Saying that the bookshop is going slowly is an understatement. I’ve done a lot of research, but the business plan that I started years ago in a leftover green binder is still incomplete, and I’ve flip-flopped on so many of my once “solid” plans that I know I will need to rewrite the entire thing again before I even think about talking to creditors about financing…

Regardless of my set backs and distractions, I am committed to seeing through this dream of mine and some day Spinebender’s Book Exchange will become a reality.  My fourth grade teacher, Mr. Melcher, once said that if there were 21 ways to skin a cat,  Sam would find the 22nd way.  I’m not one for taxidermy, but I have always found my own way around challenges, and I am hoping that my current game plan is both unique enough to make me stand out and easy enough for others to follow and maybe help them when making some important decisions about their own shop.

I came across The Bookshop Blog about three months ago and have gone through many of the archives of articles.  I’ve laughed and shook my head at several of the articles and have changed my mind several times about how I feel about certain things like selling on Amazon or adding a coffee shop to the brick and mortar store (part of my original dream that I just can’t get rid of…) I’ve subscribed to Adam Bertram’s mailing list and I chew through his emails on a regular basis.

When I saw Bruce’s call for writers I was tempted to sign up right away, but one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I shouldn’t jump into things with both feet until I’ve had time to think about it first.  When the second call for writers came I decided it was time to throw my hat in.  I’m hoping that through my submissions and involvement with this site  I can find some mentors with experience in the business who are willing to help me turn my dreams into reality.

So, Hello World!  Greetings from Nova Scotia, Canada.  My name is Sam, and it is a pleasure to meet you all.

If there’s anything I’ve learned so far in my time that I’ve been reading The Bookshop Blog, it seems that I’m not the only one who wants to get into this industry.  Everyone has a different take on how they want to work in the book industry, though.  There are the people that sell the occasional book online to supplement their income, there is the professional online bookseller, there is the used bookstore owner, and there is the new bookstore owner.  Not everyone fits into just one of the categories.  Some, in fact, most, fit into two, three, or even all four of the categories.

I’ve never been a fan of jumping into something feet first.  I hate surprises (just ask my girlfriend.  Just about any time we watch a movie I always want to know the ending half an hour in.)  I need experience.  I can learn a lot from reading, but I can learn even more by doing.  To this end I have a few ideas for how to gain experience.  First, I’m going to get into online bookselling, but even that I’m going to start slowly.  Before I set up my own personal web presence on my own page I’m going to work through online marketplaces.  First, I’ll start easy in the Amazon marketplace.  Then, I’ll move onto Abebooks and other similar sites.  At the same time, if I’m going to operate a bookstore, I need to know how a bookstore operates.

I know that I’m going to make mistakes.  I’m going to have false starts and ideas that go nowhere.  I’ll hit dead ends and maybe even get hit.  (I’ve heard that things can sometimes get heated at flea markets…)  As I go, I’m going to write about what I’m doing, how it’s working out for me, and any tips that I come across that will help others to avoid the mistakes that I’ve been making.

To that end: here’s the first step.  It may not be the first step others take, but my girlfriend and I both thought that it was important: having a name.  A name is what you create your brand with.  The brand is who you are.  Naming something makes it real.  By putting a name to our proposed store it went from being “our proposed store” to “NAME OF STORE!”  The store’s name needs to embody the vision that you have for your store: what you want to do and what kind of image you project.  We went out to a bar one night and just sat there with a pen, paper, and my iphone.  We ordered our first pitcher and started throwing out ideas.  Each idea was examined based on criteria that we made up as we went along: it had to be unique, it had to be easy to remember, it had to be imaginative, it had to not be a pun (which was hard for me…I love puns at all times, but mostly make them after drinking.  I came up with some stinkers that night.  I’m really lucky I’m not single now, really).

Eventually we hit on one: a bookstore name that we couldn’t find any other store with an internet presence using, one that sounded good to us and gave the air of sophistication but friendliness that we wanted to give to our customers.  For now, we’re keeping the name close to our chests.  Someday, though, it’ll be a big name.  And you’ll all be able to say you heard about it first.

[editor's note: aw....come on Matt, we won't tell anybody...I hope our regular readers will tell us what one of their first orders of business was.]

