
What I Learned From Opening a Bookstore - fogus
http://open.salon.com/blog/jlsathre/2012/01/11/25_things_i_learned_from_opening_a_bookstore
======
bryanlarsen
When people make lists like that, they usually come up with an odd number,
like 8, and then think "Hey, if I think of two more I can make a list of 10".
That's one of many reasons why such lists usually aren't reading.

With this list, I get the impression that instead she crossed off a few less
worthy items to get the round number because it's pretty hard to find any
fluff.

~~~
iansinke
In which number system is 8 odd?

~~~
mkr-hn
Probably odd as in weird.

~~~
bryanlarsen
odd as in "not-round". But agreed, poor choice of words. You'll notice later
that I used "round" as the inverse. But what word should I have used? "not-
round" is awkward.

~~~
mkr-hn
Use odd and hope you give it enough context for most people to understand. And
be glad natural language is infinitely flexible. :)

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mseebach
Turns out mild loathing towards users isn't unique to software.

~~~
jseliger
I suspect that, in retailing, it's one of these things where 95% of the
customers are fine, but that last 5% take up a disproportionate amount of your
time and mental energy, whether because they're clueless or morons or
whatever. That's how I think jaded teachers / professors develop: most of
their students are okay, but that small percentage of "story" students create
all kinds of artificial barriers and special exceptions and so on that make
the teacher / professor not real pleasant.

~~~
danudey
The same is true of video game retailing. The 20 minutes I spent arguing with
someone who'd bought a game, torn open the CD sleeve with the serial on it
(THROUGH the serial), spilt coffee on another CD sleeve, and then demanded
that I let him return it because it didn't support LAN play is time I will
never get back. And that was hardly one of the worst customers.

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jdludlow
_People are getting rid of bookshelves. Treat the money you budgeted for
shelving as found money. Go to garage sales and cruise the curbs._

I found this amusing as the first bullet point, since it pretty much screams,
"Don't open a bookstore."

~~~
GertG
Which, to be fair, is her second bullet point.

~~~
jdludlow
Heh, wow. I read the article and managed to miss that sentence completely.
Thank you for pointing it out.

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jimminy
Having just come in to work at an independent bookstore, I find most of it
accurate, particularly the part about checks. We have an abnormally high-
quality customer in that regard.

The one gripe I have is the thought that when people ask for historical-
fiction they want romance, that's hardly the case here. That probably comes
with the fact we're primarily a niche store focused on the sale of West
Virgina History, and related, and West Virginian Authors. We rarely carry
supply of Best-Seller list titles, with the exception of children's titles,
because Amazon has severely undercut that business. We handle special-orders
in this case, which take on average about 4 days.

~~~
mapster
Check out "West Virginia Historical Atlas" 2010, by WV Univ Press. I did the
maps.

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sunnysideup
This was much fun too read. What I really would like to know is how book
stores will look in 20 years? It seems the author sees her store more as a
hobby and is not really concerned about the future?

~~~
dsr_
Independent brick bookstores are going to look a lot like what's described
here: some new books, but mostly used. Run on a very-slightly-profitable
basis, in the cheapest commercial rental space available. One proprietor, who
does most of the work, and occasional after-school or summer help. All the
inventory will be on the web, thanks to a phone app that turns a picture of a
book's cover into a full catalog listing. Prices will be depressed to rock-
bottom, and some variant of the EBay "1 cent plus shipping" scheme will be the
rule for anything not currently in demand.

In twenty years, your average $50 ebook reader will have a 300 dpi full-color
full-motion transflective screen, readable in sunlight or with a backlight.
Most of the weight will be battery. It will have a tiny CPU and a relatively
studly GPU, a small amount of permanent storage (less than a terabyte) and a
short distance wireless network link, which will feed your headphones if you
want sound, or connect to your phone or your house networks.

There will be a secondary screen on the back which displays the book's cover.
You will have the option of changing that to anything else you want to
display.

