Despite the seemingly unstoppable rise of Amazon, there is something wonderfully relaxing about browsing around a good book store.  It’s something that, for all the tremendous scale and cost effectiveness of online retailers, it’s impossible for them to replicate.

An entrepreneurial Scottish book store are looking to combine a couple of recent trends in a bid to make a bit of extra money.

The first trend is that whereby people travel the world, working as they go in an attempt to reduce their costs as much as possible.  For instance, Remote Year helps people fund their travels by finding them remote work.

The other trend is the much more well known sharing economy, with the likes of Airbnb the champion of the movement.

A book sellers holiday

The Bookshop Holiday is offering book lovers the opportunity to stay above a book shop on your holiday, whilst also spending a few hours working in the store.

The shop, called The Open Book, is running things via Airbnb and is based in the small village of Wigtown in Scotland.  Guests are given the chance to stay above the shop whilst also putting in a 40 hour shift downstairs.

The offer is clearly designed for book lovers, and the owners are offering bikes for the guests to use to explore the town when not in the shop, and each visitor is encouraged to blog about their stay.

In addition to accommodation, the guests are given a crash course in running a book shop, and it’s hoped that the offer will prove attractive to writers, artists and the like.

Adrian Turpin, director of the Wigtown Festival Company, which is running the project, explained: “For many booklovers, the idea of running a bookshop is a dream. But it can be a tough lifestyle and one that demands dedication and inventiveness, as the many bookshops in Scotland’s Book Town show.”

He added: “The internet has had a huge effect on booksellers. The Open Book project is intended as an original way to examine some of the issues facing bookshops in the age of Amazon. It will also bring exciting new creative energy to the town.”

Whilst you might imagine doing a 40 hour shift would be sufficient to give you a cost free vacation, the store still expect visitors to pay the equivalent of around $24 a night.

Is it a novel way to go on holiday or an example of slave labor in action?  I suppose only time will tell, but personally speaking, much as I love books, I’m not sure it’s an offer that would attract me.