Johan Budhie Sava: Taking books across the county

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya, Fri, 01/02/2009 10:30 AM, People

After opening 17 bookstores across Java and Bali, Johan Budhie Sava was at a loss for words when asked about his next plan.

After a brief silence but with a determined look, he said he wants books to be spread out evenly throughout the country, from Aceh to Papua.

"Maybe this will not be easy, but I'll try," said the 44-year-old man.

Eighteen years ago, when Johan opened his first Togamas bookshop in Malang, East Java, he never thought his business would grow this large.

It was not his intention to open stores across the island when he opened his first in his wife's parents' house back in 1990. It was a desperate measure to continue to make a living.

Swandayani's parents also loaned him the capital of 35 million (US$3,200).

"At that time, the only thing in my mind was how to sell books for food," he remembered.

Besides looking after his own bookshop, Johan did not forget "to glance to the left and the right" at his Malang competitors.

That was simple. He only needed to check out how many vehicles were parked in front of his competitors' bookshops.

"If there were large numbers of motorcycles and cars parked there, it meant that I had to think hard to look for new and creative ways to attract customers," laughed the father of two children, Bayu Dharma Saputra Sava and Aditya Dharma Putra.

Good fortune was on his side.

Eight years later, in 1998, he won a car from a lottery at a private bank. He sold the station wagon, using the money for a down payment on a building not far from his original shop.

Unfortunately, when the buying and selling contracts were signed, the Rp 70 million from the car was not enough.

"I was confused. Fortunately I had a relative who lent me money," he said.

Soon, another bookshop opened.

As he was close to lecturers and university students, his inventory focused on books used by university students, especially those from the schools of economics, technology, politics and medicine.

He also met with the lecturers to determine what sorts of books they needed most.

The winds of luck kept blowing.

His relationship with motivator Tung Dasem Waringin and the Indonesian University lecturer Amir Abadi provided a breakthrough when he opened a Togamas branch in Yogyakarta in 1999.

Over the next few years, Johan opened more stores. These were in Semarang, Central Java, in 2001; the East Java town of Jember in 2002 and its capital city Surabaya in 2004; the West Java capital city Bandung and Bali capital city Denpasar -- both in 2007.

This year, he opened up a Togamas in Jakarta, Surabaya saw its second store, and another opened in Kediri, East Java.

Next year, he plans to set up shop in the East Java towns of Probolinggo, Mojokerto, Blitar and Banyuwangi.

This means 17 bookshops will have been come into existence in the past 18 years.

With such a busy business, is running bookshops profitable? Not really, he said.

Although he calculates that there is still a market of 93 percent of the country's population that hasn't touched books, the loss in this business is big.

In Yogyakarta alone, Johan and his colleagues recently suffered losses of up to Rp 600 million.

Meanwhile in Surabaya, the man who graduated from Surabaya Narotama University's agriculture and management faculties, lost Rp 3 billion in only eight months.

"Profit and loss come and go in the book business. The important thing is to keep running and to show positive progress."

His convictions have also driven Johan to widen his range to Timika, Papua, as he is thinking hard about opening one in Papua.

The idea came after he found out the province is still using a 1978 curriculum.

"It (the curriculum) is so different (from the one) in Java or Bali. It's difficult to get books in Papua because the book distribution system doesn't extend there. Consequently, the education system in Papua has been left far behind."

Additionally, Johan also supports the government's efforts to give free books through the Electronic School Book program, or BSE.

For some, the program can be seen as indirectly killing the book printing and publishing business. But not for Johan.

"Don't forget, books correlate to an increase in intellectual efforts. The more the intellectual ability of Indonesian citizens is improved through the program, the larger the book markets become, so the program has to be supported."

The program is a necessity. Indonesians should be forced to follow existing global developments or the country will be left far behind other countries, he said.

"At present, the development of advanced countries such as the United States can be noticed ...."

Johan is practicing this philosophy with his family. His two children who are now in junior high school and elementary school, and are well used to reading books and looking for information on the Internet.

What they discover intellectually has later on been used to broaden his children's ways of thinking.

"When one of my in-laws was sick, my children searched the Internet and discovered the disease's worst symptoms which my in-law was suffering," he said, as an example.

Johan realizes that his convictions might be too idealistic for some but he insisted that those in the book business need to be idealistic -- a big profit is hard to come by.

After being in the business for 18 years, Johan still lives in his house in Malang.

"If there are businesspeople who want to join me but ask for a big profit, it's better that I reject their offers because the book business is actually not like that," he said.