Brick and Mortar Thoughts

Some tips from the Pros on how to operate a successful bookshop.

Kind of a Book Sommelier

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I should be sorting books, pricing them, perfecting window displays, figuring out where to advertise, how much to spend, and doing my taxes. But instead I am reading “Public Finance in Ancient India,” by K.R. Sarkar? Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Really, Sarkar? Didn’t everyone read that by sophomore year?” But, let’s face it … Read more

Little Davids Take On Amazon Giant

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So a few independent bookstores decided to sue Amazon and the major publishers who made a devil’s deal to control e-books. From the Huffington Post: “Three independent bookstores are taking Amazon and the so-called Big Six publishers (Random House, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan) to court in an attempt to level the … Read more

Give Your Customers A Break On The 14th

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by Jas Faulkner 

cupid-valentines-day1 For those of you playing at home, I got to go to this rilly nifty sooper sekrit cabal of booksellers in Memphis a little while ago.  The main topic on the dias was the untold history of those who are charged with the care and feeding of visiting authors.  Chatter on the floor was all about the next big push: Valentines Day.  Some booksellers love it, especially those who either have a coffee shop or sell candy.  Others?  Not so much.

“Are you single?” asked one store owner from Kentucky.  I told him I was.

“How do I market so that people will come in on and around the 14th?  The month of February seems to be about people making a rare visit to get a gift and everyone else avoiding anything remotely heart-shaped.”

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Fig Leaves and Cappuccino

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by Jas Faulkner

plain brown cover“How are things?” I asked Sam as I flipped through pictures of Dore engravings.

“Things are great,” said Sam, “Could not be better.  Have I told you my wife is a marketing genius?”

“Do tell.  I take it there’s a good story about to happen.”

Of course there was. And as many of them begin, this one starts with a visit from Taylor Slow.  For whatever reason, she wandered from her usual shelves of choice to the “literature” section, where she found copies of Lolita, The Canterbury Tales, and For Colored Girls… “right out there in the open where any impressionable young person could get hold of ’em!”

“I’m expressing my concern to you directly because I want to give you the chance to address this yourselves.”

“Really?”  Sam, who is one half of the ownership group of the tiny independent book store that not only could but did defy the odds and stay open in their small Mississippi home town glanced up.  She nodded sympathetically and then got back to work because that was what one does when Miss Taylor Slow gets a bee in her bonnet about something.

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Hi, Fidelity!

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by Jas Faulkner 

Mah mah mah mah my Sharona!
Mah mah mah mah mah mah my Sharona!

Ed Cho* and I are visiting one of the stores that uses his designs.  The sound system goes quiet for a second and then a familiar piano intro plays.  A woman who has been browsing pauses and then upon hearing Aretha Franklin’s first lines:

Though you don’t call any more
I sit and wait in vain

The shopper’s face lights up and a measure or two later, she is singing along with emotion and probably more audibly than she realises.  As she sings, she begins to walk around the racks,  picking up articles of clothing and holding them against herself as she decides which pieces she will try on and eventually purchase.    By the time the Queen of Soul finished, her duet partner was carrying three items.  Before the song, she had nothing in her hands and was walking around in way that suggested nothing she saw was particularly appealing.

Ed and I went outside.

“That is what successful audio design looks and sounds like.”

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What The Hell is The Matter With Some Publishers?

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deathtookpubI am the first to admit, I don’t understand the publishing industry. I don’t get the way they will publish a title, it does quite well, so they publish the next, and then stop. And not only do they stop, they refuse to publish either of the first two in paperback, which means the audience is minute. Hardcover books are expensive for most people to buy, they depend on a new title being available in 12 months in paperback. That’s why so many are behind one book in a series–they’ve paperback pocketbooks.

So, one particular publisher has a habit of doing this, from my personal experience, and it inflames my soap box soul. For anonymity sake, let’s call it, um, St. Paul’s Publishing House. They buy mediocre, to superb mystery novels, pay the authors a pittance, publish the least amount of copies possible and still make a profit, and in many cases, drop the author as fast as they signed him or her.

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