Why does the Hurgronje Family Fund award financial aid to a commercial enterprise? Find the answers to this and other questions in an interview with an enthusiastic bookseller and publisher from Goes.
How old are you, where do you live, and with whom?
I’m 59 years old and live in Goes with my wife Jolanda. We have two children and, since November, a granddaughter.
What is your profession?
I am a bookseller. I trained as a teacher in Delft to become a history teacher, as that had been my dream for as long as I can remember. But after a year standing in front of a class, I realised that it wasn’t really my thing. I wanted to impart knowledge, but I was mainly dealing with maintaining order.
On the other hand, I’d been working as a holiday worker at the bookshop Het Paard van Troje in Goes since I was 15. The bookshop had been set up a year before I started there. I really enjoyed working there. Incidentally, there was also a lovely girl working there whom I later married…
After my experience as a teacher, I took over the bookshop Het Paard van Troje. That was the right choice, because I look forward to going to work every single day. Twenty years ago, I started a publishing house under the same name, which mainly publishes books related to Zeeland. And six years ago, I took over the bookshop De Koperen Tuin. This bookshop is also in Goes, but is five times the size of Het Paard van Troje.
What makes you enjoy your work so much?
It’s very varied. Both bookshops are part of the Libris network, and I’m on the purchasing committee, which I enjoy. Interacting with customers is always a pleasure. It gives me enormous satisfaction to sell a book that I like.
With the rise of the internet, things have changed quite a bit. People now tend to come in better informed. They know exactly what they want and are looking for it specifically. Fortunately, there are still plenty of people who pop in just to have a browse.
What I love about the book trade is that we all know each other. It’s a small world and, partly thanks to fixed book prices, you don’t have to compete on price, which brings peace of mind and allows you to focus on other matters. We’re all colleagues. It makes for a wonderful network.
The contact with authors is also very direct. They’re passionate people who I love to draw inspiration from.
Zeeland is special in the sense that we have the Zeeland Book Week. That’s unique to the Netherlands; the rest of the country only has the National Book Week.
As a publisher, you stay in the background; nobody realises how much you actually decide and do yourself. The author takes centre stage. Publishing books leads to all sorts of collaborations. When you bring people together, wonderful things happen. That’s what motivates me and keeps me going.
How did you come to know the Hurgronje Family Fund?
That’s quite a funny story. Six years ago, I was visiting De Koperen Tuin to speak with the previous owner. We were discussing subsidy providers when a customer joined the conversation and mentioned that she was a member of the Hurgronje Family Fund and that there might be opportunities there.
Since then, I’ve submitted applications regularly. We publish around six to seven books a year, of which two or three are with support from the Hurgronje Family Fund.
Why is that support important?
In the Netherlands, a book is considered a bestseller when 10,000 copies are sold. On average, books are printed in runs of 2,000. Provided all copies are sold, it is worth the effort; the publisher makes a profit.
At Het Paard van Troje, print runs are usually 500 copies. Sometimes 700, and in exceptional cases 1,000. I always work with a professional photographer and an editor to ensure the quality of my publications. 90% of the publications are purely Zeeland-based and are therefore sold almost exclusively in Zeeland. Hence the limited print runs. This means that the cost of publishing a book is actually always too high to justify publishing it, despite the fact that most authors do not want any money for their work.
Many subsidy providers only grant funding to foundations and not to commercial organisations. As a result, books are published that are 100% subsidised but do not sell. Such a foundation usually has little or no involvement in the commercialisation of books. Whereas for me, the work really only begins once a book has been printed: the book has to be sold to cover the costs, and that is what I am committed to. But without subsidies, many books would not be printed at all.
I used to apply to the Culture Fund on a regular basis. However, they have recently changed their rules and now the budget for an application must be at least 15,000 euros for the application to be even considered. I, on the other hand, try to keep costs as low as possible. To be eligible for a grant from the Culture Fund, I would have to artificially inflate the budget for publishing a book, and I don’t think that’s right.
If a publication does well, I make about 10% profit, not counting my hours. In exceptional cases, I earn more from it. For example, the book ‘History of Goes’, with a print run of 500, of which I sold 400 in my own shop. That’s commercially interesting: create your own bestseller! And that’s only possible through the combination of publishing house and bookshop. On the other hand, there are also books that sell poorly, meaning I can’t cover the costs. As long as there’s the occasional blockbuster to offset that, I’m fine with it. I do this work because I enjoy it, but of course it has to be viable.
What are your hobbies/interests?
Reading.
Going on holiday. When the children still came along, we almost always went to France. These days we’re big fans of Italy. Because of the history and the wealth of culture you find on the streets of every village there. And the food, of course!
In your opinion, what is your best quality, and what is your worst?
Best: perseverance. If I’ve got something in my head, it’ll happen. I keep looking until I’ve sorted it out. Which leads to my worst quality: I can be a bit pushy at times. What I want is in my head, but I don’t always manage to explain it clearly to others straight away. I’m often a step ahead in my thoughts, and that can sometimes get in the way.
What does your ultimate day of self care look like?
Lying in bed until half past nine and then having a nice breakfast. Sitting quietly outside, going for a walk and having lunch somewhere. Reading a book in the afternoon, perhaps going for a bike ride. Going out for a nice meal in the evening. Or cosily streaming a TV series together on the sofa.
Now that we have a grandchild, it’s also really nice to do things with her. We’re both off work on Wednesdays, and that’s our regular babysitting day. She comes to stay with us then. She’s still very small, but of course we’re already reading all sorts of little books to her.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I hope we continue to receive support from the Family Fund. I’m proud of what I publish. We’ve now published around 130 books. Publishing is a form of creation. You make something accessible that didn’t exist before.
Through publishing books, I’ve come to appreciate rural life. That warm community that helps and looks after one another. You don’t see that anymore even in Goes, which is, after all, just a small town.
Book recommendation: *Pelgrim* by Philip Dröge. About the eventful life of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. Well written, a real page-turner.
0 comments