"If it's not on the shelf…."
“Don’t ask me — I just work here.” Or, “Know thine inventory.”
Brick and Mortar Thoughts
Some tips from the Pros on how to operate a successful bookshop.
Bookshops: Scoping Out the Competition
In our town, there are a few places to get books. Wal-Mart and Safeway have a section of new books. The dollar stores sometimes have a few. The rummage shop has some used books. A classy gift shop has an estate collection it is selling at $2.00 a book as part of a charity that … Read more
Something is rotten in the book shop
Offending a book lover’s ol factory can be costly.
Does a used bookstore location matter?
a guest post by Ed Dugan from I Need to Cook (if you love food, and who doesn’t, check out his site – pretty sweet.) All of us have read about that wonderful little bookstore on a little used side street where literary masterpieces can be found. In fact there was such a bookstore in … Read more
Getting things done: Pareto’s Principle
I have a great interest in decluttering and first encountered this principle in a book on home organisation and later in an excellent 1970s management book Timetrap: how to get more done in less time by Alec R. Mackenzie (Timetrap is available second-hand from Retrorocket). Pareto’s Principle is also known as the 80/20 rule and … Read more
Book Sellers: Don't Fear the eBook
I went to the New York Comic Convention this past weekend. In between wandering the show floor, meeting authors, artists, and book store owners who had booths there I decided to take in a couple of panels on the state of the comic industry. While the comic industry is slightly different from the book industry, … Read more
In the Month Before We Opened our Bookshop
[an ongoing series: all the posts are here..] Remember the historical society cases it took so much combined effort to remove, which I myself prefer to not remember at all, ever ever ever? They had not been moved since the flood of ‘65. So the wall behind needed some cleaning and work. And when the … Read more
Your Bookshop – Choosing Where to Begin
Do you want to sell new books or used books? Do you want to stick to a specific type of book or have a general bookstore? Do you want to sell books online or in-store only? Do you want to be the dude selling books on a street corner? For a long time these, and … Read more