Saved by The Borg

Just as we opened our bookshop, for a brief, but wonderful twelve days; bookshop.org (The Borg) - billed as an alternative to Amazon - launched in the UK. Having no resources, money or skills to set up our own transactional website, we were very keen to get on board.

What we couldn’t predict at the time was how absolutely vital bookshop.org was going to be after Christmas! Lockdown saw our store closed for browsing - but as The Borg so perfectly puts it - ‘open for business.’ Being able to direct customers to our online store has prevented our financial and mental well-being tipping into ‘the arena of the unwell’ to quote Marwood from Withnail & I

At the beginning of March The Borg announced they had raised £1m for UK indie booksellers; a phenomenal achievement and worthy of an article in The Guardian. The East Gate Bookshop was lucky enough to get a mention in that article and the response was incredible - also helped by the release of Klara and The Sun from Kazuo Ishiguro.

So, now, with just enough money to pay our bills, we can actually think about buying new stock for when we (hopefully) open in April. A heady and exciting prospect, and challenges us to be maybe - perhaps a little bit optimistic as the world returns with uncertain baby steps towards a sort-of normal…