THE chief executive of Oxford booksellers Blackwell’s has said print is starting to recover after the digital revolution.

David Prescott, appointed to the role two years ago, said the “digital disruption” to printed fiction and non-fiction books appeared to be settling down.

Mr Prescott, 43, who is also vice-president of the Booksellers Association, said: “The trade has been through that disruption curve and is starting to even out again.

“Digital has settled at about 20 or 30 per cent of all sales. I don’t envisage it will go beyond that. Print is now starting to recover.”


Mr Prescott, a 20-year veteran of Blackwell’s, in Broad Street, who was appointed CEO in 2013, said he thought it was partly due to people now being on their second or third e-reading device, and partly due to “a misnomer” that e-readers, such as Kindle, would somehow entice people who had not previously read books to suddenly consume books digitally.

But he acknowledged the publishing industry still faces challenges, and that digital sales are expected to keep rising in academic and professional publishing.

Blackwell’s, which was founded by Benjamin Henry Blackwell in 1879, began selling books online in 1995.

Last September it launched a digital textbook platform, which allows students to read and annotate textbooks on digital devices.

Oxford Mail:

Book-buyers queuing along Broad Street waiting for the doors to open at the start of Blackwells bookshop’s once-a-year sale in 1980

Mr Prescott said booksellers had to be “proactive” by providing “a compelling programme” of activities. He said: “It’s about looking at the bookshop differently and what you can do with it, using it as a social space.”

Blackwell’s regularly holds author talks and events such as musicians playing in the Broad Street shop during the Oxford Folk Weekend in April.

The flagship bookstore has a display based on the Marks of Genius exhibition in the Bodleian’s new Weston Library next door.

Toby Blackwell, 85, Benjamin’s grandson and “lifelong president”, made a significant donation to the library. As the sole family member still involved in the business and its majority shareholder, with almost 100 per cent of shares on issue, he plans to transfer ownership of Blackwell’s to its staff.

Mr Prescott said: “It’s a long-held ambition of Toby to put the business in the hands of people who will love and cherish it.”

He said Blackwell’s would be placed into an employee trust and “owned equally by all the employees” within “the next couple of years”.

This initiative has had to wait while Blackwell’s reverses years of losses and returns to profitability, he explained.

Mr Prescott said: “Before last year, we had not posted a profit for a long time.”

The company recorded a £0.6m operating profit in the financial year ending June 28, 2014, compared to a £2.8m loss in 2013.

Blackwell’s has 32 permanent shops across the UK plus a further 35 temporary pop-up shops, mainly on university campuses.