New location for Lesley McKay’s Bookshop

Lesley McKay’s Bookshop has moved to a new location in Woollahra, Sydney, after initially announcing plans to close.

Owner Lesley McKay told Books+Publishing she was on the verge of selling her 45-year-old business and retiring because of rising rental costs and falling revenue, but was convinced to stay open following a groundswell of community support.

‘We had the most overwhelming response from the community. We had emails, cards, flowers … it was incredible. We just felt we couldn’t close.’

McKay said she negotiated a four-year lease for the new site on Spicer Street, around the corner from the store’s old site on Queen Street. The new store, which is slighter larger than the previous store and contains all the old fittings, opened on 1 May.

McKay believes competition from online booksellers has led to the store’s drop in revenue. ‘Amazon is the main threat. Kindle, and the other ways of reading electronic books, that’s not so much the problem. But Amazon seems determined to destroy retail bookstores,’ she said.

McKay said it was up to shoppers to commit to buying local if they wanted to keep bricks-and-mortar bookstores. ‘From the experience we had, people want bookshops,’ said McKay. ‘People come for conversation, or for solace, or it’s a place to bring their kids. It is, or it can be, a part of the community, and people will miss that. A suburb is very impoverished without its bookstore.’

Category: Local news