Fremantle Corona Diaries. Jane Fraser, CEO, Fremantle Press. Publishing happens behind the scenes. But it is affected by what happens at the shopfront. Like so many items, book sales have dropped. There’s online shopping and e-books but it doesn’t make up for foot traffic—browsing—which makes up a huge percentage of sales. It’s been a stressful time for Jane, working through the finances of the not-for-profit publishing house. The concern is the unknown. “We don’t know just how far our sales income will drop. But we will get through… We’ve been doing a lot of online marketing to promote all our new books. It’s great that booksellers are now open and seeing our reps and getting a taste for the books that will be coming out around October. Fingers crossed that when everything gets back to some kind of normal, people will be buying books for Christmas.” In the early days of the pandemic, Jane set about ensuring staff had the ability to work from home. As it turned out, only a couple of people worked from home. With a staff of only 10 and most of them part-time, @fremantlepress has the space for staff to distance themselves from each other. Government subsidies helped keep everyone employed. Jane says it’s been really nice to be able to come in to work and see people. Some internal meetings and all external meetings have been done via Zoom. Aside from no contact, it’s also been a time saver. “The benefit of this is not travelling into the city for arts sector meetings. It’s been fantastic. Probably more people have actually attended the meetings. It may be a thing of the future. I hope so.” The ‘No visitors’ sign on the front door of Fremantle Press is now down. “It felt really good to pull that down and scrunch it up... What we need now is support for the whole arts sector, which is really doing it tough.” @visitfremantle @jane_fraser #georginabarkerphotography #fremantlepress #publishing #books #fremantle #arts #fremantlestory #thisisfremantle #infreo #lovefreo #freolife #perthlife #supportlocal #visitwesternaustralia #perthwillbeok #coronadiaries #fremantlecoronadiaries #covid19 (at Fremantle, Western Australia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAejeNfjyIO/?igshid=1ttaxwb779vb8
