1. People are getting rid of bookshelves. Treat the money you budgeted for shelving as found money. Go to garage sales and cruise the curbs.
2. While you're drafting that business plan, cut your projected profits in half. People are getting rid of bookshelves.
3. If someone comes in and asks where to find the historical fiction, they're not looking for classics, they want the romance section.
4. If someone comes in and says they read a little of everything, they also want the romance section.
5. If someone comes in and asks for a recommendation and you ask for the name of a book that they liked and they can't think of one, the person is not really a reader. Recommend Nicholas Sparks.
6. Kids will stop by your store on their way home from school if you have a free bucket of kids books. If you also give out free gum, they'll come every day and start bringing their friends.
7. If you put free books outside, cookbooks will be gone in the first hour and other non-fiction books will sit there for weeks. Except in warm weather when people are having garage sales. Then someone will back their car up and take everything, including your baskets.
8. If you put free books outside, someone will walk in every week and ask if they're really free, no matter how many signs you put out . Someone else will walk in and ask if everything in the store is free.
9. No one buys self help books in a store where there's a high likelihood of personal interaction when paying. Don't waste the shelf space, put them in the free baskets.
10. This is also true of sex manuals. The only ones who show an interest in these in a small store are the gum chewing kids, who will find them no matter how well you hide them.
11. Under no circumstances should you put the sex manuals in the free baskets. Parents will show up.
12. People buying books don't write bad checks. No need for ID's. They do regularly show up having raided the change jar.
13. If you have a bookstore that shares a parking lot with a beauty shop that caters to an older clientele, the cars parked in your lot will always be pulled in at an angle even though it's not angle parking.
14. More people want to sell books than buy them, which means your initial concerns were wrong. You will have no trouble getting books, the problem is selling them. Plus a shortage of storage space for all the Readers Digest books and encyclopedias that people donate to you.
15. If you open a store in a college town, and maybe even if you don't, you will find yourself as the main human contact for some strange and very socially awkward men who were science and math majors way back when. Be nice and talk to them, and ignore that their fly is open.
16. Most people think every old book is worth a lot of money. The same is true of signed copies and 1st editions. There's no need to tell them they're probably not ensuring financial security for their grandkids with that signed Patricia Cornwell they have at home.
17. There's also no need to perpetuate the myth by pricing your signed Patricia Cornwell higher than the non-signed one.
18. People use whatever is close at hand for bookmarks--toothpicks, photographs, kleenex, and the very ocassional fifty dollar bill, which will keep you leafing through books way beyond the point where it's pr0ductive.
19. If you're thinking of giving someone a religious book for their graduation, rethink. It will end up unread and in pristine condition at a used book store, sometimes with the fifty dollar bill still tucked inside. (And you're off and leafing once again).
20. If you don't have an AARP card, you're apparently too young to read westerns.
21. A surprising number of people will think you've read every book in the store and will keep pulling out volumes and asking you what this one is about. These are the people who leave without buying a book, so it's time to have some fun. Make up plots.
22. Even if you're a used bookstore, people will get huffy when you don't have the new release by James Patterson. They are the same people who will ask for a discount because a book looks like it's been read.
23. Everyone has a little Nancy Drew in them. Stock up on the mysteries.
24. It is both true and sad that some people do in fact buy books based on the color of the binding.
25. No matter how many books you've read in the past, you will feel woefully un-well read within a week of opening the store. You will also feel wise at having found such a good way to spend your days.
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Comments
#11 makes me laugh.
#20 makes me scoff....I read my first western this summer and loved it. Those AARP cardholders know where it's at!
#23 makes me smile....
What a splendid list! A fun way to start my day.
One of my minor goals is to purchase a complete collection of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series via used bookstores. I'm at least 3/4 of the way.
Rated♥
Mary--Thanks. There are still some of them around.
Alysa--Thank you. I've also found paychecks. You just never know.
Stim--It's fun to have something to look for. I probably have some, but I don't want to take away the thrill of the search.
Fusun--A labor of love indeed.
yeah, i read all these books!
why else would i be selling them?
(speak in idiotic generalities if they ask about latest Patterson,
eg, 'surprisingly, not as good a s i thought it would be after
the first 100 pages.."
"f you put free books outside, someone will walk in every week and ask if they're really free, "
that would be me,
aint nothin free
i was told as a wee kiddo.
this is an interesting observation re westerns..
" If you don't have an AARP card, you're apparently too young to read westerns. "
i live in a kind of western world only with internet & tv
and all that. i believe in that amoral Nietzschian reevalution
of evalutation.
I've been in business for sixteen years, for many of those without a credit card machine, and I've taken thousands of checks from all over the country. I've gotten back two, both of them local and easily collectable.
bard--not much profit in learning things though
Paul--thanks for reading
Polly--interesting people to surround ourselves with for sure
R
.
♥║╔═╗║║║║║║╔══╣╔══╣╔╗╔╗║♥
♥║╚══╣║║║║║╚══╣╚══╬╝║║╚╝♥
♥╚══╗║╚╝╚╝║╔══╣╔══╝─║║
♥║╚═╝╠╗╔╗╔╣╚══╣╚══╗─║║
♥╚═══╝╚╝╚╝╚═══╩═══╝─╚for the bookwork and more.
Are you located in the Chicago/Evanston area by chance? If so, I've probably been in your store.
:)
Thanks for the terrific post, and good luck!
Algis--thank you, your design is sweet too
daisy jane--I should probably think about the coffee
Vivian--not Chicago, but if you're even in Champaign....
Lisa--pieces of yarn and pieces of thread, yes, but I've been missing the hair. Probably assumed it was mine.
