I was a bookseller from May 2018 to March 2020. The bookshop I worked in was a small branch of a well-known book retailer – which, for obvious reasons I am not going to name - but suffice to say my experience of bookselling was, and will be, very different from those who work in independent bookshops. Obviously, the aims of all booksellers are the same (to sell books) but the way this is done differs hugely depending on the bookshop you work in.

I want to say now that the reality of bookselling does not match the cosy image often portrayed in films and books. There is no time within the workday to sit and read and very rarely do your encounters with customers lead to a Notting Hill or You’ve Got Mail experience. But bookselling is invaluable experience for those who want to work in publishing.

Looking back from my current publishing vantage point, I can see the many ways in which my years as a bookseller equipped me for the role I do now. The most obvious being the constant close contact with customers. As a bookseller you see first-hand how customers interact with books; which ones they are drawn to, the ones they buy, the ones they don’t. You talk to them: you hear their likes and dislikes, the books they love, the books they hate. Frequently your opinion is sought – they want a recommendation for their seven-year-old grandson, their sister, their friend.

The nature of the job means that as a bookseller you are constantly surrounded by books – giving you an excellent knowledge of the current market. This sort of first-hand knowledge is invaluable if you want to work in publishing, no matter the department you might be considering.

Something I think that is also helpful if you want to take the leap from bookselling to publishing is the regular interactions you have with authors when working in a bookshop. Most bookshops hold frequent events with authors (whether that is part of a larger literary event or a simple talk or signing held within the bookshop itself) and authors often dropped in to check we had their books on the shelves. Not only do these events and interactions help dispel any common preconceptions about authors (it turns out that they are regular people after all!), but being able to navigate the slightly trickier situations that may come up (e.g. not having any of the author’s titles in stock and having to explain it to them) will prove extremely useful when working with authors within a publishing context – again, this applies to whichever area of publishing you end up working in.

Something that I was keenly aware of as a bookseller (and perhaps even more so now as I work in publishing) is the value of booksellers. Booksellers can make or break a title. Customers trust them. Back when I was a bookseller, we had regular customers who would buy books simply on the recommendation of a favoured bookseller. Even when it was something they would never have picked up before they would unhesitatingly hand over their card or cash if a bookseller loved a book enough. ‘Alright then,’ they would say. ‘I trust you.’

As a bookseller, we had a few glimpses into the publishing industry through the copy of The Bookseller (the trade newspaper for the publishing world) that we received every Friday morning and the advance copies of upcoming books we were sent from book publicists. We were sent the latter in the hope that we would read the book, love the book, then sell lots of it to our customers.

We would also get occasional visits from the publishers’ sales reps. I enjoyed these visits as it meant we got a sense of what was coming up and what books the publishers were really excited about. Publishing can be very insular and those visits were (and are) an ideal opportunity for publishers to learn from booksellers and their expertise regarding what was (and is) actually selling in their bookshops. Recognising the knowledge booksellers have is valuable and worth using would contribute a great deal to the books we publish and the way we publish them.

The bookshop I worked in was in a small town in the North of England, so my experience likely differed to booksellers in London and other major metropolitan areas. I value my time as a bookseller immensely and would heartily recommend all those looking for a role in publishing to get some bookselling experience – I don’t think I would have got my job without it!