Meet The Bookshop Owner Who Created Harry Potter Hype
Interview: Rosamund de la Hey
After a successful career in London in the world of children’s publishing, Rosamund de la Hey moved back to Scotland to start The Mainstreet Trading Company, a destination store in a renovated auction house that comprises a bookshop, a deli, gifting and homeware. To celebrate World Book Day she spoke to us about all things Harry Potter and how she created a store that author Maggie O’Farrell describes as, “ A bookshop so perfect you might have dreamt it”.
Can you tell us a little about your background in publishing? The majority of my time in publishing was focused in children’s books, primarily at Bloomsbury Children’s Books. I joined the company in 1994. Two years later, I moved from the sales department into the newly created role of children’s sales & marketing manager supporting the fledgling children’s list.
Of course, when you google your name, up comes Harry Potter and JK Rowling - can you tell us about that time and how it felt to be part of it? It was an amazing time. I was lucky enough to be handed the manuscript for the Philosopher’s Stone at my first children’s editorial meeting – it took over a great deal of my life thereafter. At the time, children’s publishing was a mix of heritage brands like Blyton and Dahl, plus mass market series like Goosebumps and the Babysitters Club. Boarding school stories weren’t considered popular, which may be partly why at least eight publishers turned down Harry Potter. I loved it immediately and became rather evangelical, forcing it into anyone and everyone’s hands. The best thing about working on Harry was the ability to break the children’s books ‘glass ceiling’ in terms of sales and profile. In the early days, we were working with tiny budgets, so focused on publicity and what we termed ‘playground marketing’ – this is best demonstrated when JK Rowling won the Smarties prize with Philosopher’s Stone. The final winner is judged by school children – something we marketed in the publicity when Jo was interviewed on Blue Peter.
Interestingly, it was only after Jo appeared on TV that her fan mail changed from being addressed to Dear Sir, to Dear Jo or JK. As the series built, we took on many more ‘glass ceilings’, from persuading The Times to show the books in the overall book bestseller top ten (they very rarely list a children’s books top 10), to commissioning TV adverts and running flypost adverts for the adult edition. The highlight was probably hiring a steam train to tour the UK on publication of The Goblet of Fire. I learnt a lot about trains and crowd management! Nothing however, beats the thrill of hearing a mother talking to Jo about her dyslexic son who was caught reading by torchlight – both women almost ended up in tears.
After such success in London, what made you decide to return to Scotland? I’m originally from the west coast and had always wanted to find a way to return home. In a way, I was one of the first ‘remote workers’ when we first moved north. I commuted every other week to Bloomsbury in London, but my job, which had latterly been children’s marketing director, had to be adapted to sales only so I missed the broader role. The end of the Harry Potter series felt like a natural point to leave and begin a new challenge, so I left in 2007.
And where did the dream of the bookshop come in and why St Boswells? I had been mulling the idea of a bookshop for a while, so when the property in St Boswells came up for sale, it seemed meant to be. My husband had just retrained as a chef so he took on the food side of the business.
Can you tell us a little about your original vision for the store? Mainstreet is made up of two buildings with a courtyard and carpark. It is also situated in a large village, not a town – we could never have made it work as a bookshop alone. We always knew it had to have several departments with books as the heart of the business. A fellow bookseller who also has a café and gift offering, said you needed at least four reasons to persuade people to visit and stay in the shop. In our case, the launch vision was bookshop, café, gifts and antiques. The latter element was stocked by a friend who rented the space and we sold her stock.
Mainstreet Trading in St Boswells
How easy was it to take that vision and make it a reality in 2008 when things were obviously a little financially shaky? The first thing our bank manager said was ‘So…. talk me through St Boswells’ – he wasn’t originally persuaded that a village with a population of under 1,000 people could sustain our business plan! Ironically, while we managed to borrow the money in 2007/8, it was much harder when we went back in 2012 for our second phase, developing the deli and home departments.
And how would you describe the store now to someone that has never been? Why should they visit rather than buy online? It’s a lovely, light open space filled with books, the smell of coffee and lots of beautiful things. We are very lucky to have a wonderful team of staff who like nothing better than talking about the books and food they love. The most common comment we get is customers finding books they haven’t seen elsewhere and didn’t know they ‘needed’ or being amazed by the range we offer in the deli. We are all about attention to detail – whether that’s from our big, gorgeous window displays or the author Oliver Jeffers’ book ‘wallpaper’ in our customer toilet.
Events are a huge part of the store, can you share a few of your favourites and tell us a little about why they stand out? Events were always part of the plan for Mainstreet. They bring different people into the shop who might never have heard of us, because they love a particular author – from Ruby Wax and Michael Palin to Andy McNab. It’s very hard to narrow down my favourite events as there have been so many. We think of Maggie O’Farrell, Micheal Morpurgo and Clare Balding as almost our patron saints so generous have they been with their time at Mainstreet. Other favourites include Andrea Elliott talking about her remarkable book, Invisible Child, Paterson Joseph thrilling us with his performance reading of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho and of course, the legend that is Margaret Atwood.
What events are lined up that people would want to know about? We’ve got a packed schedule right now with Alastair Moffat, Carys Davies and illustrator Angela Harding all coming in the next few weeks. Find out more here >>
What type of books do you like to read and, if you could only read three books for the rest of your life, what books would you choose? Really not a fair one! I read a fairly wide range of books, although having read children’s books through most of my 20s and 30s, I had to redress the balance when we opened Mainstreet! But the three would be A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Quickfire Questions
Best Children's Book? Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver – partly because of very happy family memories of listening to Sir Ian McKellan reading the audiobook on long car journeys.
Most guilty pleasure author/book? Jilly Cooper – from my teens and 20s, partly because my Dad loved her too and we used to share the books.
The book that got you into books? Pony books – we didn’t have many contemporary children’s books at home so I just went along the bookshelves and picked out anything to do with horses or ponies and read that.
The book that everyone should read? A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mystery or Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott
Your favourite non-fiction book? The Spy and The Traitor by Ben MacIntyre
The best cookbook? I’m no cook, but I would definitely recommend the Roasting Tin Dish series by Rukmini Iyer.