It was a chilly Gurgaon winter morning of the grey yellow variety when moist air clings to the smog and chokes out the sunlight. It was the type of morning that you squint at with one eye and dive back into the snugness of your quilt. It was the sort of morning people call in sick: little toe of the right foot arthritic; feel dizzy when I sit up; cramps in my right hand; cramps in my left thigh … It was on this December morning that I sat bolt upright in bed and announced I was going to open a bookstore.

Incredulous looks from everyone.
“Just like that?” “Just like that!” Premises? Revenue model? Marketing strategy? Everything was ordained to fall into place. No thought required: The Reader it was going to be. And The Reader would be up and running within three months.
Quite by accident, a couple of years earlier, I had found this magic-faraway-tree kind of bookstore at Central Arcade, where a tiny lady sat behind a tiny desk. She had a captivating charm that was surpassed only by her knowledge of books: she could talk about any book under the sun. Well, almost. Of course, she knew every book she had on her shelves and rare was the walk-in who left without a bagful of books. Her eyes shone and twinkled whenever we talked about her favourite authors and, as we became friends, I picked up a rudimentary understanding of how the book trade worked.
My inspiration came from Moni and The Word.
When I asked Moni for help in setting up The Reader … all she asked me was “Are you sure you want to do this?” I found a small store at Galleria, which had a flagstone floor: more than anything else, I fell in love with the floor! In less than forty-eight hours, I had the lease drawn up and signed. We set to work with a deadline of two-and-a-bit months and, to set things rolling, I had invitations to the opening of The Reader printed and distributed. Lines had been drawn. Then the frenzy set in. Two months can be a very short time, specially when the “and-a-bit” comfort zone has been spent on arguing about interiors and furniture and haggling about prices with fabricators.
At some point of time thereabouts, good counsel prevailed and I left the decision making to Moni, while I focussed on the execution!

With exactly sixty days to go, Moni slipped and fractured her ankle.
Forgotten was The Reader. For the next three weeks, until Moni was able to hobble around in her bright blue cast, I minded shop for her and thought I would get in some good practice smiling at her customers and trying to sound intelligent. After the first week, I realised I wasn’t much of a success of it and reverted to being my grouchy self with men and flirting madly with the ladies. It worked … sales picked up and I kept my fingers crossed that husbands and wives wouldn’t compare notes! By the end of January, The Reader had a freshly painted shop, a new bank account, several cartons of books. And nothing else! Fabricators were behind schedule, wiring men were behind schedule, printers were behind schedule: and I had a date to keep! At one stage I considered writing to each person I had invited to the opening, regretting the delay and postponing the opening by a week or two.

Moni would hear none of it as she hobbled about in her plaster cast cracking the proverbial whip. The wiring men first. Get the wiring done, put up the lights and get out. Thank you very much. “Now we can work late.” Fabricators and printers and suppliers next. Deliver or face cancellation. They delivered. “Now, Mr. Verma, get your act together, complete your book inventories. Work through the night if you have to.” “Yes, Ma’am!”

The Reader opened as scheduled on the third of March.
It was uncharted territory: I did not know what to expect and where I wanted to take the business. I was retired and had been an agriculturist and a tea planter for too many years to immediately settle into a business I knew nothing about. I was suddenly very nervous! Here I was, doing something I had dreamt up on a dreary December morning! It was surreal. It took a month or thereabouts for just the idea to settle and for the butterflies to stop fluttering, each time I unlocked the shutters, in the morning.
Gradually, I began to look forward to the joy of every new day.
The high point came when a flustered gent walked into the store and introduced himself. “I’m Anjali’s husband … she buys all her books from you. It’s her birthday tomorrow and I haven’t the foggiest idea what she’s read and what she would like to read. Could you help out?” He wasn’t the only one … wives came looking for gifts for husbands, children for parents, parents for their children: and they would unquestioningly accept whatever I suggested!
The Reader stayed with me for a little over three years. That’s not quite correct: for, The Reader will always be with me. But, I did recognise the shift in reading habits and buying patterns, fairly early and had set myself a deadline at which point of time I would need to take a decision on the economic viability of the business.
The Corporate Manager in me did have an eye open. It was heart breaking to acknowledge that business was not growing and I wasn’t prepared to go electronic.

