
Japanese Bookshop Stocks Only One Book at a Time - rfreytag
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/23/japanese-bookshop-stocks-only-one-book-at-a-time
======
meric
When playing a board game, like Terra Mystica, where there are choices I can
make, and there are random elements that change from game to game, there's two
routes I could go - The first is to play out the plan I've thought about so
many times previously, to align the choices I make with that plan as
faithfully as the random elements allow. The second, is to completely ditch
whatever was in my plan, look at the random elements for this game, and play
accordingly. I call the second strategy "Play to the board". The first
strategy often means I'll do fine in the game, but will lose out to the player
who benefited from the random elements of the game this round. The second
strategy provide no such guarantees, but is the only strategy that allows
great wins.

In life, people can pick one of _three_ strategies. The first is they can
fantasise about what kind of car they want, what kind of job they'd like, what
kind of girlfriend they'd have, and then try their best to make these
"achievements", often falling short because the world is not fantasy. The
second, they observe what kind of random elements the world exhibiting, e.g.
"Oh these days accountants make lots of money", "These days Software Engineers
have high salaries" and directly translate to mean "I am going to learn
programming, even if I don't like it", and then they are playing to other
people's fantasy rather than accepting their own strengths or weaknesses. Or
thirdly, they can "play to the board" and make the best of what life gives
them, at each moment in time.

The bookshop-keeper here, is eking out every single edge he can out of books
to operate his shop. Where 30 years ago operating a successful physical
bookshop might mean having a large selection available at any time, and
frequent events to draw crowds, today, in competition with digital books,
operating a successful physical bookshop might mean emphasising the advantages
of the physical book, the romanticism attached to physical objects. I get the
feeling he is the type who sees what the world is like today, and because he's
got experience bookshop-keeper, not a software engineer or tech startup
founder, he goes with the flow with what he's got.

Where in a board game, the game board is the entirety of the world, and can be
considered by itself, in the real world, _our own selves are part of the
board_ \- and I can't always do it, but I aspire to do what I can to play with
what I've got, like the man depicted in this article.

~~~
krallja
He's only sold 2100 books in 7 months - not much of a success, at least in
terms of profitability.

~~~
meric
We'll see in the next 7. The Guardian article is 1 day old so far. ;)

~~~
ramchip
I don't think an English language article on the Guardian will draw many
readers to a Japanese bookstore, unfortunately.

~~~
kitsune_
I wouldn't be so sure. Recently Nat Geo featured a place that is located 10
miles from where I live on their cover ('Places of a life time', Äscher,
Switzerland) and it's now over-run by tourists.

------
derefr
I've imagined this repeatedly. When you can buy any book you want online,
physical bookstores become, in practice, galleries—and their clerks become
salesmen.

In such times, there's not much point to having a big store stuffed to the
gunnels with anonymous tomes that the clerks don't even know they have, let
alone know anything about. Bookstores have none of the things that the book-
buyer wants (discoverability, recommendation or "match-making",
knowledgeability); and, especially in the case of _used_ book stores, the
online copy is probably in better condition, too.

When you treat books, instead, like pieces in a commercial art gallery—curated
and exhibited for effect, with well-trained staff who can tell you all about
them, or guide you to a book that fits your desires, or call/email you when a
book you might like comes in—you get something from the physical store you
don't get online. And, therefore, you actually might buy your copy from the
store—maybe even at premium—because you aren't just paying for the book, but
for the whole experience that led to you buying the book.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
This seems to be a repeated theme [that I'm noticing] at present which to my
mind hints at a particular flaw in capitalist society - that we end up paying
for things by proxy.

You want a curated suggestion for what to read but instead of paying for a
curator to make those suggestions you pay for a book that poorly hints at the
worth that you've received from the curators effort. Or you want a particular
piece of software but instead of paying directly [in part] for those who
conceive of the software and implement it you pay for a support contract, or
[gratis Google software] you pay slightly more for many things the advertising
of which in part pays for the software that you use. You want to watch a well
written movie, you pay for high-priced drinks and popcorn. Et cetera.

It seems that the value being generated gets removed one or more steps from
the point at which the money paid that [poorly] feeds back to the system that
you find that thing valuable. To me it seems that we lose a lot of the
financial value to third-parties that place themselves at the interstices -
the publisher's executives takes a large cut of the book price but did little
of value, the 'stars' in the movie take a large cut but any one of hundreds of
actors could have done that part, the advertising execs take a large cut but
much of the output they direct is antagonistic towards those who are really
seeking other things.

