Self-confessed avid reader Annette Freeman has fulfilled a dream many book lovers quietly hold — that of opening her own bookshop. More than that, she has fulfilled another popular fantasy — that of opening a café — by adding the comforts of tea, coffee, food and wine alongside the shelves. And, despite such distractions, she continues to run a busy practice as a partner at … , a specialist patent and trade mark law firm in Sydney. “I’ve always enjoyed browsing in bookshops wherever I have traveled”, Freeman told LSJ. “I find them fascinating repositories, full of treasures – beautifully-produced books, long-lost titles I have been searching for or exciting new releases. Many have unique, often quirky, atmospheres, which reflect their owner’s enthusiasms. “My house has always been full of books. I can never bring myself to dispose of any. There is the usual tall pile on the bedside table, waiting to be read. I always have a book underway — I don’t have a TV. At the moment I’m reading books about Antarctica— Nikki Gemmell’s Shiver and Tim Jarvis’s The Unforgiving Minute — in preparation for a trip there. “I also often read the authors who present at our bookshop so I read a lot of Australian authors.” Freeman says she first thought of having a bookshop about five years back, and a year ago she decided to have a go. She chose a basement site on York Street, opposite the Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney, as a position for her bookshop-cum-café, Tea In The Library. She describes its comfortably designed décor as a cross between English country-house and US East Coast club library. Freeman says she loves popping in for a coffee, just to enjoy sitting in the shop and among the books. But she leaves the day-to-day running of matters to her two managers — one for the bookshop and one for the café. “They’re really two different businesses, and both are equally important. They have different dynamics – you can sell five times as many books without needing any more staff, but all the book staff had to get a responsible service of alcohol certificate. “One thing I have always aimed for is that it be 50/50 — not just a bookshop with an add-on café, or a café with books,” she says. Does that mean she’s doubled her chances of having a successful business? “Either doubled them or halved them,” she laughs. Freeman is keen not to have what she describes as “her hobby” impinge on her career as a lawyer. “I usually try to touch base with my managers at a meeting once a week, early in the morning. But I don’t do any book buying. I don’t even know how to work the till,” she says. “It’s been a very steep learning curve, which was part of the plan really. I’m learning what it’s like to run a small business at the nitty-gritty coalface, which is probably helpful for my work. Developing my own brand has certainly given me a very interesting insight into the issues that my clients face.” At her firm Freeman manages the trade mark portfolios of many local companies and a number of multinationals. “The brands associated with Tea In The Library were protected early on,” she says, suddenly all business, listing what she describes slightly tongue-in-cheek as an “impressive portfolio.” “The shop name is trade marked, and the wine label we market.” She points to a plethora of labels and names. “Also the new venture.” The “new venture” is a marketing link-up of the seven bookshops in the area, which launched itself last month as the now name-and-logo protected “Sydneybookquarter”. “That was my idea,” says Freeman. “I decided to turn a weakness into an asset. There are seven bookshops in this block, all independent, Abbeys being the flagship. Independent bookshops never have much money for promotion, so we’re splitting the marketing costs and promoting the area. So far it seems to be working very well.” Freeman is making the most of the crossovers with her work. She travels to the USA to visit clients and presents them with signed copies of Australian authors’ books, courtesy of Tea In The Library. “It makes a change from koalas and macadamia nuts,” she says. She thinks many lawyers are book lovers, and, though time-stretched, they like to check out a good book on topical issues to explore these in depth, and read a range of opinions, rather than rely on brief news reports. “I find that those who discover the shop also appreciate the ‘club lounge’ ambience and the chance to relax among the books,” she says. Such a little treasure in the world of the mega-bookstore, the project seem rather courageous. “It’s also very indulgent,” says Freeman, looking very comfortable indeed.
Chapter Thirty-One
Tracking sales
So how were we doing as a business? Answer: not very well. Every day the sales in books and café were recorded. Every week they were entered into a running record in an Excel spreadsheet; and every week Sandy, Emma, Kate and I would pore over these numbers, willing them to improve. Sometimes Sandy would convert the figures to graphs. How we wanted those graph lines to rise — even a little bit! All our efforts every day were geared to making those numbers look better.
As well as tracking the dollars, we also tracked numbers of actual sales. It was ineffably depressing to look back over the week and see that — on Monday, say — we had sold only five books. Some Saturdays we sold none. The book sales, with the low margin, never looked like coming close to covering costs, much less making a profit.
As to the café, the original idea had been that a thriving café would help to support the books business until it could become established and grow. With potential margins of up to 90% plus on a cup of coffee, this looked do-able. Reality was different. The café was consistently full at lunchtimes, but the number of seats (or “covers”) was limited, even if we managed more than one sitting per table. Also, the busier the café became, the more wait staff were needed, and the longer the chef’s hours (and therefore the higher the costs).
So we pondered not only raw sales data, but also margins and expenses.