What The Reader gave to me in three years, the corporate world could not in thirty.

S D Verma

image from Paz & Associates, experts on How to Open a Bookshop

We would like to open a bookstore cafe. From the bookstore perspective it
would have both a new and used section, at this stage not focusing on a
particular niche genre. The cafe will be connected to the bookstore and
ideally you would need to walk through the cafe to get to the books. It
would be a pre-prepared cafe, as in no hot food unless able to be toasted in
a sandwich press or heated in a microwave. That is sandwiches, paninis,
cakes, biscuits and such. And of course good coffee.

The cafe would also be set out so that there is an indoor lounging area.
Comfortable chairs and sofa and an outdoor garden area with outdoor tables
and chairs. The atmosphere we want to create is an environment where you can
peruse the bookshop holding you takeaway coffee and once your selection has
been made, sit down relax and spend time reading. The idea is to get them
into the store for the books and make them stay longer with the food and
coffee. We also want to organise weekly book clubs and “reading times” for
children while their mothers sit and chat over coffee and cake.

I have worked in the hospitality industry for over 10 years (my parents
owned a restaurant/bar, which i helped run) but am currently working in the
IT industry. Both myself and my friend are obsessed with food and books,
with both of us owning large book collections. The town we are in has two
small franchise book stores and one middle sized second hand book store.
None of the existing books stores have a “stay for awhile” atmosphere
whereas cafes in town, as long as they are in the right street and have
outdoor seating, seem to do well. The most important thing we know for our
store to suceed is to find the perfect location that would allow us to do
this and we are willing to wait until we find it.

We are in the process of researching our idea and trying to figure out how
to do a business plan. At the moment there seems to be so much to think
about that we are not too sure where to start.

One question that I seem to always come back to is how do we get our hands
on stock.  We would like to sell a combination of new and old stock.  The
old stuff would be easier with estate sales, garage sales, church sales.
But what process do we go through to set up connections with publishing
companies and how do we know if we are paying too much.

Any help or advice that you could advise would be much appreciated, I love
your blog and think your website is amazing.

Mel

This is  a multi-part series describing Caro and Susan’s adventure in opening a bookshop.

Part 1:  We Got Handed a Dream In the Discount Card Aisle

Part 2: The Auction

It took us weeks to figure out a name we liked for the store.  We finally settled on Back Stairs Books.  It both explained where the place was and gave the barest hint of the former purpose of those rooms.  Also, since the entrance would be near the back of the building near the alley, we were going to need extra signage and work to get folks back to our door.  The location was great but the exact location on the location was not as good as it could be.

The building is long and narrow, and goes the full length from the street to the alley.  At some point, the windows on the top level were bricked over, which meant no exterior light comes in upstairs.  The building was put together from two different buildings, I think, as one side is one story high and the other is two.

In the middle of the block, to the north of the arts center, is an empty space where the Pioneer Theater once was.  It burned about 50 years ago and the space is currently being used as a parking lot.  The odd thing about it is the back wall is still standing, and one could technically drive out to the alley through what was probably once a garage door.  The sign above the opening says “do not enter,” from the ally side, though. I figure if you missed and hit the edge driving out, the whole wall would fall on you, so the sign comes under the heading of ‘good advice.’

Downtown is about six or seven blocks long, with three blocks south of the railroad tracks and four north.  There are also some businesses on streets running east and west of the Main Street, which is also Highway 50. The town has a hefty chunk of western history attached to it, being on the Santa Fe Trail.  Tom Mix tended bar in a place just north of the tracks, and Bat Masterson worked here for a few months, too.  The art center is smack dab in the middle of the “best” block, on the east side.  It is next door to the business with the most foot traffic downtown, the donut shop.  Parking is usually available, especially if you don‘t mind parking in front of the bar.  Or you can park on the street and dodge the semi-trucks, which roar by so close you worry they’ll take your car door off.

The local community college started an entrepreneur program just about the time our friend T. sold us on the idea of having a bookstore at the art center.  So we signed up for the free workshops.  If you signed up for the associated classes also, they had a mentor walk you though all the steps to setting up a business.  So much of it did not apply to us that we decided not to go the class route.  Still, the workshops were an overview of the challenges that face someone going into business.  Our fellow students were amazingly diverse: all ages, all backgrounds, all with a dream.  There was a young man starting a repro business, and some folks wanting to sell their salsa (the free samples were great!).

