Keeping it in the Family

Now it’s official: they are keeping the wedding in the family. Not only has William chosen to have his brother Harry at his side as his best man on the big day, but his fiancé Kate has chosen her sister, Philippa, as maid of honour.

And it doesn’t stop there: two of the bridesmaids are related: Lady Louise Windsor, Margarita Armstrong-Jones.

Harry, who is training to fly Apache attack helicopters, is likely to have the role of planning William’s stag do.

Eclector’s Royal Wedding Bookshop has all the books you could possibly want about the great day, the royal family and even weddings in general.

William and Harry, the book at the top of the blog, is a fascinating account of their lives. From the day they were born, Prince William and Prince Harry have been the focus of attention in Britain and around the world. Their parents’ fairytale wedding, followed swiftly by the arrival of two sons, seemed like the perfect happy ending. Growing up in Highgrove and at Kensington Palace, the two young princes were successfully sheltered from the pressures that drove their parents apart and, ultimately, led to their divorce. Following the tragically early death of their mother, Diana, William and Harry attracted massive public sympathy, a sentiment that still attaches to them to this day. But as well as sympathy, the public now respects them as outgoing, hard-working and competent young men, who have honoured their mother’s legacy in their charity work and in their determination to protect her memory. The world has also seen that their relationship with their father is a loving and happy one, and that in this, at least, the Royal family appears to have learnt a lesson from Diana. As they move into their adult roles – whether in the form of official Royal duties or those on the front line, fighting alongside their fellow countrymen – they are both developing into a new breed of Royal, as much at home organising a pop concert or taking a gap year in Africa or South America, as they are at State occasions or in full regimental dress uniform.

 

Children and ebooks

A recent survey tells us that one in 11 boys in England – one in seven in some areas – starts secondary school with, at best, the reading skills of an average seven-year-old. It’s not simply that they can’t read books, but that their communication skills will be much worse than they need be – they will find that getting on with other people is that bit more difficult.

But we mustn’t – I mustn’t – get into moralising and finger-wagging. We must find ways of getting these kids reading. I suspect that when ebook readers are so cheap that kids can have one of their own, then reading will take on a new importance, a new relevance to young children.

Meanwhile, lets do more reading with our children.  There are so many lovely books out there! Just take a look at the shop Eclector built for the Children With Aids Charity. Here you can buy the books your kids will love while supporting a most important kids charity.

Rambling On for 75 Years!

Ramblers' President Julia Bradbury with Eclector's COO Genevieve Pascoe

As representative of their bookshop provider, Eclector’s Genevieve Pascoe was invited to the party held by the Ramblers to celebrate their 75^th Anniversary in London last week.   The great and the good of rambling and outdoor pursuits shared their pride in the charity’s achievements of the last seven decades.

The Ramblers 75th Birthday Cake

Past president Janet Street-Porter and current president Julia Bradbury both spoke of the importance of the charity’s work in championing access to the countryside and of the many benefits of walking, whether in the country or urban environment.

The prize for the raffle was a copy of the book published to commemorate the charity’s 75th birthday, Ramblers Best Walks in Britain, signed by Julia Bradbury. Since the prize was a book it seemed fitting that our Genevieve should join Julia to present it to the winner.

Everyone at the party was full of praise for the Ramblers bookshop which is built, hosted and maintained by Eclector. Another example of how our shops not only generate much-needed new revenue, but also provide an all-encompassing book selling service for our clients.

A Different Bookshop

We’ve opened a new bookshop for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. If you don’t remember, Sophie was a young goth who was killed, apparently just for being a goth. As the charity’s tag line has it: stamp out prejudice, hatred and intolerance everywhere.

After consulting family and friends, Sophie’s parents felt that a charity should be set up in her name. The charity, known as The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, will focus on creating respect for and understanding of subcultures in our communities.

It will also work in conjunction with politicians and police forces to ensure individuals who are part of subcultures are protected by the law.

Eton – the Bookshop of Prime Ministers

Whatever you think of Eton College – and as an Old-Etonian myself I have decidedly mixed feelings about the power and influence all that privilege exudes – whatever you think of the place, it plays a part in the life of the nation way beyond the numbers of people it educates.  There is no simple answer to the question of why ten percent of the current 120 government ministers  are Old-Etonians, or why  so many Prime Ministers have trodden the playing fields of Eton.  No simple answer because it is clearly more than the power of privilege, wealth and the landed gentry network.

As an anti-old-etonian myself – someone who has fought all his life against that snobbish aura of entitlement with which many OE’s protect themselves – I am still fascinated by the wonderful range of talent the place produces: from Darius Guppy who faked a jewel heist for the insurance to George Orwell, from Humphrey Littleton to Ludovic Kennedy, from aristocrats with names like Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury to Reshad Feild, the mystic.

An indication of the unique quality of Eton is that we have been able to populate an entire bookshop with books about Eton, about Old Etonians or by them, and nothing else. Have a look.

The Royal Wedding Bookshop

The buzz has started. Kate’s mum Carole and sister Pippa have been seen at designer Bruce Oldfield‘s boutique, which specialises in wedding dresses. The pair spent an hour and 20 minutes in the fashion emporium in Knightsbridge, West London, also browsing through sale items for the mother-of-the-bride outfit. Oldfield was Princess Diana‘s favourite designer and counts Queen Rania of Jordan among his clients.