Our biggest expenses were cost of goods (especially in books), rent, and staff. A big cost was also the fees I paid to various consultants, including Sandy, Carly and the bookkeepers. By this time, since we had been open for more than a year, Dale the business advisor was no longer employed. One day he pointed out to me that I couldn’t afford him, so we parted ways. I had leant heavily on Dale, but now I had Sandy for that. Many a person has shaken their head at my decision to rely so heavily on — and invest so much in — these consultants. There were several reasons:
First, I was well aware that I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no confidence in my ability to set up and run a successful small business, and I hoped that the “experts” would be able to teach me. It is true that they taught me a great deal. It was from Dale, for example, that I learnt to focus on the figures; and I also had the advantage of his wide network of contacts; as well as his patient hand-holding through many decisions. I would have done better to listen to his sage advice more often, especially when it came to staff costs and organizational set-up.
Secondly, I was of course not able to give much hands-on time to the business, since I didn’t give up my “day job”. This was one of the biggest hurdles in the project I had set myself, and I had hoped, naively, that I would be able to find a manager who would run the business I had envisaged. Despite finding staff of varying competency and many endearing qualities, I never found such an ideal manager. Thus it was that I came to rely on my consultants as pseudo-managers, or “replacements” for me. This was especially so with Sandy, who would step into my shoes when I traveled away from Sydney, for example.
And thirdly — last but by no means least — these guys provided me with so much moral support. Each of them embraced The Vision and worked hard at my dream. Cynics might point out that they were paid to do that; but nevertheless they did provide me with plenty of support, which I did not have from any other source.
Having said that, I take full responsibility for deciding to press on with the shop in the face of much good advice to the contrary. Following the retail consultant Keith looking over the business, and concluding positively that it should be closed forthwith, I was also called to a rare (indeed unique) joint meeting with my accountant and financial planner, who were seriously concerned that I had taken myself financially to the
edge. I was given the right advice — financially-speaking at any rate — and I thought carefully about it, and chose to push on.
I told the staff, who could tell that things weren’t booming (after all, if you go all day and sell only two books, you must start worrying about your job!) that I planned to keep the shop open for as long as there was enough money to keep going. In the event, this is what I did, pulling back from the brink of financial disaster in the nick of time.
But meanwhile, The Team continued to work hard, and to come up with ideas to try to get those sales figures on the rise. But in addition to our own inadequacies, nefarious forces were also threatening from another direction…
Chapter Thirty-two
The Council
We now come to the darkest chapter of Tea In The Library’s story, the subject that plagued me from the very beginning. The word that I can still barely think of without a shudder: signage. Who would have predicted that something so simple and relatively minor in the scheme of things could cause so much heartache and destruction? You may think I’m exaggerating. Let me explain:
When the shopfitters originally quoted for the job, they included a large illuminated sign over the basement steps. This was positioned about four metres back from the building line and footpath, under the roof of the foyer. Because it was over the steps, it was roughly at the eye-level of someone standing on the street. It was about three metres wide, extending across an existing plinth over the steps. I asked the designers to prepare a design using our Logo and “corporate font”, and our colours.
Several unfortunate occurrences surrounded the installation of this sign. The first was an exceptionally poor job on the construction of the sign itself, both in terms of the quality (joins showing, etc.) and the size. When it was installed, it extended above the plinth because it had an arched top. This meant that it covered the window above by about 30 centimetres at its apex. Quite naturally, the occu-pant of that premises objected.
Now, our upstairs neighbour needs some introduction. As the owner of the only other shop in the building — the rest being residential — we got on quite well with Benny. He was welcoming and friendly, and in this case was quite within his rights to request that the over-large sign be removed from his window (even if that window gave only on to a small office and was always covered with a closed blind). So I set about getting the sign fixed. Because of the demise of the shopfitting company, the original incompetent signmaker had not been paid, which made two reasons why they couldn’t be used for the fix-it job. After great difficulty and delay, I found another signmaker, who eventually replaced the arched sign with a rectangular one that did not impinge on Benny’s window. There was nothing in the original sign which could be usefully re-used, so it was just dumped. The original sign cost me $5,000. The replacement cost me $3,600.
Meanwhile, despite the size of the sign, we were still not very noticeable from the street. We had a sandwich-board style blackboard sign, which had new information chalked on it every day — menu specials, events, new book releases — and it stood at the building line, at the edge of the footpath. The rules of the City Council forbade the placing of such signs on the footpath itself, and on a few occasions the “City Rangers” insisted to the staff that the board infringed this rule, albeit only by a few centimetres. We tried always to be careful about this, but to be visible was always our challenge.
At Sandy’s instigation we also acquired a couple of dramatic wrought-iron easels, which each held a frame, behind the glass of which we could put some eye-catching displays. Our menu could thus be displayed at street level; and our events advertising could be much more creative. These easels stood carefully inside the building line. Sandy also inaugurated a couple of potted palms at our entrance, and although their fronds did technically infringe the “not over the footpath” rule, the Rangers never complained. We weren’t sure if the reason for this was that the fronds were no danger to passers-by; or if the Rangers accepted that they actually improved the streetscape. Which they certainly did.
