ALEX FORBES

You haven’t always been a bookseller. What made you decide to make the jump into the world of books?

I had worked in financial services for over 12 years at which point I was given 3 years notice of redundancy. That’s a long time to think about ‘What’s Next?’. I knew I was good at my job, but that world didn’t excite me. I imagined what I would do if I won the lottery....and owning a bookshop was at the top of the list (alongside being a football manager). I’ve always loved books and I enjoyed attending local author events. I was at one event in particular which had huge queues for the authors when I thought “Why can’t I do this?”

The day after that event I saw an article in The Guardian reporting that the number of indie bookshops in the UK had increased year on year for the first time in several years. The question then became “Why not?” The whole thing sort of snowballed from there and I opened the doors 10 months later. It’s nothing like I imagined. A hundred times more fulfilling than I dreamed, but equally much more hard work than I envisaged.

I should also add that I went on a date during my career deliberations and told the beautiful lady in front of me that I was leaving my job and opening a bookshop. She said that was the line that earned me the 2nd date. On our 2nd date she arrived with her favourite books she liked to share with her 8 year old son. We are now married, have a little baby of our own and I couldn’t be happier. If the bookshop closes it’s given me the best 4 years I could wish for.

What do you love most about running a bookshop?

Books and people. Being part of the community is really special. It’s about seeing kids getting excited about reading or when they get the next book in their favourite series. Having customers stick their head into the shop to say they loved a recent recommendation. Getting to talk about the power and beauty of books every single day. It’s about meeting authors and celebrating their work and seeing their efforts and hard work come to fruition. It’s about kids reading, we did a recent school tour and went to a school in the one of the poorest parts of Reading. They’d never had an author visit before and one of the kids said to his friend after the visit “That was the best school day ever”. I’m not sure there’s a better feeling.

You’re in the process of setting up the inaugural Reading Book Festival. What can you tell us about that?

I’m really excited about Fourbears Fest ‘24 AKA The Reading and Caversham Book Festival which will take place next May. The venues are secured, the website is designed, and we are approaching some fantastic authors to come and talk about their amazing books. It will be Friday 17th – Sunday 19th May with a weekend of children’s authors events in Caversham, and a weekend of adult events in central Reading. It will be for all ages, with a real mix of genres and styles. Hopefully something for everyone. One element I need to consider is that teens read a lot; BookTok shows us they do. But we don’t see them in the shop, or at events or engaging with us on Social Media. That’s a challenge I want to take on. It may not be solved for this festival but we are taking authors to some sixth forms in the new year to try and develop this area of our readership.

We’d like the festival to become a regular in the calendar for people across Reading and help get word out about the shop while elevating our events programme to the next level. We see neighbouring bookshops selling out 2,000 seat theatres for author events, and the question returns ”Why can’t I do that?”. It will take time to build up a good reputation with authors, publishers and audiences alike, but in a few years, I’d love to be able to have some of the biggest names with hundreds of people in the audience. I know that it will take a lot of work, and events won’t always go to plan as we gain experience, but the possibilities are so exciting. One day I'd love The Hexagon Theatre in Reading to be full for an author visit organised by Fourbears Books. It just sounds great. It may be too big a dream but it’s something to aim for, with Fourbears Fest ‘24 being the first of many smaller steps along the way.

You’re no stranger to life on a farm. Could you share a story or two from your childhood on your grandparents’ farm?

Ahhhh I love the farm so much! It’s in the north-east of Scotland, an hour past Aberdeen near a coastal village called Buckie. It’s cold, always very cold. With any story just remember I was cold throughout.

