this?" Twitter is the next most common.

RED is something I'm doing experimentally. Since I also run a publishing house, I do it partly because I want to market my own company's books overseas.

What kind of thing is RED?

It's an app from China. The app itself is in Chinese or English, but you can post in Japanese. There are many readers over there who want to know about Japanese-language manga and books, and people from the Chinese-speaking world studying in Japan follow us. Such people also visit Marginalia Books.

Marginalia Books has a cafe space and seems like a very easy store to enter.

Since it's on the third floor of a building, there are hurdles to visiting, such as the difficulty for children to enter, but the cafe contributes to the ease of entry as a motivation for visiting.

That's nice. Recently, book cafes have increased, and book hotels with a book concept, like "Hakone Honbako," have also appeared.

This might be related to the merits of physical bookstores, but I feel that the quality of Amazon's recommendations has been declining lately. I encounter interesting-looking books more frequently in bookstores, whereas among the books displayed as recommendations on Amazon, there might not be a single one I want to buy.

After all, the merit of a bookstore is being able to see a large number of books at once and the fact that bookstore staff curate the shelves according to the scale of the store. Being able to think, "I want to read this book too," or "I might be able to read it this way," while looking at them is the beauty of a physical bookstore.

How is it at Kinokuniya Bookstore?

Recently, there has been talk that tanka poetry is becoming popular among young people. We have staff members who like tanka at several of our stores, and they hold tanka collection fairs and post about them on social media with the aim of wanting more people in the world to know about them. We are rolling out such activities at stores in various regions.

I think the motivation is more a pure desire to do it because they like it, rather than expecting an immediate effect on initial sales. We are a chain, but I feel that showing the individuality of the staff within that chain resonates better with customers.

The influence of the "Japan Booksellers' Award" has spread widely, and seeing the faces of the bookstore staff is truly important. You can feel a unique spirit from bookstores where the individuality of the clerks is apparent.

I think there are certainly people for whom unique bookstores or shelves don't fit. However, even with a sharp approach, I believe that if managed well, it can be viable as a business enough for a single family to live on.

The selection is also important. The fact that there are people who come all the way to Bubaigawara specifically for Marginalia Books is proof that a relationship has been born between you and them, Ms. Kobayashi. There might be a sense there that everyone is creating the bookstore together.

What do you think about the possibilities for online sales for independent bookstores?

In terms of the volume of selection, Amazon is of course strong, but as the types of platforms have increased, individuals are opening online bookstores, and there is a growing movement among readers to select specific shops.

For example, in Makuhari, there is a bookstore called "bookshop lighthouse" run by a person named Ryuhei Sekiguchi. Mr. Sekiguchi makes sharp statements and promotes books on LGBTQ issues and radical books on politics in his store, and he sells many of these books online.

I think it's because many people say they can't go to Makuhari but want to buy from Mr. Sekiguchi, so they buy books on lighthouse's online store. Marginalia Books also actually has a high online ratio, and looking at these trends, I think the situation is no longer one where Amazon is the only choice for online shopping.

The actual sales volume of independent bookstores shouldn't be underestimated. At Marginalia Books in 2021, a book called "History of Consumer Loans" (Chuko Shinsho) sold over 100 copies, including online.

This book later won the Shinsho Award, so of course the content is wonderful, but it wasn't a situation where the content was well-known and highly reputed before its release. It's a bit presumptuous to say, but there was an aspect where it was received as, "I'll buy it because it's a book Kobayashi is recommending."

It's said that the publishing industry is in a slump, but I feel that the demand for the written word itself has not decreased. Rather, isn't the number of people who read text actually increasing?

I think so too. Maybe the expression "shift away from the written word" is a bit strange.

I flatly deny the "shift away from the written word," and just the other day, a book by writer Ichishi Iida titled "The Lie of 'Young People's Shift Away from Reading'" (Heibonsha Shinsho) was published. Mr. Iida writes properly using data, and this time too, he clarifies the reality of reading among junior and senior high school students using various surveys.

According to it, young people are also reading books very thoroughly, and while light novels (ranobe) are said to be popular, they aren't exclusively focused on them.

Even with light novels, they tend to be slighted because they are hard to put in school libraries, but women in the past read girls' fiction like that of Nobuko Yoshiya, which has now become classic. It's a matter of course in any era that children and young people read lighter things.

Rather, if reading habits are formed there, light novels and manga are also important. How we create segments from there so that they continue to read a wide variety of books even after that is the key to thickening the reader base for the future.