The program was great for the basics, and speakers included insurance agents and lawyers, former and current business owners, a  CPA and some folks who have a grant to promote the entire southeastern part of the state.   The theory is, if you can’t attract a big business to your area, then starting a lot of little ones is almost as good.  I have to say, though, that not all our questions were answered, and we spent a lot of time at the state website and some business websites.  We were, and still are, having difficulty figuring out some arcane details, and we are trying to figure out Bling.  Anybody use Bling and have an opinion to share?  Apparently it is a doohickey on  a cell phone.  You touch your phone to the device in the store to make it work, it takes the required money out of your account electronically, and the receipt is emailed to you. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?

I did say the learning curve was a bit steep for those of us who remember rotary phones and phone numbers which started with two letters?

I’m Caro and I’m a bookaholic.  I’m the retired librarian version; I worked 42 years consecutively in libraries before I retired from the school three years ago.  Lest you think I am ancient rather than merely “getting up there a little,” I started my first library job as a “page” at age 14.  My friend Susan sells books on-line.  She’s a bookaholic, too. Not only that, we’re known bookaholics.  The whole town knows this about us.   Hence this scenario.

We were shopping in Wal-Mart.  Ours is a small town Wal-Mart.  This means that you meet everybody you know there and it can take two hours to get a gallon of milk if you stop and talk to even a few of them.  So when a former student of mine (we shall call him T.) stopped us near the really-cheap birthday cards it was, “Oh, hi,” and then he eventually said, “The art center downtown supports several bands and choirs, dance, painting and art, but we don’t have literature.  How would you like to run a bookshop and reading room upstairs?”

Blink.  We didn’t even know the art center had an upstairs.  Turns out that the building was once a hotel.  Heh.  Okay, it was a bordello like half the other upstairs rooms in town, until the ladies got nudged out of town 50 years ago under circumstances too lengthy to enlarge upon right now.  Maybe later.

Susan and I hadn’t honestly considered a brick and mortar store before, even though there were plenty of empty stores downtown (see reference above to mega-store chain) because of start up costs and the local  economy.   But then again, we did have a few thousand books in the shed, due to Susan’s business and a complete inability to pass by a book sale without filling a few boxes.

We knew a store would mean steep a learning curve, start-up expenses, and be a pain in the posterior, and frankly, it didn’t appeal.  What lured us now was the thought of all that…space.  The books were about to take over on the home front.  We had no more room to expand.

They offered us a space consisting of three rooms (about 12 x 14 each), for $200 a month, price to include utilities.  We’d have to schedule the conference room and open it for after-hour meetings.  They’d provide the shelving.  So of course we agreed to go look at the space.  Just to see, you know.  We made an appointment to meet T. there.

Twenty-one steps up.  I counted.  My knees asked me if I were serious about this.  I told them it was going to be great for our cardiovascular systems.  No lights up here at the moment, T. told us.  For light, he turned on his phone.  Worked pretty well, actually.  Although…after 35 years in at the local middle school just about nothing gets to me, but that first glimpse was just a bit startling.  Turns out this was where the locals stored their haunted house props when it wasn’t October.  Fantastical shadows lit the manikins in the corner, and the giant spiders were stacked shoulder high.  Old chairs leaned in the corner, and the light bulbs hung down on cords, uncovered.

We shuffled through the rooms, unused since 1960-something, but remarkably rodent and insect free.   Good wooden floors.  Gilded wallpaper peeling off the walls.  The potential was there, but it was going to take some time to renovate, T. told us.  This gave us some time to get organized, and so…we agreed to do it.

Insert maniacal laughter here.

Part 2 of Caro and Susan’s adventure

So here’s the bestsellers for my shop Rainy Day Paperback.  I’m a used brick and mortar bookstore in Bethel, CT, USA, a small suburban, semi-rural town about 2 hours outside New York.

I’ve focused on categories rather than individual titles and I’ve sliced them three different ways. The X# tells you roughly the ratio between the bottom category listed and the one with the number.  So, int he first list, I sold twice as many westerns as I did romantic suspense.