We thought the wedding presented a fantastic opportunity to put all the relevant books in one place and contribute half the profits on all sales to William’s mum’s charity, The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Everyone moved by the romance of the occasion of Kate and William should have a look at our selection.

Sales in Cornwall

The My Cornwall Eclector bookshop has a huge sale on for the next week only. It’s the new year, and they wanted to show their thanks to all their supporters by offering massive savings on all titles at our online bookshop.
All books, from Jamie Oliver to Michael Morpurgo are reduced by 20%!. The sale ends on February 4th, so hurry on over to our store and take advantage of this limited offer.

Literary Recycling

There is something vaguely sinful about throwing away a book, even if it has a title like The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais or People Who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood as two books published in the last couple of years did.  Sinful not just for green reasons, but because books have personalities, purpose and charm in a way that few other physical objects do.

Wanting to find value in the literary compost heap Eclector is getting going with second-hand books. We now have around a million of them in our catalogue and are encouraging our shop owners to build bookshelves of beautiful old books. They are cheaper and the fact that others have already enjoyed them only adds to their mystique. Have a look at all the second-hand books about Bath and Somerset, the area local to us and our client Monkton Combe School, to see what is now possible.

How to Make a Site that People Want to Read

You will know from your own experience on the web that the content of most sites is poor. As a user this is frustrating; as an online publisher this is a great opportunity.
Fortunately, the search engines are getting much better at sorting the wheat from the chaff. Google uses over 200 different criteria to select the pages that they list in their results. But this shift towards quality sets the bar higher for all online publishers. To be heard in this noisy and crowded world you must stand out and the only way to do that is through the quality of your site content.

So here are a few guidelines to help you think about and plan your content.

The 5 ‘w’s and an ‘h’ – something  journalism students learn in the their first week. They are repeatedly told that they should ask themselves these six questions every time they write a story

• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• When?
• Why?
• How?

And we should add one more:

• So what?

Asking these questions has stood the test of time, so you won’t go far wrong if you make them the cornerstone of your website writing.

In addition to these basic questions you must also ensure whatever you write is:

• Targeted at your audience – Some good advice: “Write what your audience want to know, not necessarily what they need to know”. Think about that!
• Highly relevant – It may sound obvious, but it is amazing how many specialist content sites go off subject. Create a list of questions which you can use to judge every potential article you write, for example:

- Will it help my readers make money?

- Will it answer their questions?
- Will help my readers save money?
- Will it make their lives easier?
- Will it help them do xxx better?

• Exclusive and unique – content that is not available elsewhere is very valuable. This can be from insider sources, your own opinion on your subject, an interview, etc.
• Frequently updated – New content should be added at least weekly, but preferably daily. You don’t need to add feature length articles every day. Blog style, single paragraph posts are OK to keep the site fresh. If you are going on holiday prepare stuff to go up whilst you’re away
• Current – Make sure the content is always bang up-to-date. Being able to publish in real time is one of the huge advantages the Internet has over print
• To the point and factual – You don’t need to pad out articles like many print publications do to fill a given space (or to satisfy advertising clients). Get straight to the point . . . and stay there!
• Easy to read and digest – Simple words; short sentences; short paragraphs; avoid jargon; clean layout; lots of sub-headings. Break up long articles into several smaller ones. Remember people don’t like to read long articles on a screen
• Offers variety! – Keep trying new things and keep an eye on the web stats to gauge your member’s interest. You may be surprised at what works (and what doesn’t)
• Involves your readers – Give your members their 15 minutes of fame. Mention them; include their quotes, opinions and thoughts. Allow them to contribute to your site. Remember the importance of building a relationship with your readers
• Includes an easy way to print – some prefer to read content offline so you should ensure that every page on your site is easy to print and formats well on paper

I’ve left the most important point until last.

Put your own personality and passion into your content.

Passion is hard to fake – “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.

It is your passion and personality that will keep your site unique and exclusive, and it is what will build loyalty amongst your audience.

Follow these simple tips and you will quickly reap the rewards. Google loves passionate people who frequently create remarkable content.

Thanks to SubHub for the original of this post.

Can Entrepreneurs be Wise?

Maybe because being an entrepreneur is, by definition, to live on the edge of the  risk-taker‘s precipice, so the cunning and savoir faire required to be good at it is mysterious and therefore called “wisdom“.  Entrepreneurs deemed to be succesful are therefore deemed to have this wisdom for which there is a great demand.  We want them to give us a time travel machine that will enable us to use the wisdom they have garnered over years and decades of hard graft as we set out on what we hope is the same journey.

Joy Rasmussen had the simple idea of asking business people for their response to the question “As an entrepreneur what do you know now that you wish you had known then?” She managed to get well-known guys like Rachel Elnaugh, Julie Mayer, Doug Richard and Sarah Beeny, as well as many less famous, but equally effective entrepreneurs to share what they have learnt by practising the dark art of entrepreneurism.

Rachel Elnaugh says: “Seeds of Wisdom is an incredible selection of all those precious business learning experiences from an eclectic line up of highly successful entrepreneurs, which they have come together to share to help you on your own business journey. Entrepreneurs old and young, from every sector, running every type of company. Wisdom which is worth a fortune.”

But not only has Joy put together this very useful book. She is also giving away half the price of the book to Robin Hood Ministries to help their work in Haiti. A business model close to Eclector’s heart. The book is available on several of Eclector’s bookshops, not least that of Robin Hood Ministries.