Just seems a really weird way to go about improving society.

~~~
ghaff
You're basically describing the unbundling problem. People aren't accustomed
to (and therefore generally unwilling to) pay for news, travel-related advice,
recipes, et al. but they were historically willing to pay for such when they
were bundled into a physical publication or where the advice was covered by a
commission on some other service (like purchasing airline tickets).

~~~
derefr
People _do_ pay for advice, though. Financial advice in particular has an
obvious unbundled market (not just in the form of "your guy at the investment
bank", but also in the form of stock analysis, industry reports, etc.
Bloomberg terminals are pure "advice", if you want to think of things this
way.)

Slightly more murkily, though, we've got things like fashion advice, where you
pay a "fashion consultant" who works with you to select clothes that work for
you. You've also got "personal trainers" who curate your exercise experience.
You've even got these things called "doctors" who don't even have any medicine
in their offices(!), instead just writing down their recommendations for
medicine you _should_ buy on a piece of paper! ;)

I think the uniting factor in all those cases where we _are_ willing to pay
for advice is that the advice is very "interactive": the fashion consultant
looks at how clothes fit on you, the personal trainer watches how well your
plan is working out and keeps you motivated, and the doctor does a bunch of
tests and schedules appointments at intervals for "long-term outpatient
treatment" to make sure your medicine is working, adjust dosages, etc.

Meanwhile, it seems weird to imagine paying e.g. Netflix for the output of its
recommendation engine, or iTunes for a generated Genius playlist; those are
able to be created as batch processes from a bunch of data that already
existed, namely your watch/listen history. You might imagine paying for _the
service_ that provides that capability (like e.g. Spotify), but not for each
piece of advice from it.

~~~
ghaff
Doctors are a special case in that, for better or worse, you have to go
through them to get a lot of medicines. (And IMO by and large that system
makes sense.)

Outside of Bloomberg terminals which are a relative high-end niche, most
individual investors get their research and financial advice bundled with
transaction and management fees.

I basically agree with your other points. But, relatively speaking, things
like fashion advice and personal trainers are very much a niche--and, as you
say, based on very interactive service. And pretty much for comparatively
high-income individuals like other personal services.

~~~
marincounty
"Along with pet therapists, and personal shoppers?" Quote from some movie.
Forgot movie. The actress Mila Kunnas.

------
Xixi
I adopted a similar strategy for Tomotcha: we pick/sell only one tea each
month. Most of our competitors send several samples each month, and from a
revenue point of view maybe it's better, but I like the ability to give focus
to a single tea.

For instance our next shipment is a Genmaicha: it's a combination of green
tealeaves and roasted brown rice. The first time I drank Genmaicha I didn't
like it much, because it's so different from what I was used to drink. But now
I love it. You have to give each tea a try: if you just drink small samples
you'll never develop a taste for the more complex ones.

~~~
listic
If I like a particular tea, do you allow me to buy it again, afterwards? It
would be reasonable, I think.

~~~
Xixi
It really depends on the tea, if we still have it or if we can still reorder
it from the producer. It will be pretty much impossible for a Shincha (new
tea), as they are usually limited in quantity, and quite short lived. On the
other end of the spectrum roasted green teas (houjicha) live much longer, so
we can usually reorder them from the producer if we are out of stock.

------
rdlecler1
2100 books over 6 months = 350 books per month, or 12.5 per day. Assume the
books are $30 - $50, so $375 - $675. Assume a 70% cost of goods sold = $112.5
- $187.5 revenue per day. Tough to make a living unless he can push those
numbers a bit. Interesting idea. Hope he can do it.

~~~
shiro
His previous bookstore had also a gallery space for rent, so it may be the
case that this new store's model is actually closer to a gallery---author or
sponsor may pay some fee. Just guess; I couldn't find an official document
stating so.

~~~
nandemo
That's plausible. Indeed it would be pretty hard to break even without an
alternative business model: books usually have a MRSP printed on the jacket
and charging more than the MRSP is unusual; plus the rent in Ginza is over
400usd per sq m.

~~~
jimminy
The published MSRP is an issue, but generally books are available at wholesale
for 40% off. So there is still a decent margin to start from, rent and
staffing quickly eat into that cut. It's all about sales volume. Most
mainstream hardcovers are around $16-35; after markup would be about
$6.40-$14/copy in gross profit.

I used to work at an independent bookstore that had a niche for local and
regional(WV/Appalachia) authors and stories. This worked great as we were in a
tourist area, so the influx of new customers was readily available.

For local customers we offered custom orders, to address issues with limited
supply. Though it would be cheaper to go to Amazon, a large portion of the
community are artists and craftsmen so they liked to encourage the local
economy.

------
have_faith
It's more of a gallery than a bookshop. The book is on display. The theme of
the book is extended into the presentation of the place. Instead of a gallery
gift shop you can buy the book the gallery was themed on. It's a nice idea.
Gimmicky perhaps, but nice.

