How the Bookworm chain is helping shape China's literary scene

Peter Goff is the co-founder and general manager of the Bookworm chain, which has outlets in Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou. It all started in 2002, when the former journalist's friend Alex Pearson set up a small lending library and cafe in a Beijing courtyard, and he offered to help her out. They called the place Bookworm and began running book readings and discussions. Over the next few years, the Beijing Bookworm moved to several sites before finding a permanent home in Sanlitun district in 2005. The bookshop/library/cafe concept took off and a year later Goff quit journalism to focus on the business, opening a branch in Chengdu in 2006 and another in Suzhou in 2007. Today the businesses are going strong and the Irishman divides his time between the three bookstores, which play a significant role in shaping the literary scene on the mainland. 

We bought them mostly from second-hand bookstores in the UK and Ireland, and literally put them on slow boats to China. The whole market has changed significantly and now it's much easier to get English-language books in China. Back then it was very much a rarity, which is why we started collecting them and making them accessible through a library system.

Book sales were small even at the best of times, but in 2008 came the Kindle and then these heavy book discounts, and it got very competitive. We make our money from the cafe/restaurant and the salon events. We have just celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Bookworm and worked out that we have hosted about 3,000 authors over the past decade. Most of our book sales are driven by people coming to listen to an author and then buying a signed copy of the book. Initially it was just English-language events and mostly international authors and an international audience. That has changed significantly over the years and now we have a lot of Chinese-language events and the audiences are very mixed.