Listening to the story of an entrepreneur who starts "with the position" is always inspiring.The story of Librería Quade is one of those, with the additive of the warmth and pleasure that only the books grant.Pass and read the route of Evangelina Montiel Bertone and Jorge Caparelli, partners in business and love, who started 15 years ago in the field and today with three stores seek to transcend the borders of Córdoba.
Íñigo Biain: Tell me the story of quade ... When are they born? Why? Are you lover of books?One imagines that behind a bookstore, more than a business lover, there must be a lover of books, right?
Evangelina Montiel Bertone: Of the two things. Quade was born in 2007, but as an exclusively technical bookstore, we did not sell to the retail public, but were institutional sales: we provided universities, schools and training institutes. The bookstore was founded by Jorge Caparelli, who is my husband. And promoted by the same demand of the clients to which we arrived (which were mostly teachers from many technical schools of the interior), who began to demand literature and we at that time had no recreational books. We had at that time a place near the terminal, which more than a place was a kind of shed, it was a huge place that had 500 square meters of which 150 could be used, because the rest was deposit. It was a very old and very ugly place and we had no attention to the public. But following this demand for books, we are very restless, we began to glimpse that a more aesthetic bookstore could be opened and that it had access to the retail public.
IB: But in another area?
Emb: Yes, we start looking for the area.We liked New Córdoba and we started falling in love with a place that was the front of the Park of Las Tejas and so we were for a long time, like more than a year, circling until the opportunity was given and we could rent the place we currently haveon Bolivia Street (between Ituzaingó and Chacabuco).It was the first place with public sale and has many followers and followers and is different from the other premises that we later open in the shopping malls.We did it to that: we designed it and in a little we were incorporated all the editorials of literature.That was in 2012.
Ib: But the premises of Nueva Córdoba, was followed by two more on the Jockey promenade at the Rivera Indarte Paseo ...
Emb: exactly. We live in the southern zone and in 2016 the Jockey Paseo began to attract attention. But before they did the closed shopping, there were only the premises that are on the outside and the little bug chopped a little and we thought: "How nice it would be to have a place here." We began to process it, put a lot of energy to that project and the truth is that for us it was a dream because we are a family project, with few economic resources and we only lived from that bookstore of Nueva Córdoba. And when we learned that we were going to open: "Well, let's talk, let's see what happens." We went, we talked to the commercial manager of the Jockey Paseo and our decision was very bold. We were very convinced that we wanted to go to that place, it seemed to us that the area needed it, but for the level where we were, the costs were very high. I will never forget that when he told us the value of what the rent cost, it was what we invoiced in a month in Nueva Córdoba, but that did not make us give up from our dreams, so we started making numbers, see points of balance, how much we were going to spend on the work ... and we said yes and there we went!
Ib: I imagine that with loans from friends and favoring ...
Emb: Yes, the truth was a bit like that, loans from everywhere: a little banks, mom, friends ... and we had no room to fail or half a day because there was no rest. But we were accompanied by the desire and design because we achieved a product that was very new. He immediately became visible and from the day of the inauguration, which was the same day that he inaugurated the Jockey Paseo, the place was filled with people; It was published everywhere and the truth is that from that moment it was a turning point, a growth, I do not tell you exponentially, but we could really cope with the costs, we could start winning, to return the debts ... This was in 2017 and at the end of that year we received a proposal from Paseo Rivera that had made its extension, had created a lot of square meters and had no bookstore. And we also began to evaluate that possibility and finally we could win a space in the Paseo Rivera, a place that we liked, with a very good location in the central hall, in a corner with a lot of stained glass window. And in August 2018 we inaugurated it.
Ib: which composes a network of 3 stores that have ...
Emb: exactly composes a network of 3 stores.Already in 2019, we double the size of the Jockey Paseo, which in its origin had half of what it has now.And well, in 2020 we know what happened.
IB: Do they have online sale?
Emb: We have online sale, yes.
IB: Is it significant?How would you distribute the cake?Does the Jockey walk take 50% of the billing?
Emb: Our strongest place is the Jockey promenade and could be 50% of sales and the rest is distributed between Nueva Córdoba, the Web and the Rivera Indarte Paseo.
IB: Are you still having the technical book unit?
Emb: Little.Because the demand for technical books lowered a lot, in fact a lot of publishers that are not national, which are outside, took their local headquarters and is little the material.And the technical schools are not what they were and there is no more demand that was then.
Ib: And the recreational book ... one listens that is increasingly printed but less sold.What is myth and how much of reality?
Emb: that more and more is a reality, that is, the largest publishers have many monthly developments every month.We from all publishers receive more than 100 novelties.
Ib.100 monthly novelties?!
Emb: at least.And to that you have to multiply it by the amount of books you receive, because they do not send you one.
IB: Do you work with all large publishers?
