~ Warning: this post is 1,300 words which is longer than usual for this blog. Get comfortable before you start reading.
Livraria Velhotes is a 15-minute walk from where I live: turn left at the top of our street, go past the ruined house with the goats in the garden, past the kindergarten, the football field, the jujitsu studio, the water reservoir and just before you reach the high school the bookstore is on your left.
One of the partners, Pedro Carvalho, told me about the history, spirit and practice of the bookstore. In this edited transcript of the interview, Pedro talks about financial survival, publication in Portugal and the relationship between a bookstore and its community.
Pedro: Over time the bookshops in Vila Nova de Gaia have been disappearing, and the same with secondhand bookshops.
Vila Nova de Gaia, as you may have noticed, is one of the largest Portuguese cities in terms of population, but it is a bit of a dormitory for Porto. And the centre of Porto is closer to the centre of Gaia than it is to some of the areas of the city of Porto itself. And this means that the centre of Porto has quite a few bookshops and these are well sustained by their tradition, by the work they do, but also by the tourist numbers. These bookshops attract a lot of purchases from book lovers in Vila Nova de Gaia too.
Livraria Velhotes was founded in 1976. And now, outside the shopping malls, it's the only bookshop left in Gaia. The fact it's the only one is proof of longevity and resilience.
L: Are the customers from Gaia itself?
P: Not just from Gaia.
L: Do they come from further afield?
P: Customers come from Porto and as far away as Vila da Feira, 30 or 40 kilometres from here. Many are looking for material for children and young people. In the last 15 years, we have been trying to understand not only what we wanted as our core identity, but where we could go and what could make us stand out. In Portugal publishing for children and young adults has undergone a great transformation in recent years. Lots of small publishers have started up and they’re producing high quality work in terms of the writing, and particularly in terms of illustration. For example Orfeu Negro, Máquina de Voar, e Trinta por uma Linha.
L: Do you have customers who live closer to the shop? What are the reading habits of people in Gaia?
P: Livraria Velhotes tries to promote reading in Vila Nova de Gaia. And one of the ways we do this is by taking writers into schools. We publicise the name of the bookshop at the schools. Working with the schools and the school libraries, we can run activities with students to promote reading, and eventually turn them into readers or help them in that direction. When a writer visits the school it's a special day; students are focused on meeting the visiting writer.
L: And you, the bookshop, you're the link between the writers and the schools?
P: Yes, we're the link. Schools don't have the funds to pay a writer to visit them. I don't know how it works in other countries, but I imagine that schools have a budget to pay writers to come to their school, and the writer comes. And that's the right way to do it, because if they do a school visit, they won't be doing their normal job of work, they'll be giving up a day of their life to go into a school, and they should be compensated. But in Portugal it doesn't work this way, because schools don’t have the funds.
So what do we do? We collect the writer from their house, take them to the school, and we cover all of the costs, so that the school doesn’t have to pay anything but can still benefit from the sort of activities that take place in other countries.
L: And how is the writer compensated?
P: If students want to buy books by that writer, they can find them for sale at the school. But that’s only if they want to buy one, there's no obligation. If no one wants to buy a book, that’s fine. We’ve done what we needed to.
L: Is it a form of marketing?
P: It is a form of marketing, because it raises our profile in the area, so later, if someone wants to buy books by that author, or by any other author, they know to come to Livraria Velhotes.
As well as the sales of children’s and young adult’s books, we do a lot of business with school textbooks. They [the writers’ visits] are a way of returning to the community some of the business they give us when they buy their textbooks through us. That's why the schools that we take writers to are almost all here in Vila Nova de Gaia.
L: Can you explain what you mean when you use the word ‘community’?
P: When I say community, it's the community here in the centre of Vila Nova de Gaia. This is the community. There are people who come from further afield looking for something specific, but when I say community I mean the people who live nearby and who come to the bookshop the most often.
People go past the bookshop, they see a book, they’re curious, they come in, buy something and read it. That's an important thing for this community. People often come in, flick through a book and then come back later. It’s very important that every community, every small town, has a bookshop.
We want to make sure that the community gets something. On the other hand, we are promoting the act of reading and we’re betting on future generations, so that they’ll continue to enjoy books, and so that books are important to them, meaning that they will buy books.
L: And was this scheme a success?
P: Yes, this approach has worked well.
L: I thought that young people were reading less and less.
P: It’s like this: children under 12 read because they’re very motivated; they’re motivated by teachers, they’re motivated by their own curiosity to learn. They have open minds, they’re ready to hear stories, and there are lots of incentives for them to read. From that point onwards there are other things that interest them more, like television, the internet, mobile phones, and other things. It's hard to fight against that.
Many teens are looking for books connected to Netflix series they’ve seen. It happens a lot. Young people come to the bookshop looking for a book that a series was based on, and see other books on display which they’ve also heard of at some other point.
L: Can you give an example of a series based on a book?
P: Thirteen Reasons Why. It’s an American Netflix series. It starts with a teenager who takes her own life. She leaves behind thirteen tapes, intended for thirteen people, friends and people who were in her life. The thirteen tapes each have a message. Each chapter of the book develops the impact this message has on the whole story. It's an unusual book and relates to bullying.
L: Could young readers find these books at FNAC or at El Corte Ingles?
P: At FNAC and El Corte Inglês the bookshop space is managed the same way as the food aisles in a supermarket, that’s to say, a book is published this month and appears with a lot of publicity and in very visible places. After two or three months, this book disappears and you never see it in the bookshop again.
The big publishers pay for these spaces to make their books stand out. Here, our selection is independent. People may like it, or they may not, but the reason we choose a book is never just about financial considerations.
L: The choice is ...
P: ... independent.
L: That’s a good word to end on.
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