When I was a boy I used to follow my Grandad around everywhere. I was up at the crack of dawn getting ready to milk the cows, and I'd stay with him until the animals were sorted last thing at night. One day when I was aged about 10 it was a rare treat to discover that my Uncle Ian, who worked on the farm, was joining Grandad and I for the morning’s work. The three of us built a fence around one of the fields. When we were finished Ian asked me to pretend I was a sheep, and to try and get through the gaps. I duly got on all fours and nudged the fence with my head. At this point Ian started prodding me in the ribs with his stick. I turned to look at him. Ian was laughing. My Grandad asked me to try again. This time the prodding in the ribs came from the other side where my Grandad was standing. I stood up and they were both chuckling. They slapped me on the back and we headed back for lunch. Over lunch my mum asked what we had been doing that morning, and as I recounted the rib nudging I saw her getting redder and redder. She then jumped up and shouted at my Grandad “HOW DARE YOU TEST AN ELECTRIC FENCE ON MY BOY”. It’s the only time I’ve seen my Grandad look sheepish (excuse the pun).

There are many other stories I could tell including lambing season with all its beauty and tragedy within minutes; sleeping in the worlds tiniest bed in a shepherds hut in the middle of the field with my Grandad; getting stabbed (scratched) by a pitch fork held by my cousin and I thought I was going to die; falling in the dam more times than is healthy; the chook house and it’s terrors; my inspirational Nanny, who passed last year, and her wonderful homemade soup; being scared (to this day) of the Black Hole in the wall, which one day will be a short story; and as an 8-year-old single handedly chopping wood using a machine operated circular saw not realising it could easily take me apart.

We revisited the farm recently as it’s being sold after 120 years in the family (plus 30 years of working on the land before it was owned by my Great-Great-Grandad.) It was emotional but a pleasure to take my family around my childhood memories showing them every injury and adventure, including the secret door, which as a grown man turns out just to be a normal in-plain-sight door, although you look a little closer and it’s so much more than that.    

What are the current challenges for independent booksellers?

This question has a different answer depending when you ask me. I could rant about business rates, cost of living, schools not being able to afford to use an indie bookshop, the customers that ask for recommendations then say “thanks I’ll order online from someone else” but the big challenge is that the competition for book sales isn’t a level playing field. In Germany and France books aren’t discounted to the level they are in the UK. They are also more expensive abroad which is why indie bookshops flourish.

For most books I’m competitive with other physical and online shops in terms of price however for big hardback best sellers there is no contest. Other companies sell these books cheaper than I can buy them in. I’m not necessarily annoyed with them. I have a little frustration with the publishers for pricing indies out of sales, when there are hundreds of books which have become bestsellers on the of back indies hand-selling them and championing the authors.

In addition publishers are screwing themselves by selling to bigger companies at such a low price as it means authors, illustrators and others then don’t get paid their fair worth for the work they put into a book and the industry struggles as a result. Indies offer so much to a community and the ‘book world’ it can feel like a kick in the teeth when I see some of the deals out there. We introduced a journalist to an author recently and at the end of the article the link was to buy the book from the online big company. It wasn’t the author’s fault or the journalist’s (it was the temp who posted the article online), but that lack of thought or consideration still sucked.

A private school asked me to provide a book fair for staff in their school hall. I took 200 books and staff picked out the books they wanted. I offered what I felt was a competitive discount. I boxed the books per teacher and delivered them within 48 hours. When it came to paying the invoice though, the bursar suggested they wouldn’t pay me because across the 190 books they bought I was £10 more expensive than if they had bought them online. This school, who I hosted free school trips for, and took them World Book Day Books, were quibbling over £10 and completely ignoring all the other work involved. Teachers have since been banned from ordering from me because I am ‘too expensive’. The requests for free stuff still come in.

Then after all of the above I remind myself that some of these shops only offer the gateway drug to readers. We’re here for the hard stuff, the expertise and the experience only an indie bookshop can offer. We may not be used by that school but it means I can focus on other areas that will increase the revenue beyond their school order. When I have children’s authors available I will take them into the schools that support me as well as those who need it most. Some days it’s tougher to remind myself these things but I know deep down that I will keep doing our thing and we will be okay. It would be nice though if it was a little easier sometimes.