The decline in tourist arrivals has proven to be a challenge for local publisher June Stoute.
Speaking to the BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY recently at her Prior Park, St James home, the Wordways Caribbean publisher seemed surprise at the extent that her business had been hurt by the effects of the sluggish Barbados economy.
“Right now with the recession on I can’t even believe my little business is affected,”?she said. “Selling to the tourists everything gets affected. It is interesting that it trickles down to a little business like mine.
“One would think that such things would not trouble someone like me but it does. When I started I would have been selling the books a lot faster than I am currently selling.
“The decline in tourists spend and tourist numbers has affected my business because where my books are selling is in those locations.”
Stoute’s story books can be found in gift shops and bookstores across the country including at the airport, as well as at the Barbados Museum.
“Tourists are my main market . . . . The recession has affected me, and when you talk to any retailer their entire business has shrunk a bit in the recession because tourist spending is shrinking. This is what I am seeing in the newspapers and also from talking with the people who sell my books,” she said.
“The tourists purchase them for their children and grandchildren. I understand a number of teachers buy them to take back to their schools, I hear the story that adults purchase them for art work [and] local people buy them because they want a local story,” added Stoute.
Despite the slowdown however, Stoute said she expected sales to pick back up during the Crop Over season and again during the winter season “if the tourist numbers increase”.
And although she remained optimistic, the author said competition was stiff and the cost of producing books was rising.
The author added that each of her stories was original and illustrations were detailed.
“The printing cost is high. The market is small so it is hard to compete with mass market things like Goldilocks and others which are printed by the thousands compared to stories that are original.”
Stoute, 65, currently works with one illustrator and one or two editors, “depending on the demand”.
The National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA) awardee said her work was also available online and she was in the process of converting her publications to e-books.
To date, Stoute has published six books and she said the feedback was very encouraging.
“I recently got an email from somebody in the United States. She bought one of my books in Barbados and went to New York and found it online and bought more copies,” she said.
But when asked if she always wanted to be a publisher, Stoute laughed and replied: “No. I got involved from publishing a book for my husband. That was the first time I published a book.”
It was “a case of fools rush in”, Stoute added.
In 1999 she joined a local writers’ group called Voices, in an effort to sharpen her writing skills and it was six years later that she published her first book.
The former hotel worker said she would get an idea and begin to “play with it” for a while then write the story and pass it on to her editor who then made the necessary corrections.
“And I also give it to my illustrator and we decide what we are going to illustrate and how we are going to do so,” outlined Stoute.
Over the years, she has received five NIFCA awards for her books – four silvers and one bronze.
She said she would love to see some of her books making it onto the primary school syllabus, adding that some teachers were already reading them to children.
While acknowledging that a number of Barbadians were successfully publishing books, Stoute said for those who wanted to become involved in publishing “there are lots of opportunities but you need to make sure your work is of good standard and get an editor. That is essential”.