Deborah--I look forward to going there every day.
10 years ago my town of 40000 had 2 majors & a 2nd-hand bookstore ~ the majors are now gone, but Desire Books is still going strong. Amazing how many daVinci Codes they have to turn down every week ! They don't have free book bins, but 5-for-a-dollar.
I'm still awaiting the day I open a Franny & Zooey to find my name pencilled there, some forty years ago ...
Lisa--A used bookstore is pretty inexpensive to get up and running. And if you're not used to having a lot of disposable income, it's kind of the perfect business.
~nodding~ Same hold true in the antique business, especially in the day and age of Ebay and Internet. Person comes in with a piece of poo, says, "I looked on the Internet and it says, it's worth 1 billion dollars, I want one billion dollars for it!!" Good luck buddy, if ya find someone willing to pay one billion dollars for it, as I have a box full of them in the back room!! ~:D
True story. The guy looked at me and was like, "Wha?" so I showed him, I had like a box full of what he was trying to sell and we had them marked at like a buck a piece!! He stormed off going, "The Internet said they're worth!!" :D
I learned many things from my dad, one of them was, don't open an antique store!! ~:D
Froggy--It can still be a good thing to do. Just lower expectations.
Tink--Spot on. The internet can be a very bad thing.
the "borders" at the mall near my apartment closed a few months ago. it not only had books, but other antiquities such as music CDs, DVDs that you'd buy (but not rent) and software that came in a box, rather than from an online website.
oh, and they sold expensive coffee and croissants, just like the starbucks a few doors down.
pesonally, i'm going to miss perusing the newspapers and magazines - especially the foreign and esoteric ones. we may have kindles and fires up to the eyeballs here, but its clearly not the case in most of europe . . . at least for now.
but borders couldn't make a living off of people like me, who go once every month or so, on a rainy sunday afternoon weekend, and bypass the $29.95 hardcover special editions of "harry potter and the chamber of sequels", and make a beeline for paperback classics.
Even at $6.95 for a copy softcover copy of "Confederacy of Dunces", i max out my book allowance very quickly.
Thank you for taking the bold step of opening a new store. And good luck.
Lovely post!
scupper--It's a fun job. Good luck to her.
annaliese--Lucky me.
bob--Courage or a lack of foresight. I'm not sure which won out.
witchywinn--Don't be afraid to live your dream. Just be realistic about the profits.
Kamille--Glad to hear it's not just me that sees the trends.
Rob--Always love to get laughs.
Con--I would love to pay in trade. I could probably afford employees then. The job's yours if you want it.
What is a piece of software that would make your life as a used book store owner easier?
What is a piece of software that would help your customers?
Please give me some ideas if you have any :)
Random--I'll have to think about that. I'll get back to you.
It really is a wonderful life, as long as you don't need to count on an income from it.
Alice--I agree completely. I'll have good memories if I ever have to close.
My grandfather set up a bookshop in 1902, my father worked there all his life, my brother owns it now...
Must send this to him - even though he sells new books and doesn't have a free bin (pity that).
I was going to have my book on Depression published - but now I'll put it in as many free bins as I can find. Always suspected it was best practice to hire someone to buy you a self-help book.
This is my first time finding open.salon - what a lovely start. Got here via Bernie Goldback on Google Plus
And, isn't there entirely too much standing in any retail job? I've had nearly 250 jobs (yeah that too) and really get dismayed whenever I sense that the boss or 'policy' forbids humanistic courtesies like ergonomic floors good chairs for employees and so on. Maybe theatrical wire to fly from one point to the other. Employers should provide stuff like huge pilate (redline spck) balls and so on so six hours of work are not drudgery.
I enjoyed reading your clever observations.
Must one smoke outside where you sell? Special awards for employees like trips to Paris, Rome Tahiti the Great Wall of China Paraguay? How old are you? Where'd you go to school? Do you accept American Express? Do you have an ATM? Do you have one of those opaque black eye cameras for theft observation?
NonRun--Good catch.
Ugh, romance books...can't stand seeing them on the shelf but they always sell.
Yes, people do buy books based on the color of the binding, it's aparently makes a very chique interior decorating statement to arrange books by color. Shinning example: http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyoesydGeo1qfudpoo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1329346420&Signature=RiSxk6RyDVQaCKsqDc1H%2FWIgu8k%3D
And, we got 8 matching bookcases for $50 on Craigslist, which is crazy, but there is simply no demand for them.
I can't read a book on a PC, so I don't understand Nooks and other eReading devices. Books smell good, too.
Impressive...most impressive (james Earl jones once told me)
So much of what you say is true, but if it's any consolation, I have more books than bookshelves, as does my daughter. My library extends from a hallway into the family and living room and the guest bedroom. And then there are the piles on the floor, end tables, and a hope chest. We could open our own bookstore, but there is too much nonfiction and too few romances to make it lucrative. Last Christmas, my granddaughter's first, my daughter began a new tradition: a basket of unwrapped books will appear every year under the tree as an "open me first" gift from Santa. We are doing our part to keep our favorite bookstore, Powell's in downtown Portland, afloat.
TWright
If someone comes in asking how much the free books are, throw a price out there for the heck of it. Start at a buck, and if they fall for it then you brought in some more revenue. If they catch on, then you can always fall back on "congratulations, you just won a free book!"
Don't throw customers out of the store for eating chocolate glazed Bavarian creme doughnuts while leafing through the books.
I mean, those doughnuts are delicious and the books are interesting -- no one should be expected to have to choose between them.
And you don't have to yell.
.
I find there is still tons of space among the titles in my little library for my downloaded audio books. (And nobody knows if they are REALLY in alpha order.)