These numbers are for a six month period.  They do NOT include any of the online sales, since those are almost entirely different than the in store sales.

Total dollar value:  listed categories, when totaled together accounted for 80% of total dollars. I have 40 categories total.

1. Mystery (X7.5)
2. Contemporary literature (x4.5)
3. Contemporary Romance (X4)
4. Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
5. Historical Romance
6. Westerns (X2)
7. Children’s Books
8. Thrillers
9. Romantic Suspense

By volumes sold:  listed categories, when totaled together accounted for 80% of total number of books sold. I have 40 categories total

1. Mystery (X6)
2. Contemporary Romance (x3)
3. Contemporary Literature
4. Children’s Books
5. Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror
6. Westerns
7. Historical Romance (X2)
8. Classics
9. Thrillers

By productivity: productivity is the volume of books sold vs the amount of space occupied.  All listed categories turned over at least 1/4 of the contents.

1. Contemporary Romance (X2)
2. Contemporary Literature
3. Mystery
4. Westerns
5. Romantic Comedy
6. Christian Fiction
7. Science
8. Historical Romance
9. Thriller
10. Large Print
11. Paranormal Romance
12. History

Since mystery, contemporary literature, and contemporary romance basically flip flop around as to which is the most productive by various metrics but stay in the top three, its worthwhile looking at what authors sold the most. Multiple authors on the same line  indicate a tie.

Mystery, top 10 authors:

1. Agatha Christie (x3)
2. James Patterson
3. Robert Parker
4. Stuart Woods
5. Michael Connelly (X2)
6. Jonathan Kellerman
7. J.A. Jance & Patricia Cornwell
8. Mary Higgins Clark  & Coben
9. Lee Child
10. John Sandford & Lisa Scottoline & Greg Iles & Jonathan Kellerman

Top 10 Contemporary Romance

1. Debbie Macomber (x4)
2. Linda Lael Miller
3. anthologies (X3)
4. Sandra Brown & Jude Deveraux
5. Luanne Rice
6. Diana Palmer (X2)
7. Susan Wiggs
8. Sherryl Woods
9. Jayne Anne Krentz
10. Elizabeth Lowell

Top 5 Contemporary Fiction/ Contemporary Literature

1. Nora Roberts (X6.5)
2. Fern Michaels (X3.5)
3. Jodi Picoult (X3)
4. Belva Plain
5. Khaled Hosseini

Top 10, from those 3 categories combined

1. Nora Roberts (X2.5)
2. debbie Macomber (X2)
3. Linda Lael Miller
4. Agatha Christie
5. anthology
6. James Patterson
7. Robert Parker
8. Sandra Brown & Jude Deveraux
9. Fern Michaels & Stuart Woods
10. Luanne Rice

Agatha Christie does amazingly well for being dead for 43 years.

1. Where are the lightswitches?

Oh you laugh, but I had to call the previous owner the first day because I couldn’t get the lights on.  The lightswitches by the door didn’t work.  All the switches are actually BEHIND bookcases. You need to move books to find them!  If you’re in a brand new building, this probably isn’t a problem, but many bookstores are located in repurposed older buildings… which means the lightswitch may not be by the door.

Make sure to ask what ALL the switches do!  If you’re in a subdivided space, it may turn out that some switches in your space control the neighbor’s lights!  Some switches may also be master switches that control whole areas and if they’re off, nothing in that area will come on, no matter how many times you flip the switch.

2. Where is the fusebox? The gas hookup? The oil tank intake?

If it’s a repurposed space (like a converted house) the fusebox may not even be IN your space. It may be in another tenant’s space!  Ditto that you may have an extra fuse box that belongs to a neighbor!

The gas hookup and oil tank may not be present in every building and they aren’t really your responsibility in most cases.  But when the delivery or repair guys shows up and asks where they are, it’s better to know.  You’ll get your problems fixed faster that way.

3. Where’s the phone and cable jack?

This does control somewhat where you can put things like the front desk.  You can only move it so far.  The jack itself may not be anywhere near where the phone currently is and the cable may run behind or under cases.  Find out where the original jack is so when something goes wrong, you can find it. Also find out where it comes in from outside, should you ever need repairs.