Many people will not bother to buy them, because they already carry a phone
that can do all that, just with a smaller screen.

~~~
jdpage
I find this very sad. I do nearly all of my reading with dead tree books (I
simply don't find e-readers nearly as satisfying), and if I want a book the
first place I check is the used bookstore up the road. I tend to accumulate
books faster than I have time to read them, and by the end of my first
semester at college I had filled the woefully tiny (1 meter square) bookcase I
brought with me and begun to overflow onto the windowsill and my desk.

Surely there are other people who are the same way?

~~~
cobralibre
I'm the same way. It began when I was an undergraduate: the sight of crowded
bookshelves in a professor's office – one actually sagging under its load –
flipped the crazy switch in my brain. After I got my first real job, the
project of accumulation began. Having a large home library is not without its
problems, but it's also a real source of joy. My only regret is not taking the
time to learn some basic carpentry skills.

I would hate to do serious research in a world of ebooks – and any
sufficiently serious reader becomes a researcher – but for general use, they
probably are a good technology for most readers. Defenders of the paper book
need to remember that mass reading of paper books is a historically recent
phenomenon, for some values of "recent".

~~~
shallowwater
Whereas my brain boggles at how big a pain it must have been to do a
literature review pre-JSTOR/Web of Science/pdfs in general.

I am a voracious reader (generally 2-5 novels/equivalent per week, depending)
and love ebooks. Carry 5 long novels, 3 YA series, 4 non-fiction books, my
work literature, and an assortment of my favorite comfort/pickmeup
novels/short stories/essays with me constantly and instantly searchable? Yes
please.

~~~
elemeno
I suspect that part of the secret to that one is called Librarians.

Well, that and it's likely that when doing a literature review is hard and
time consuming, people aren't quite as concerned about it's completeness as
well it's easy and quick.

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johnohara
_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 ._

That's because the book has a physical existence. It's made of paper and ink,
has a cover, etc. Adults understand it costs money to make such things, so
it's better to put an inexpensive price on it, like $0.50, than to try to give
it away.

It's odd that the opposite is true of e-books and e-media. The low cost of
frictionless delivery gets confused with the true cost of production.

Kids will always go for free gum btw. That's in chapter 3 of the "being a kid"
handbook.

~~~
jodrellblank
Maybe, but its not so rare to see physical things for free that an adult would
be in disbelief at the very idea. I think that it's no trouble to me to ask
"are these really free?", but it's a lot of troble to me to have you running
down the road after me shouting "stop thief!", then shouting at me so I feel
like a fool, then making me unwelcome to come bsck in future. Maybe you only
mean some books, or a bit of the sign blew away, or I misunderstand the
context, maybe someone put the sign there as a joke, maybe all sorts of
awkward misunderstandings.

~~~
johnohara
I'd yell "Stop Thief!" if you stole the sign and were running down the street
chewing gum with a free book in your hand.

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rnernento
Great morning read, I'll have to be more careful about my fly...

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Jun8
This was a funny and somewhat insightful read; however, it misses some
interesting points. Opening a bookshop (much better name than a bookstore, and
if you think "what's the big deal about naming" you probably shouldn't even
attempt to open one).

Allow me to offer my own list:

1\. Opening a bookstore is very much like starting a startup in that a _really
high_ percentage of the attempts will fail. The big difference is that if you
do succeed, you won't get rich.

2\. If you think (1) is a sad consequence of today's soulless dominance of
Amazon, people not reading, etc., then read Stuart Trent's _The Seven Stairs_
where he chronicles his adventures in opening a bookshop in Chicago after
WWII, where he details pretty much the same difficulties as today's bookshops
face.

3\. In order to succeed, you _have_ to have a specialty, e.g. maps and map
making, the classics, books on New York, etc. Stock a very good collection on
the topic (or two) of your choosing and strive to be the best source of
information and books in your state, than in the US for that topic.

4\. Of course, in addition to (3) you have to have generalities, throw-away
popular fiction, cookbooks, travel books, etc. But that it let dilute your
niche.

5\. Your store should have a unique atmosphere. Additional points if this
correlates with your chosen topic niche.