I also asked within the company how the people in charge of the sales floors see the current situation where people are said to be moving away from the written word, and as expected, quite a few opinions came up asking, "Is that really true?" From the perspective of those on the ground, I don't think the shift away from books or the written word applies.

When you say written word, Twitter is also the written word. If you include that, I have a feeling that the number of characters read in a week might be higher than in the past.

In recent years, Kinokuniya Bookstore has been rolling out book selection fairs by students at several stores. We reach out to local high schools and universities and propose, "We will provide a prime shelf space at the front of the store for one month, so why don't you display and sell books selected by students?"

Then, they get quite enthusiastic and think carefully about their selections. They even make very elaborate POP displays. Then parents and acquaintances also come to see them.

Of course, the students who selected the books will likely come to like books even more, and for us, it has become an initiative with many realizations. They might become future customers, and I believe that is one of the roles a bookstore can play.

I'm not in a position to sell books, but the book I released last June, "Management Textbook from Age 13" (KADOKAWA), became my third single-authored work. It has gone through six printings and sold 20,000 copies including digital; it's selling quite well through word of mouth despite not being stocked in many bookstores. I felt this when producing such books, but I still feel that physical books are more convenient when writing a book.

When writing a book, something like self-curation is necessary, such as deciding which material to quote from which book. Even for a book I've already read once for writing, when writing a new book on a different theme, a process like a "re-encounter" is necessary. At that time, having physical books on the bookshelf is very important.

Because the spines are obvious at a glance, I can organize a shelf of reference materials to use during writing, thinking, "This book had this written in it, and if so, it's related to that book, so I need this one too."

So you create a shelf tailored to the next book you're writing.

That's right. For example, one of the books I'm currently writing is a textbook on operations management and production control. While looking at the bookshelf, I sometimes realize that production control can be compared to cooking. Looking at the bookshelf, a book called "A Global History of Chili Peppers" might connect with a specialized book on global supplier systems.

For example, when chili peppers, which were produced almost exclusively in South America, are transported to Korea, kimchi is born. Supply chain management sounds difficult, but using chili peppers as an example makes it easier to understand. Creating a physical reference shelf makes it easier for such new ideas to be born. I think such encounters with books and shelf-building are possible precisely because they are physical books.

That's the same for students, isn't it? When told to write a report on a certain topic, they tend to collect only materials on that theme, but there is an experience where you first realize, "Actually, this is connected to a completely different field," when standing in front of a physical bookshelf.

When I visit the office of a management scholar I respect, I get permission to take photos of their bookshelves. I look at those photos and later buy a whole bunch of books that I don't have. That kind of encounter doesn't happen unless it's with physical books.

That's interesting. I usually use the Hiyoshi Media Center (library) on the Hiyoshi Campus, but libraries and large bookstores have book arrangements fixed by field. However, you, Mr. Iwao, are connecting things from different fields. This is not easily done.

I wish I could enjoy bookstores with such new ideas; is Kinokuniya Bookstore working on anything like that?

One thing we are doing as a trial is the paperback (bunko) corner. It's common for paperback shelves to be organized by publisher. So, at one store, we experimentally created a shelf for historical fiction paperbacks.

For example, authors like Shotaro Ikenami and Ryotaro Shiba, who publish from various publishers, are grouped under "historical fiction" and put in the same corner. Then sales might increase.

On the other hand, comics are by publisher and have even finer classifications like Jump or Magazine. Furthermore, they are often arranged in alphabetical order by title. I wonder if that is an arrangement that is easy for customers to search for in the first place. There is room to question such points, and trying new shelf-building might yield different results.

While there is the pleasure of wandering around and encountering things, it's also necessary to find ways to make it easier to access the books one is looking for.

That's true. I think it's necessary to show connections beyond publishers and titles, such as "this book and this book are relatively close."

The biggest point where physical bookstores can beat Amazon might be curation power after all.

In that respect, Marginalia Books is already a place where the space itself is a place to encounter books.

Yes. Our shelves are classified by genre rather than by paperback or new book (shinsho) corners. In the science corner, for example, there are new books, hardcovers, specialized books, and even books for children.

At Marginalia Books recently, we held a soy sauce event in connection with a book called "Don't Let the Giant Vats Die Out!—Connecting Japan's Food Culture to the Future" (Iwanami Junior Shinsho).

