Month: February 2010

Getting Boots Into Your Bookshop

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Online shops and physical bookshops share some challenges and one is called traffic, getting people to actually come in the door.  Physical shops do this by being in a good location and by advertising, online shops do this with SEO.  There are many different forms of SEO, there’s all the traditional forms of SEO which … Read more

Slatwall a nice solution for displaying beautiful oversized books

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Slatwall Have you considered adding a couple sections of slatwall display in your shop. You know what I mean the rows of slats where you can hang shelves at varying heights. We wrote yesterday about a few things that you can do to catch a buyers attention; things like shelf talkers, good signage and smart … Read more

Any problem areas in your bookshop?

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Back on Board & Discussing Problem Areas

Well, yes, I’ve been very quiet of late, and I do apologise.  I haven’t even had time to look at The Bookshop Blog for the past month.  We’ve just passed through the busiest time of the year here in town, and now I’m all about replenishing titles at the moment, so it’s back to the hunt for me.  I had some good luck through January, with a couple of good lots come in through the shop, which kept the stock fresh and moving.  I seem to be staying on top of most areas on the whole – there was for a time over November and December I felt I was buying more books than I was selling – but there are sections I struggle to keep up with.

Do other booksellers have these persistent problem areas?

Science Fiction
How do you keep science fiction stocked?  I find that when my science fiction titles sell, they don’t sell one by one, butGun With Music practically by the metre!  And I find it very difficult to source ‘fresh’ sci-fi/fantasy titles.  Does anyone have a practical suggestion for an Australian bookseller?  I heard from another bookseller the other day that she had a competitor in her shop (and there is an unwritten bookseller’s ‘code’ that we sell books to one another at 10% off) trying to purchase her collection of Dr Who novels.  She actually refused the other bookseller, on the grounds that they are hard to find, hard to keep on the shelf, and to sell them for 10% off when she could easily sell them to the summer tourists would seem like a poor business decision!

Science fiction/fantasy readers seem to collect and continue collecting.  They don’t seem to trade their books in, or sell them.  I assume there are plenty of bookshops out there who simply don’t stock sci-fi/fantasy, but I feel that as this is often an adolescent market I’d like to keep the genre, in the hope that I’m encouraging younger folk in.

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Will You Buy My Used Books?

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This is not a strength of mine. I am not a haggler. I walk into a store and ALWAYS pay the price that is being asked. I am trying to change this particular trait – it is not beneficial to my business to pay full price for something I’m trying to on- sell. That’s the nature of our chosen job isn’t it? We want the best quality for the lowest price, and then want a discount on top of that because our margins are so tight.

When does bulk buying for your bookshop get out of hand?

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The listing was for 2,000+ books and I won it for some ridiculously small amount, totally stunned at that as I kept on reducing my top price before I actually put in my bid. When I got there, with my nephew for muscle, there were more like 4,500 books. I know it’s not a lot compared to some other people’s buys but it was a lot for me at the time, bear in mind I was really only starting out and I used to buy a handful of books at a time at op shops and garage sales. I was floored and unable to deal with them for some time.

Bookstore Speak: Words of the Trade

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Bookstore Speak:

Words of the Trade

By Louis Gereaux

All booksellers of used books will have at one time or another come across the word dog-eared.  What does that word mean anyway, and where did it come from?  Dog eared pages are less common in today’s fast turn around of used books. Many used book are almost new.  It might be that more readers are using the bookmarks we stick in our books for sale, who knows?  But the term dog eared means a turned down corner of a book page.  The term originated in the trade because these turned down pages look like the ears of dogs which do not stick up.

This antiquated term – dog-eared is no longer used that much in online book descriptions as a result of mass listings, but it should be there.  If for no other reason, there have to be books on the market which have turned down page corners. As opposed to the term binding tight – this is a term that has survived and thrived in online bookselling.  Why switch the order of the words when one means to say the book has a tight binding? That is the original book selling term though, and binding tight is a phrase used to make a strong positive impression on the potential buyer.  It says this is a book which will not fall apart when you receive it – the worst fear of most used book purchasers site unseen.

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