6\. Know and love your customers, even when they're weird (you'll encounter
these much more frequently than would be expected from a normal distribution)
and their flies are open. You have to earn their respect with your knowledge
and collection. Again, refer to _The Seven Stairs_ for a wonderful example of
how this is done.

7\. In case you skipped 1: remember that the wonderful Stuart Brent also
failed (I had a chance to see his store on Michigan Ave in 1996, ran by his
son, I believe; it was reduced to a standard B&N type of store and was closed
in the late 90s).

8\. Reread 6! If someone with a classical bent asks for historical fiction and
you take them to the romance section they will _never_ come back. If you don't
have even a small collection of timeless classics, say Aurelius' _Meditations_
, Khayyam's poetry, _Ulysses_ (and, of course, _Odysseus_ ) yours is not a
bookshop.

9\. Learn how to use the Internet! Understand that probably a good percentage
(if not the majority) of your sales will come through the Web, so have Web
presence as good as your store. Put useful information on your web page.

10\. Lastly, you just have to _love_ books, this is no endeavour that a truly
sane or financially dependent person should attempt. If reading _Parnassus on
Wheels_ doesn't truly move you (to tears), you are in the wrong business.

~~~
phaus
I agree with #1 the most. I really love hanging out in a bookstore, but I
can't say that I often buy anything more expensive than a magazine. These days
I only seem to have time to read programming books, and if I didn't buy them
from amazon I wouldn't be able to afford them for very long.

Bookstores also have to deal with the fact that millions of people are
switching over to ereaders. I myself prefer physical books, but there are
plenty of situations where I find it more convenient to use my kindle.

~~~
itmag
Maybe there could be a bookstore with a bunch of Kindles laying around instead
of physical books? Combine this with some kind of café and it might just work.

Of course, it would be hard to charge any kind of margin on the e-books as the
customers can just whip out their own Kindle and buy the e-book directly from
Amazon. And I don't know if it's even possible to become an e-book reseller
like that. (Ie buy the right to re-sell a certain e-book 1000 times or
whatever).

~~~
GFischer
If I were to tackle the book business, I'd like to try something like that:
ebooks plus an on-demand printing service for those that like their physical
books :) .

I don't know if there's a good binder for such a service, but I've been demoed
some very impressive printers at very cheap per-page prices on loan.

The real problem, of course, is securing the copyrights and the right to print
or resell the books.

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habudibab
I'm suprised bookstores are still viable business. I can not come up with any
real benefit of buying books in a store.

The only reason that comes to my mind is the joy of browsing, maybe buying
something you've seen somewhere recommended before. Are impulse buyers a huge
part of the market?

I've been to a local private bookstore twice and the only customers I've seen
there are people who probably prefer face-to-face and resent the distant and
modern way of buying things, where the only social interaction is saying hello
to the mailman.

Could the bookstore provide me with anything amazon couldn't? Books that were
unavailable to amazon were unavailable to them. Imports took even longer and
due to not living in an english speaking country, 99% of the books on the
shelves were translations which I don't want to read. Which is even more of a
problem in bookstore chains. We have one with four large floors and a café.
How many shelves of Twilight in German the day on release? About 10. How many
shelves constantly filled with english literature? 1. Out of a number that
probably goes in the hundreds.

~~~
throw_away
I do believe that there is a market for physical bookstores that can manage to
fill a particular niche. Case in point, have you been to many technical
bookstores? I know of two that I love: Powell's Technical in Portland, OR and
Ada's in Seattle.

The advantage of these stores is that, as a nerd, I'm pretty much at least
vaguely interested in every book they have there, so the serendipity in
browsing is high. Also, these places have used copies co-shelved, which just
increases the odds that I will pick something up randomly.

btw, across the street from powell's tech is the flagship powell's, which has
1 million books and like a whole room full of english lit:
<http://www.powells.com/pdf/burnside_map_2011.pdf>

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johnwatson11218
One thing I do is keep old books in the trunk of my car. Whatever a store
won't buy I put back in my trunk. Every couple of weeks I add some newer books
and try again. Sometimes books that were rejected the first time are bought
later. A few months ago I was on a short road trip and tried to sell my stuff
in another town. They bought everything I had, even some old pc games.