4. Where are all the plugs?

Plugs may have gotten buried under or behind bookcases.  But you’d never know they were there.  If you want to change the layout, knowing where the power is a big deal.

5. What’s behind this wall or bookcase?

If there appears to be some sort of discrepancy between the layout and the space, ask what’s behind the case or the wall.  It may turn out the odd layout is due to something hidden behind the case.  This is relevant if you ever want to move things.  I have a hidden FIREPLACE in the middle of my space!  I just have to work around it.  This may also be relevant for repairs.  If the piping for upstairs is what’s hidden in that space, some day the plumber may need to get at it and it’s better you know where it is!

6. Which ones are my parking spaces?

If it’s a shared lot, there may be spaces that are either officially or unofficially yours.  There is no sense pissing off the new neighbors by parking in “their” spaces.   There also may be some that aren’t used on specific days for some reason.  For example, if one of the neighbors has deliveries on Tuesdays they may need to leave X space empty that day to get the truck in.

7. Where’s the dumpster? Is there recycling? What day is it picked up? If there a specific day for “special” items? Who do I call for early pickup?

Usually it’s behind the building, but if you’re in a large strip mall it may not be obvious which one is yours.  Knowing which day the pickup is also lets you know which day you can get rid of really large items.  They need to be the first thing in. Or if you are throwing out a large quantity of stuff, you may need to call for an extra pickup.

If there’s recycling there may also be specific instructions for what you can and can’t recycle and how you’re supposed to bundle them.  Some places require things to be rinsed, some don’t.  Some places require paper to be bundled neatly, some want it loose.  Find out what the restrictions are.

Depending on where you are, there may also be special pickup days for things like yard waste and leaves or an annual pickup of hazardous waste.

And if you don’t ask, it may even turn out you’re somewhere there is NO pickup and the landlord expects you to haul it to the dump yourself!

8. Does anything tend to flood, freeze, drip, or catch on fire? Do any of the trees drop anything unpleasant or weird? Are there any animals I should be aware of?

Hopefully nothing regularly catches on fire, but if your store is an area prone to wildfires, you need to know that so you can be ready to deal with it.  Flooding or freezing is much more common in most places, and easier to prepare for.  If you tend to get ice slicks in front of the door or sometimes it floods in a specific areas, you need to know this.  Perhaps that corner of the store is empty for a reason…

Nearby trees may drop… interesting things at some times of year.  Fruit trees are the ones most likely to cause a mess, but other trees may drop large quantities of sticky sap.  Female gingkos drop seed pods that smell of sulfur.  Knowing your tree is going to stink once a year can save lots of aggravation later as you try to determine what died.

Problem animals could be things like wasps tend to build a nest under the eaves every summer or aggressive birds that dive bomb people that get too close to the tree.  Or you may have a neighborhood cat that expects you to feed it.  You may not be able to do something about all these, but you won’t be surprised.  Or can warn customers on your mailing list about the issue.

9. Where is the mailbox? if I have a package delivered, where does UPS, USPS, Fedex, DHL etc usually leave boxes?

In most cases, this is obvious, but for a large building, it may not be.  It may all delivered to a central office.  The previous business owner may have had packages dropped with a neighbor when they aren’t in.  If you don’t know which neighbor has your box, you may be in for a frustrating time figuring out where the drive put it!  Or if there’s an attached garage, shed, etc they may well have left it there and you’ll never find the darn thing!

10. Get a copy of the equipment listed on last year’s Grand List

The policy here at least is that you can’t get a copy of the detailed property list from the tax assessor, only the previous owner can give you this.  You need that list of equipment and when it was bought and for how much to properly list it on your property taxes for depreciation. Otherwise you’ll be writing “see return from year XXXX” on the Grand List for a loooong time.  And you may have trouble disputing an assessment if you don’t know what the original value of some of the equipment was listed as.

And be sure to write some of this down! Some of it may not come up very often and if it’s 3 years before you need to find all the plugs again, you may have forgotten by then.  Write it down and tuck it in a file somewhere.  It’ll save you lots of aggravation.

Paperback piles

Piles of mass market paperbacks

Advantages: Piled paperbacks are easier to read.  If you note, the writing on the spine is generally oriented so you can read it without having to twist your neck around.  This makes it easy for customers to browse for titles.  It also makes it easy for them to pull out a whole section if they decide they want everything by an author.  It’s just grab and go!

