[Editor's Note: Pamela mentions our recent shift away from bookselling specific stories, while this is true we are looking for a bookseller to join us and help us get back to our roots. Details here...] Bookseller’s Reply to Comment from Another Bookseller Recently I wrote a post narrated in the voice of a book in a bookstore. The book felt overlooked by the public and sad to be unable to jump into someone’s hands. I had fun writing a piece of melancholy whimsy that turned an unremunerative day into something like fun. The first comment to the published post (who knows if others will follow or not?) got me started on a train of thought too long for a simple reply, so I’m taking the
Author Archive
“Pick Me Up! Take Me Home!” I’m a book, and I’m for sale at a reasonable price, hoping to find a home, but all I can do is wait. Whether I’m lying on a table or sitting on a shelf or am propped up in a spinner rack, until someone opens my pages I have no voice. I’m one among thousands in this bookstore alone, all of us competing with each other for attention, all of us silently crying the same thing: “Pick me up! Take me home!” When the store is crowded, all of us get our hopes up. We can’t help it. But it’s discouraging to hear one person after another ask for something very specific and not give the rest of us
We all think about invitations and press releases and publicity before a bookstore event, but what about afterward? Politicians call it “taking care of your base,” and it’s good manners as well as good business. You probably have an e-mail list from which you issue invitations to your bookstore events. Pay attention to everyone who attends, and send a follow-up e-mail after the event, thanking them for supporting your bookstore and your guest author. You will only be expressing what you truly feel. Not everyone who was invited will have attended, of course, so if you maintain a blog or other bookstore website and/or if you’re on Facebook, be sure to report the success of your event. Everyone likes success, and no one wants to
Don’t Invite a Brush-Off! “Do you have that new book by So-and-So?” In my shop, the answer to that question will usually be no unless So-and-So is an outstanding northern Michigan author. New books are a small percentage of my store inventory, and about a quarter of those, fiction or nonfiction, have Michigan themes and content or are by well-established writers with Michigan connections. Thus the obvious answer to the question would be: “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have that.” Bad answer, inviting a brush-off. A much better reply is this: “I don’t have it in stock right now, but I’ll be happy to order it for you.” “Oh, I don’t want you to go to the trouble,” the inquiring browser often says in response, and
Booksellers, you know what I’m talking about. The high school yearbook committee, women’s club, civic theatre, etc. are eager to beat down the bookstore doors when it comes time for them to sell advertising, but are your business budget dollars well spent in these venues? Effectiveness of advertising can be looked at in a couple of different ways. The first, very tricky to determine, is how many new customers any particular ad or ad campaign brings in. “Bring in this coupon” or “Mention this ad for a 10% discount” are examples of campaigns that yield quantifiable results. One ad campaign, however, is not an advertising plan. Here are a few features of a serious advertising plan, as explained to me by my private publicity guru: