Nadia Wassef is one of the co-owners of Diwan Bookstore along with her sister Hind and Nihal Schawky. She has a BA and MA in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo and a second MA in Social Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She worked in the field of development and women’s rights before opening Diwan.

Nadia can be contacted at nadia.wassef@diwanegypt.com

Diwan has just celebrated its 6th birthday. What was it about the market six years ago that made you think that opening a book shop was a good idea? Or wasn’t the decision based on the market?
It wasn’t based on the market. It was more based on the fact that we were a group of friends at different stages in our lives and we were all interested in the production and consumption of culture! Hind and I both have degrees in literature and had always dreamed of opening a bookstore. Initially we had other partners but now the managing partners are Hind, Nihal Schawky and myself. The company took on a life of its own, sometimes mirroring changes in our lives, so that’s been kind of strange, but there was nothing in the market six years ago that suggested this was going to be a great idea at all. We had a lot of assumptions that didn’t pan out at all and other things that we’d never thought of that did happen. People told us that nobody reads and that’s just not true – people do read. And it still surprises me that we often learn about upcoming publications from our customers. Even though we attend the London Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair and publishers come and visit us when they’re on their road shows and we’re proactive about ordering and restocking, it still never ceases to amaze me how a client will often beat us to it!
That’s something that we never expected. We had hoped to make book culture more accessible to people, to integrate it into people’s lives, and I’ve been amazed at how much we have been able to do that. Now I don’t want to stop at the clientele that already know us, I want to do some thing completely different. Two months ago we were approached by an investment company, which wanted their corporate gifts this year to be books embossed with their logo. So we did a bunch of coffee table books embossed with their logo, which I was very, very happy to see. This may not be a big achievement in the rest of the world but here it is. Today we are delivering 450 copies of another coffee table book which is a corporate gift. We’ve been working on an initiative this year to set up libraries for companies, tailor-made to their needs. And they will be more than just business books. It’s called - this is my kind of thing – the Vetruvian Library, because it’s perfect in its proportions and it covers everything, it’s universal. We’re talking about at least 500 books. It has a section there for lifestyle and health and Arabic literature in translation and fiction…it’s for everybody, because at the end of the day this is for employees in a company. You could almost call it a ‘benefit’ if it has its own lending library. And we also provide them with the library management tool to go with the books. We take over a room or the corner of a room and kit it out for them. It’s taken forever to do this, but we’re going to launch soon.

You’ve recently opened a branch in Heliopolis. What about other expansion plans?
I want to open in Maadi, 6th October City, Mohandiseen, Kattameya (areas of Cairo). But I also want to open in other areas that are not as obvious. I’ve had a dream (a leftover from my NGO days!) of opening in Shubra. I think that would do very well…but I need to finish the key locations that would make Diwan an ‘A-brand’ first. So the plan is two new branches a year starting this year …a big step, but I love it. I also want to start doing stationery in a bigger way.

Has the behaviour of customers changed because of Diwan?
One of the “facts” that people reiterated time and again was that foreigners spend on books and Egyptians don’t. A lot of things have happened in the last six years. The Egyptian pound was devalued and is now floating artificially. This has meant that people who would normally travel abroad once or twice a year have stopped doing that, or they do it under different circumstances, so they have a larger disposable income to dispose of here and that’s meant a lot for us. That was a stroke of luck on the macroeconomic level.  Expats and foreigners aren’t really interested in spending their money on books…they spend on food, family entertainment. They are very good customers for used books, but they don’t spend very much on cultural products, compared to Egyptians. What are customers buying? In terms of quantities Arabic and English books sell in almost the same quantities, but in terms of revenue the English books are much more expensive and so are ‘heavier’ on our balance sheet than Arabic books.

What about your relationship with publishers? Do they give better deals than they did when you first started and were an unknown quantity?
When we began we attached a lot of importance to how we dealt with people. We rarely, if ever, default on payments. We have a very good reputation credit-wise. This is something that didn’t come by default, it came by design. We worked very hard on establishing a solid reputation. In a lot of cases we don’t ask for credit locally, we just pay. At the beginning publishers and retailers didn’t have a very symbiotic relationship and we decided this was something to work on. We believe we have to be allies. We’ve not achieved huge things, but having places like Diwan, Kotob Khan and Virgin Megastore has shown publishers that they could sell more if their products looked better. Bookstores are changing, they’re not shabby places – people want quality service, they want quality places and they want a quality experience. It’s going to take a long time but I see very positive changes. Dar Merit and Sharqiat are key examples of publishers that have wised up to the value of producing quality books; and they also promote new young writers. Dar El Shorouk now do nice bags and bookmarks. They’ve also produced beautiful, costly editions of Naguib Mahfouz for treasuring. You have to spend on cultural products. We have to get over the socialist era. Culture is free, because we are involved in the creation and consumption of culture on a daily basis. To have good publishers and writers you need to invest in them, that’s how things grow. I am still trying to convince the middle and upper classes that books are an essential item rather than a luxury. You need to spend on culture, we’re only human - if we get something for free we don’t appreciate it!

Do you think Diwan has been an influence on other bookshops?
People don’t believe me when I say that when other bookstores open, I’m happy. Of course, I check them out, I check everything out. I’m interested in knowing everything that’s going on. But I’m happy because I feel like this was a mission and the more people that catch on the better it is and the more the consumer benefits. It pushes you and at the same time it widens your reach. If you’re on top of your game and delivering good service, then you’ve just opened your client base significantly – you have more potential clients than if you’re on your own.

You run a lot of events, especially in Heliopolis now. What kind of events brings the biggest audiences in?
Right from the beginning we aspired to be more than a bookstore. Not in the sense of wanting to be a cultural centre. It’s very easy to try to be everything to everyone.  We offer the experience of buying a book, something that is aesthetically pleasing. When you go in to buy a book you’re getting more than that book. We’re trying to impart a certain level of knowledge to you. When we first opened in Zamalek for the first couple of weeks it was very much word of mouth, the novelty factor. And then things settled down and it took a while for Diwan to become integrated into the day-to-day routine of people. That still needs to happen in Heliopolis and it will take time. Having these events is a way of trying to get people used to going. In a sense we’re trying to do everything – there’s storytelling for kids, magic science, big name authors, the quirky. We’re trying to appeal to the wider common denominator just to get people used to the idea that this is their local neighbourhood bookstore.

Finally, London Book Fair. Your store manager usually goes but this year you’re going.
We’ve just recruited a new buyer and he will be learning our systems, so won’t go this year.  I’m a panellist in a seminar on the Egyptian market , talking about consumer trends in Egypt. There will be lots of things the presentation won’t cover! I’ll be talking about one particular niche. I know about book retail in Cairo among a certain group of people for the last couple of years. And I can see certain changes and trends and so on. This will be my focus.