This system is also very stable.  You can half half the shelf empty and books won’t fall off.  It’s also easy to fill gaps by turning books face out without having to worry about nearby books tipping into them.  (if you build your own shelves, you’ll waste less space and face out books will look nicer)

You can make these shelves much shallower than normal, which means you can also have wider aisles… or be able to fit another freedstanding case or two in the store.

Disadvantages: Piles get heavy, fast.  Piling really only works with mass market paperbacks, kids chapter books, and those darn “not quite a trade back, but bigger than a normal mass market paperback” books that some publishers have started producing in the last few years.  Trade paperbacks, hardcovers, and oversize books don’t really pile well because of the weight and the variation in size.

The other downside with piling is that frequently customer put the book back on the top of the pile or an adjascent pile instead of where if belongs alphabetically.

TIP: Don’t pile more 10″ high for adult books, or more han 8″ for kids’ chapter books.  Otherwise the weight starts to become difficult for customers to lift.

Straight up and down, library style

Straight up and down

Advantages: This is the style most people are familiar with so they can quickly figure out where the book they’re looking for is. It’s also very easy for them to put the book back exactly where they found it, so the maintenance is the lowest of all the various systems.

Because books aren’t supporting the weight of other books, you can also mix and match several different sizes of books without having to worry about whether the pile is stable.  Customers don’t have to lift more than a single book at a time.

Most commercial bookshelves are designed with this display method in mind, so you have lots of options.

Disadvantages: The titles on the spine are written to be read when the book is laying on its side.  This makes browsing titles hard.  Customers may quickly get a crick in their neck.  Customers wearing bifocals may also have difficulty reading the titles.

The versatility of mixing together sizes can also be problem here because mass market paperbacks mixed in with tradepaperback and hardcovers may end up vanishing between the books or pushed behind them pretty quickly.  You may also end up with books wedged into “triangles” as they bend around smaller neighboring books.

Because of wide variety of sizes, you may also end up with big open spots you can’t actually fit books in.

One other issue is that if the shelves aren’t sufficiently full, the books may just plain fall off the shelves.  This is most likely if you’re in an older building with a floor that’s not particularly level, but can happen even on dead level shelves.  Be prepared for the occasional crash noise if there’s gaps.  (buy some bookends!)

It’s also harder to display books face out on shelves designed for this because of the depth.  They may look like they’re swimming in the space.  They may also end up deeply in shadow and be hard to read.

This system can also be rough on the edges of dustjackets unless you put a cover on them since they’ll be jostled constantly.

Mix and match!

Mix and match

Advantages: You get a little bit of the strengths of both systems.  It’s easier to read the mass market paperbacks and they don’t get lost between the larger books.  The stacks of mass markets can serve as anchors between rows of larger books to keep them from tipping over and falling.

Disadvantages: You may end up with weird gaps because of mixing together the types. It’s also difficult to maintain alphabetical order.  People are confronted with two different ways to put the book back and often you’ll end up with mass markets in the trades and trades awkwardly shoved on the top of a pile of mass markets.  It’s the highest maintenance for organization.

TIP: for this mix and match system you may want medium depth shelves.  (about 6″)   Yes, some trade and hardbacks will protrude over the edge… but your mass markets won’t look like they’re swimming around in all the extra space either.  Face out books won’t be in shadow. editor’s note: a little slatwall shelf works great for a mix and match section.

Everything face out

Advantages: Everything is immediately visible and impulse buys are high.  Very low maintenance.

Disadvantages: Takes up 10X as much space as any other method.

Note how I didn’t include a picture here.  Unless you have oodles and oodles of space, this method isn’t going to work for a whole store.  The occasional endcap or featured book table is as far as most stores can afford to take it. If you’re doing very high end rare books that people should really only handle on tables, this way be a viable option, but 99% of stores can’t afford to use this method.

The book explosion

Yes, it looks like a book filled bomb has exploded here…

Advantages: Nobody feels bad about messing up the system.

Disadvantages: Nobody can find anything.