Our only other signage was a large lettered “BOOKSHOP” on the inside wall of the landing; our Logo painted in the centre of the trompe on the opposite wall; and whatever merchandising we could fit inside the small window beside the entrance door at the bottom of the stairs.
What we really coveted was a cantilevered sign over the footpath, like every other business in the street. But this involved two challenges: finding a reliable signage company, and securing City Council approval. I worked on this from the time we opened, but I never managed to accomplish it in 17 months.
As an interim measure, Dale had suggested a banner. We had one made up, and strung it high over the archway that led to our landing. This could be viewed from directly opposite, on the other side of the road, but was not easily seen from our side of the street.
So this was our highly inadequate signage situation. To pursue approval for a sign over the footpath, I acquired the requisite “Development Application” form from the Sydney City Council, and was a little surprised to find that one used the same multi-paged form, whether applying for a small street sign, or a 40 storey high-rise development. Nevertheless, I hadn’t earned three university degrees for nothing, and so eventually I was able to complete the form. The fee was modest. But a difficulty emerged.
The rules for new signs were strict as to size and location. We wanted a sign, of whatever size we were allowed; but the location rules stipulated that the street sign must be a certain distance from other existing street signs. Outside our entrance was a site on the wall where a sign had previously existed. However, a new building had gone up next door in the last year or two, and one of its business signs was installed very close to this site. On the other side was Benny’s sign, a monster that had been in place for many years. So we were sandwiched between the two with nowhere to go.
Negotiations were opened with the Body Corporate and a friendly Benny. Discussions centered around the possibility of Benny moving his sign down to the next pylon (which was available, “legal” and still adjacent to the entrance of his business), thus freeing up his existing sign site for Tea In The Library. We would pay for his move as well as our new sign. This looked like a win-win option, if costly for us, and we were getting down to the details of the Development Applications that would be needed for Council. At the last minute, rather suddenly and without explanation, Benny pulled out of the deal. We had offered to covers the costs, but I think he may have been concerned about the possibility of Council objections and preferred to stick with the status quo. This was an understandable concern, but left us again with nowhere to go.
I had also been talking to signmakers about the problem, and had been very disappointed with the difficulty of finding a competent company. None wanted anything to do with the Council DA, and I was about to at least lodge the DA myself, in the (mistaken, as it turned out) belief that this would put something on paper that could be discussed or negotiated with Council. So naïve! Both concepts quite foreign to the process, apparently. Then more trouble struck.
Around the time that the second, smaller version of our illuminated sign was being installed, to address the (legitimate) concerns of Benny and the Body Corporate, a letter was received from Sydney City Council, out of the blue. It indicated that the sign was “unauthorised” and must be removed. Objection was also made to our temporary banner, which we hastily removed. This letter invited representations, and several discussions with Council officers ensued. We immediately lodged a Development Application seeking approval of the illuminated sign — because it was sited about four metres back from the street, I had been quite unaware that Council approval was needed for it. I was told by one of the Council officers I talked to that Council had “the final say” over anything in a shop that could be seen from the street! Abandoning the Holy Grail of a footpath sign, I set about trying to save the illuminated sign. It was a pity that no-one at Council to whom I spoke bothered to inform me that Council could not retrosp
ectively grant approval for an existing sign, so the DA was basically a waste of time.
I must confess to becoming rather fraught over this issue. This was happening around September/October, and the thought of facing our second — and crucial — Christmas trading season without any signage at all was appalling. I lost my cool a few times on the phone with stonewalling Council people — there was no one person responsible for my small matter, and several different officers passed me around. One kind one agreed to hold off issuing a removal order for the sign until I had a chance to put in a DA requesting approval. Perhaps she didn’t know that Council couldn’t give retrospective approval, or … ?
Refusal of approval duly arrived. It had been drafted by a Student Planner, to whom our small matter had been delegated. It listed the following reasons for disallowance:
Council is unable to grant retrospective development consent…
…inconsistent with the general objectives and provisions of the City of Sydney Signage Control Plan…
…will result in signage which is not compatible with the architecture of the building and will give rise to visual clutter.
Exceeds maximum height and area controls …
The subject site is located in “Special Area B” … and the Central Sydney Local Environment Plan 1996 which relate to York Street … which requires that signs be small in size and not be internally illuminated light boxes and be compatible with the heritage significance of the area.
The proposal does not exhibit design excellence …
The proposal is not in the public interest.
Glossing over the issues that I had paid good money for good design, the sign was four metres back from the street and under a roof, the building itself was an unprepossessing 1960s dump, and it was surely “in the public interest” that Tea In The Library be able to trade viably, as a lawyer I had to concede that they had got me on the retrospectivity and the size and non-illumination restrictions. I also found it to be almost impossible to find anyone at Council willing to take responsibility for the matter, and to advise me on what we could do, rather than what we couldn’t do.
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