Emb: With the greats, all.
IB: How much is the minimum they send you?Three?
Emb: Yes, the minimum is two or three.But it depends...
Ib: And from a blockbuster as the first half, Macri's book, how many send you?
1,000?Or is it a lot?
Emb: It's a lot.They can be 200. But when you have already sold you more.Sometimes happens.
IB: Do editorials send it to you in consignment?
Emb: Yes, it is in consignment most of the time.
IB: What margin does the book have?fifty%?
Emb: It depends on the arrangement that each one has, not all bookstores have the same arrangements with publishers.
Ib: And do you know how much you have the others?
Emb: of some yes and some not.
IB: Book Law: Unique price;You can't touch it, right?
Emb: There is a margin of 10% that could be descended, but it is not something that is well seen to lower the price to the book.Because the margin is not that it is much and if we are going to put a discount ... we mostly do not apply the discount.
IB: How much does an average book cost?
Emb: A Best Seller costs around $ 1,300 or $ 1,400.
IB: Is it a good international price?
Emb: It depends on what dollar you calculate it.
IB: People buy books, but do you read them?
Emb: Yes. Of course there is also an audience that buys books for the mere fact of treasuring them, collecting them and having them there to see them with the fantasy that they will read it.It's like the people who buy clothes and keep it with the label thinking that one day they will put it on.But the truth is that mostly our clients read the books.
IB: Are you in a place?
Emb: No.
IB: But the boys who are in the fronting know customers?Is that relationship?
Emb: Yes!Is recontra.We have very faithful, very fanatical customers too.
IB: Do you have an affinity club?
Emb: Not for the moment.
IB: What was the book you sold best?Do you remember?
Emb: The soul of the flowers of Viviana Rivero.She is No. 1, fighting another romantic novel writer.
IB: Who is it?
Emb: Florence Bonelli.But as Viviana lives in Córdoba, then she has her audience.Apart from we made the main presentation of Viviana's book in Quade in December 2019 and so far it is the best -selling book.
IB: Is there any date that more books are given or more books are bought?
Emb: Date 1 is Christmas.But since our audience goes from 0 to 100 years and can be men, women, babies, adults, children, youth .. all!So for all special dates we have proposals.
IB: Isn't the industry missing a Sant Jordi as in Barcelona (Spain) where books are given?
Emb: The truth is that it would be good.And just April 23 is Book Day ...
IB: Are you at the book fair when it is done?Serves you?
EMB: The Córdoba Book Fair is not an editorial fair, but a bookstore fair.Then it does not have great added value, you know what you are going to find and all bookstores together, but in Buenos Aires that this year was not done, last year either.There we do not go as participants, but as visitors to the professional days and it is very good.
IB: Is the book to die, won't die?
Emb: No. Le han pronosticado la muerte al libro durante muchos años y la verdad es que el libro se reinventa, se transforma y, encima, no solamente que no muere sino que crece porque no solo el lector tradicional o los que son un poco más grandes que nosotros, leemos libros en papel, sino que hay un gran público joven y de niños que prefieren leer libros en papel.
IB: In that sense, what was the ebook?Is there a path there or was Trunco?I have my Kindle on the light table on 400 books on paper ...
Emb: coexist with the paper book, they are two supports that can live together and that in fact live.The ebook did not grow as expected, growth is very flattened.In 2020 the sale of the physical book grew;People during the pandemic turned to the physical book a lot and I think they can live together for many years.
IB: The best -selling book tells me that it was from Viana Rivero, but of the politicians, what was it?To be honest?
Emb: Honestly.
IB: As much?
Emb: It was really a boom when it came out.They presented it at a fair moment because nobody knew.Of the Random Penguin publishing house had not transcended.We learned the day we were going to the 2019 Book Fair, we learned at the airport for a note we read.And we got there and when we were at the fair it was brought by the publisher and I wantedBook had disappeared.In favor or against, for better or worse of this or the other, but everyone wanted to know what it was.
IB: Who filters the PDF?The same editorial?Cristina's came in PDF for Mail, Macri's also came to me.
Emb: I don't think the editorial filters the PDF.
IB: But is it not a subject out there for the bestseller that appear in PDF somewhere?
EMB: In my personal appreciation it seems to me that the reader, the person who really wants to read a book, unless he wants to chuse what it is and read a leaf, in that case it can be, but if not the PDF does not go.Apart, we are exposed to screens throughout the day: the cell phone, the computer ... it happens to me that I am all day with the screen and at night when I start reading, it makes me look sight.So if I am going to read a book on screen ... Kindle readers have a different screen, but a PDF is only to beckle.
IB: Do you plan to expand with other stores?Or is it a lot?
Emb: It's never much.
IB: Zone?
Emb: We have nothing confirmed, now it is a special moment but we always analyze proposals will be closer to the end of the year.