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arjn
I wonder if these smaller, indie bookshops would benefit by being a
bookshop+cafe . A place you could grab a coffee and snack while catching up on
reading or news. There was this very nice place back where I went to grad
school. Old used books, good coffee and snacks. I really miss having such a
place where I live now.

~~~
smackfu
To misquote the elders: If you have a bookshop and use a cafe to solve a
problem, now you have two problems.

Good article from 2005 on opening a coffee shop, also from Slate:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/life/a_fine_whine/2005/12/bitt...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/a_fine_whine/2005/12/bitter_brew.html)

------
markwong
in my country, the biggest sections in bookstores are self-help and "how you
get rich [really really fast]"

~~~
telemachos
That sounds like chain bookstores where I'm from (the US). Independent
bookstores are usually different.

This also reminds me of an old joke from a friend: You know the bookstore is
bad if the Philosophy section is filled with copies of _The Tao of Pooh_.

~~~
raintrees
I bought a copy on audio tape and listen to it every couple of months. I find
"pooh-tao" (as my wife and I call it) very entertaining.

And easier to pick up at any point in the work than Castaneda, Hitchens,
Socrates, etc. Good for driving background audio, in my opinion...

------
alanfalcon
I saw the Salon domain and made a point of grabbing a beverage before settling
in and clicking the link, hoping to read an engaging, well written, lengthy
article.

While I was initially disappointed to see that this wasn't at all what I was
expecting, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the list _was_ engaging and
well written, even if it wasn't a lengthy magazine article.

This is a rare case where the HN headline would be better, to me, if the "25
Things" was left in the title, even if that is technically against the
submission rules.

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Tichy
"people do in fact buy books based on the color of the binding"

Come on, tell us which colors sell better than others?

------
itmag
I asked this on her blog:

As a programmer who's always looking for new projects, this made me curious.

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 :)

------
bootload
_"... What I really would like to know is how book stores will look in 20
years? ..."_ @sunnysideup ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518193>

This is really the most insightful question here. What would a book store look
like? I'll have a stab.

Eighteen years ago the Internet existed but the Web was just being born. I
come from Melbourne. Melbourne really is a book city with bookshops catering
for different interests. Those who liked comics, science fiction or books on
artwork gravitated towards Minotaur in Swanston St, classics or first editions
One Tree Hill on Collins, old books and out of print first editions a small
shop at the top of Swanston St. The general public might go to a chain
bookshop like "Collins" or "Angus or Robinsons". But if it was anything
technical, you turned to McGills.

McGills was a second home to people needed fast access to very specific
information. You would probably buy the source of the information if you
needed it in a hurry or read it if out of interest. Remember the Web was in
its infancy. To gain access to technical information to build things
(software) there was no other choice. McGills was a hub for nerds. You'd find
programmers, engineers and scientists who would pop in, look for a particular
reference book at lunch time. As the afternoon wore on it would fill up with
students too poor to buy monthly subscriptions to Wired, Game programmer or
the latest Dr.Dobbs. The era at this time was disconnected but strangely
connected.

Now we have seen what's happened in the last 20 years. The publishing industry
is changing their distribution technology from print to electronic displays.
The demise of the bookshop and books. Even so, the prices are similiar.

What might happen in the next 20?

Discoverability

    
    
        Everyone has a little Nancy Drew in them.  Stock 
        up on the mysteries. 
    
        It is both true and sad that some people do in fact 
        buy books based on the color of the binding.
    

We used to go to book shops to find books but the next 20 years is going to
get more frustrating when choosing. Twiddling your thumbs over the "next"
button is the new walking down the isle looking for one particular book. You
want the google equivalent of book finding. It might be by colour, author, a
quote, a film reference, music or voice of a character that played it on the
successor of Hollywood. Companies are still working on this hard problem. How
to see the product readers want from millions of titles on one small device.

Location

    
    
        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.
    

Books have a social element. Instead of going to a bookshop you now go to your
favourite cafe who have installed a new WIFI gadget. It's only found in
particular cafe's catering for the intersection of coffee lovers and technical
