There is a shift I cannot ignore, even after twenty-six years of doing this. Collecting is changing. It has not replaced the past. It has expanded.
When we opened Goldsboro in 1999, the heart of collecting was still very traditional. Mostly men. Mostly chasing names that already meant something. Signed Ian Fleming. Agatha Christie. Patrick O’Brian. Books where scarcity, typographical quirks and early impressions mattered. It was a world built on condition, provenance and the quiet thrill of the hunt. That world still exists, and it still matters.
But alongside it, something else has grown.
Today I see people collecting because they want to be early. They want to be there when a book begins its life. They want to choose something before the world agrees it is valuable. Younger collectors are not waiting to be told a book is important. They want to feel it for themselves.
This is the energy behind Fresh Ink. I sensed this shift long before TikTok accelerated it. Readers, especially young ones, want discovery. They want the feeling of being the first person who believed.
What has changed most is where value starts. Years ago, value flowed from above. Critics, prizes, publishers. A book became significant because someone with authority declared it so.
Now value moves sideways. Reader to reader. Quiet to quiet. One person saying “this book understood me” and another saying “I want to feel that too.” I have seen books with no newspaper coverage become urgent. I have watched readers create momentum that no press office could have orchestrated.
Taste has not declined. It has decentralised.
A debut that sets readers alight is now more alive than a prize winner that no one discusses. That is not loss. It is honesty.
This change did not remain a theory. It altered how I work. I had to learn that history is not a guarantee. A famous name is no longer a promise of demand. I have seen major authors underperform and debut novelists sell out because we backed them early and readers responded.
I also had to stop waiting for permission. There was a time I waited for external validation before committing. If I did that now, I would already be late. So I move earlier. Sometimes before a final proof exists. Sometimes because I cannot ignore what a book does to me.
When I choose a debut for Goldsboro, I ask myself a few questions. Did this book breathe. Did it know who it was. Did it stay in my mind after I closed it. Did I feel the impulse to tell someone. Can I picture who would love it. Could this be the book someone remembers as their beginning. If the answer is yes, I act. Even if I am alone in that belief for a while.
Younger collectors arrive with a different energy. Twenty-five years ago, a 25-year-old asked what was important and what mattered. They came looking to be instructed. Today they come wanting to feel something. They ask what people are talking about. They want the one that nobody else has yet. They take photos of covers. They ask about sprayed edges, colour, design. Their shelves are not archives. Their shelves are part of who they are.
They are not looking for a gatekeeper. They are looking for a guide. Someone who says, look at this, it might change something inside you.
People often think I only sell books. I do sell books, of course. But what I am really offering is the chance to own the moment before history decides. Sometimes that moment becomes a book someone reads until the spine softens. Sometimes it becomes an object that waits quietly for the right time. I am selling stories and I am selling objects. More than anything, I am selling the feeling of keeping something that matters.
Goldsboro is now an institution. I know that. Choosing a book for a limited edition is a statement. It is me saying, this deserves to stay. I hold myself accountable by remembering where I began. I started Goldsboro because nobody else was championing the books I loved. I still put my own money on the line. I listen first. And I know that readers finish the work. A limited edition is not me declaring truth. It is me inviting someone to believe in a story before time decides for us.
There is something quieter beneath all the trends and numbers. Book collecting has become emotional refuge. Many people are not buying to impress or invest. They are buying because holding a book helps them stay rooted in a world that refuses to slow down.
A shelf can be part of who you are.
A signature can be proof that a human hand touched paper.
A hardback can be a promise that something in your life will last.
Permanence once felt assumed. Today it feels rare.
People are not collecting books anymore.
They are collecting pieces of themselves.