It’s pretty well inevitable with a bookstore you will end up with some oddly sized items or items waiting to be shelved that will end up looking like an untidy pile in no particular order.  If you have a bookstore cat or dog, they may also decide this is a great pile to sleep on…

No matter what you do, there will be days where it the children’s section looks like this.  Kids don’t put books back where they found them.  Or they put them back in the wrong place, upside down, or backwards.  Give up now.  No matter how carefully you plan your shelving system, there will be days that the kids section looks like this.

Build your own or buy them premade?

Once you’ve figured out the system you want to use, you’ll better know whether you feel up to a carpentry project or not.  Most premade bookshelves are usually designed for the library style shelving, but a little searching may yield ones suitable for the other methods.  If you really want to go all out with the face out books, you could even opt for gridwall or slatwalls!

Either way, make sure you go in with a plan or your bookstore may permanently look like that book explosion picture!

If you have some time take a look at her blog The Poet In You

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I am a relative newbie in the world of book selling, my dear friend Nora who encouraged me to travel down this path is not. In fact, book selling is nearly all she has ever known save for a very short stint as a barista with a well-known coffee chain. This brief foray of hers was put to an end with an intervention by loved ones. Nora finally relented to their fervent entreaties to, “be done with this torturous career path”, an occupation that had resulted in a traumatic and recurring nightmare in which she found herself seated opposite the half-rabid coffee swilling author Balzac wagering on the ever popular card game, Piquet. In this dream Balzac could not be restrained from leaping up and shouting, “Carte Blanche!”. Nora would then be obliged to prepare yet another demitasse full of brew by manipulating a very complicated piece of 19th century machinery, glass tubes and metal parts would sputter forth a few pungent and very black drops of a full bodied dark roast for the never sated author. Ah, the stuff nightmares are made of. Intervention behind her, she shrugged off her apron and stepped back into the world of book selling.

This dear woman was my first and primary teacher, a mentor if you would have it so. We’ve lived in different cities now for more than a decade. My “tutelage” has been by phone and email. In the beginning, the only experience I had was as a customer and fan of used bookstores, their decline was a subject we spoke about often. I loved finding an out of print or hard to fine title, even one with a dedication in a flowery script would have me buzzing. As a bookseller, I had no experience. I had a barrage of questions, all of the most obvious ones: what to buy, where to buy it, how to sell it. Five years later the book related calls are fewer and the need for consolation much less. When I feel that I’ve let something get away from me I remember the signed Kerouac that she let go for a song. Now we commiserate more than anything but she is still my go to girl in times of crisis.

There are so many sources of information, the key is to be open to them and to value them especially when they come from the first hand experience of your book selling peers. I know that most booksellers don’t like to give away their hard earned lessons because those lessons, they’ve come at a price.

Book selling blogs have also been a great source of information. Sometimes I will find answers to questions that I didn’t even realize needed answering. One of the blog posts that I am most grateful for having found was right here on this site. It’s Tom Nealon’s post titled, Don’t Get Hung Up On Your Buying Mistakes – Sell And Move On. I swear, I think he wrote it just for me. After reading the article I finally started purging boxes of books. It has made a huge difference, both psychologically (I no longer have those foul books taunting me) and physically, it’s opened up a lot of shelf-space. Also, The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books
has recently made a comeback and has some pertinent posts for booksellers.
Book selling blogs have an appeal that the forums on ABE and Alibris do not. I am looking for and value constructive first hand experience, not doom and gloom.

My sources of motivation aren’t always other booksellers and they are not always online. I sometimes think of a veterinarian I once worked for who ranted when he found a box of product that was not on the shelf. “These aren’t going to sell sitting in this box in the office,” he railed. And he was right. When I see a box of books that I have yet to post I think of him in all of his annoyance. When I really need motivation I think of a Coach Bob Hurley at St. Anthony’s High School in Jersey City, NJ. He challenges his basketball players to give it their all and be their best. When my husband and I first watched this on CBS  I laughed and said, “Can you imagine if I had that guy here coaching me on book selling? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WATCHING TV????? POST THOSE BOOKS. POST ‘EM!!!!!”

In my very short history as a bookseller I have found that advice, inspiration and motivation can come from almost anywhere. If I have any advice to give it is to love what you do, do it well, and get those books out of the box and on your shelves!

Roberta Nevares
Bertski Books

The Poet In You