This book was written by a craftsman from a soy sauce brewery in Shodoshima who, because the craftsmen for giant vats were dying out, apprenticed himself to a vat maker and became able to make wooden vats. The interesting part of that activity is that it doesn't end with "it's great that the soy sauce maker can now make vats for themselves," but they hold a gathering called the "Vat Summit" with other soy sauce breweries, sake breweries, and miso breweries that need giant vats, stepping into the issue of passing down the technology of giant vat making.

It's full of a sense of crisis that wooden vats will disappear at this rate, and when that book became popular for being interesting, people said they'd like to try the good soy sauce from that brewery, so Marginalia Books decided to sell the soy sauce as well.

Some customers aren't that interested in books and just buy the soy sauce, but while doing this, it can lead to the recognition that such a book has been published. It's important to involve customers in the world of books.

Our store also serves coffee in the cafe seats, and many customers come just to drink coffee. However, if they come ten times, they might buy a book once, saying it looks interesting. I think it's good to create opportunities to come into contact with books in various forms.

It's an activity that creates a reading culture.

Libraries often remove the covers for storage, but at the Hiyoshi Media Center, we started coating the books with their covers so that people can choose books while enjoying the cover design.

The charm of the cover design is one of the joys of picking up a book. I often buy both Japanese and foreign books based on their covers.

Regarding cover design, in addition to independent bookstores, independent publishers are now increasing, and although small-scale, they are all putting out books with truly diverse designs. In that environment, book lovers are enjoying various forms of books, as Ms. Yokoyama said.

To digress slightly from cover design, as an indicator of this increase in independent publishers, the member publishers of Hanmoto.com, an organization of publishers, reached 520 companies as of July 2023.

Member publishers are often one-person publishers rather than major ones, and each creates distinctive books. For example, Chitose Press creates specialized books centered on psychology by one person, and Yoshida Shoten continues to make books related to politics, history, and France, and I heard they published 111 titles in 12 years as of April 2023.

The flourishing of such small-scale publishing, which increases attractive and diverse books, is a movement that enriches the market, unlike the mere increase in the number of titles I mentioned earlier. In that context, cover design is very important in terms of how to show publications, and some bookstores have interesting ways of selling them.

For example, a person named Takeshi Suzuki held a "Red Book Fair" that collected books with red covers regardless of content or type. By arranging them with such a playful spirit, it can become an opportunity to accidentally pick up an unknown book.

The fact that you can enjoy books in various forms because they are physical objects is also part of their charm.

The charm of paper books is something hard to give up. My "Management Textbook from Age 13" also tries something that could only be done on paper.

Separately from the main story written in a novel style, there is a "Management Textbook for Everyone" that you read from the back. This cannot be made well in an e-book.

At our Shinjuku Main Store, we co-hosted an event called the "Kojien Birthday Festival" with Iwanami Shoten on May 25, and I realized that the quality of Japanese bookmaking is truly high.

I worked overseas for a long time, so I became familiar with paperback books there, but the paper quickly falls apart, and despite the high price, the spines quickly come undone. Compared to that, Japanese books are much better made.

Even though the Kojien dictionary is that thick, the paper for the main text is very thin, and it's packed with a tremendous amount of information. At the event, there was also a demonstration showing that if you made the Kojien with copy paper, it would be this thick, and it was a good opportunity to reaffirm the charm of the Kojien as a physical object.

I would have liked to participate in the "Kojien Birthday Festival" too.

It was very well received, and many customers gathered. I think such things are difficult to do unless it's a physical bookstore.

The best thing about physical bookstores is that they can provide a place to meet authors and shop owners or host various gatherings through the medium of books, such as the soy sauce event at Marginalia Books or the "Kojien Anniversary Festival" at Kinokuniya Bookstore.

That's true. Our company also increased event space when we renovated the Shinjuku Main Store. We established a space called the Academic Lounge on the third floor, which is mainly used for events related to academic books. The event about the Kojien mentioned earlier was also held here; it was in high demand, and our schedule is booked quite far in advance.

A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is that we are now able to hold events in a hybrid format, combining physical and online attendance. One of the events we have been holding continuously at the Shinjuku Main Store since before the pandemic is a reading group for Kobunsha's Classical New Translation Library. Previously, we had about 30 people attending in person. After we started accepting online participation due to the pandemic, we now have a total of about 100 people participating from various regions every time.

I have learned very well that books not only open up new worlds but also often serve as a catalyst for meeting people. Thank you for teaching me about the world of books that I did not know today.