book readers. It has all the latest Open Source manuals, blog articles
collected into books. We dropped the ePub or electronic reference to books
years ago. This place is "hacker friendly" so you can chat to other hackers.
Specialist WIFI gadgets are appearing all around the place in food outlets
catering for particular audiences. The social aspect of books hasn't
disappeared, just morphed.

Sharing

    
    
        If you put free books outside, cookbooks will be gone 
        in the first hour
    

Sharing is now a problem. There are free books and restricted books. If you
can't afford a book you can book it at the library to download it. It
ceremoniously burns on your machine when the time to hand it back has passed.
Another person can now borrow a digital copy. The concept of digital ownership
becomes a political one. Book owners don't take up the "Cloud" concept after
the great cloud hack in 2028. Millions of books are electronically burnt on
owners devices as rouge elements of "Anonymous" take their "Library of
Alexandria" action too far. All in the name of freer access to live news
feeds. We still hook up to bookshops; glorified websites with sparse text and
images of book titles and a google like search engines with predictive
analysis software. Sharing of books is difficult. The hardware detects who is
using the book. Sharing is not impossible but difficult and risky. Hacks for
reader devices are there, if you want to risk being detected and black banned
from device sellers. There is always the black market. One of the unintended
consequences in ownership restrictions, is if you move from one area to
another your book becomes locked and you can't read it unless you pay a
regional fee.

Information

    
    
        No one buys  self help books in a store where there's 
        a high likelihood of  personal interaction when paying.
    

The price of certain types of "information of value" skyrockets. Value is
dependent on information usage in the market. There are market indexes for
everything. Even childrens books like Dr.Suess. Censorship is rife but
regional. You can't access certain types of information in books in certain
areas. Old printed books that contain this information go up in price if they
can be found. Information is bought and sold on ones ability to locate
valuable information in private libraries. Enterprising companies that use
software to mine old or cheap information and repackaging it as specialist
books thrive. Software companies specialising in producing software to extract
the essence of book classics like Shakespeare and write alternative scripts
for media-vision networks. There's the Chinese version of "Macbeth" portraying
the past regime and a portrayal of the Steinbeck classic, "Grapes of Wrath".
Recast to the present show the migration of Californians moving east to escape
the water crisis bought on by severe temperatures and drought. New publishing
empires are formed.

Cost

    
    
        You will have no trouble getting books, the problem is 
        selling them.
    
        There's also no need to perpetuate the myth by pricing 
        your signed Patricia Cornwell higher than the non-signed 
        one. 
    

The economics of book production change. The cost is now reflected in
popularity, the sophistication of the language, translation, region and
censorship restrictions. Books that have been simplified are now more
expensive than complicated books. The cost of books fluctuates as the numbers
of people who buy it increases or decreases. Books that are popular in certain
areas of restricted information become expensive. Some people set up companies
to monitor the costs and allow customers to purchase books at their lowest
cost.

Display

    
    
        People are getting rid of bookshelves.
    

The display is the new bookshelf. People spend lots of money to purchase the
latest hardware. When at home, bookshelves are projected on the TV screen to
show what you might want to read. The constraint of the reader is size. Large
screens solve this problem scanning personal readers and the network feed then
showing a physical representation of the book on the screen for users to see
and pick.

Psychologists work out that humans are still optomised to scan for titles laid
out in physical space. Humans can't interface directly with the reading
devices yet. That invention happens 10 years in the future.

------
dpapathanasiou
After trying to run an ebook marketplace, I can empathize with #14.

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davidwparker
I thought this was great, and rather humorous. Funny thing is, unlike #1, I
just bought a bookshelf less than two weeks ago.

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newandimproved
Reading her list reminds me of when I worked in a record store back when I was
a teenager.

One thing I quickly learned is when a grandma asked what album/artist do I
recommend for her grandson, she wasn't asking for MY recommendation (i.e.
Zodiak Mindwarp and the Love Machine or whatever the heck I was listening to).

The correct answer was almost always Rick Astley.

------
quizotic
WONDERFUL!