~~~
ctdonath
It's akin to a musician/artist performing/producing at some minor venue (park,
museum, bar, etc just sitting in the side providing ambiance) where just a few
minutes experience is enough for some to buy a CD/DVD/book. Give a wandering
shopper a reason to drop into the gallery/store and have a remarkable few
minutes, and some will buy without planning to.

------
rmason
Zeroing in on one book is crazy. However singling out a single author each
week might work.

One week it's Hemingway and the next week perhaps it's Elmore Leonard. You
decorate the store and the key is the author has many books and you stock them
all. In a place like Tokyo, NYC or London this approach might work.

It would almost be like an art gallery highlighting dozens of paintings by a
single artist. You could invite people in to discuss the author and those
events would draw in even more people.

------
Grue3
I can't really back this up with a source but I read somewhere that this is
similar to how traditional Japanese merchants used to operate. They would show
a customer a single item, which he could either accept or refuse. Then another
item was brought in and so on. By restricting access to the entire catalogue
the merchant was able to get better deals out of the customer.

------
CPLX
It seems to me almost a given that the authors and publishers are paying or
otherwise helping support these endeavors, via some sort of cooperative
advertising type model. Some of his comments seem to hint at that.

Either that or he has a trust fund, given Tokyo real estate prices there don't
seem to be many other reasonable hypotheses.

------
keithpeter
The room looks like an art gallery as others have commented. I can remember
seeing displays of the catalogue for an exhibition in art galleries - a large
array of a single book. The arithmetic implies some form of subsidy, and that
room looks lovely. There is a street view here...

[http://www.takram.com/projects/a-single-room-with-a-
single-b...](http://www.takram.com/projects/a-single-room-with-a-single-book-
morioka-shoten/)

...looks to be an exercise in branding/design.

I'm wondering if a community will form around the 50 or so titles stocked in a
year. A book per week is a reasonable reading target for most educated people.
If so, then a coffee shop model becomes possible: a coffee shop stocking one
title per week and _encouraging discussion_ while continuing to sell their
coffee and food to pay the rent.

~~~
eginhard
It's also open between 1-8pm and, according to that link, events are organised
every night, so building such a community seems to be a main part of the
concept.

------
fengwick3
Wow this sounds like it could be something straight out of Italo Calvino's "If
on a winter's night a traveler".

~~~
justincormack
Also from the TV show Portlandia, which had an episode about shops selling a
single item.

------
logicallee
I'd buy it. I mean, if the guy's stocking one book, it's going to be pretty
good, right? I mean, what is it going to be like that (redacted) book I was
reading written in a dead author's name? [1] I was like, wait a second what is
this piece of crap - then I was like, ohhh. Yes, that would explain it.

That's not going to happen if I buy this guy's one book.

[1] like this - [http://www.avclub.com/article/pay-no-attention-to-the-man-
be...](http://www.avclub.com/article/pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-
curtain-7-f-101553)

------
sandworm101
So this is essentially a subscription model?

It sounds like he is trying to capture the attention of a group of regulars to
the point that they will all buy every book he displays. That, or every time
he stocks a new book the updated store will at least turn heads. Standard
bookstores never really change in appearance.

I guess there is also a threat. Buy it now because it won't be here next week.

------
njharman
This is "sell a lifestyle / experience" model like Starbucks and to some
degree Apple.

A model, although very successful, I abhor. It purports that you can "buy"
happiness. It targets those so affluent and/or so bored that mere ownership of
things is no longer enough to make them feel special.

------
kaybe
There is more information and photos in this blog post:

[http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/09/06/morioka-shoten-
ginza-...](http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/09/06/morioka-shoten-ginza-a-
bookstore-that-only-carries-one-title-per-week/)

------
DonHopkins
And then there's the record store that only sells (and buys) the White Album:

[http://hyperallergic.com/65570/we-sell-white-
albums/](http://hyperallergic.com/65570/we-sell-white-albums/)

~~~
im2w1l
Despite the URL, the article text explains that the store actually doesn't
sell them. They only buy more.

------
jtchang
A lot of people are calculating the cost of the book based off of MSRP and
discounting it. However am I the only one that thinks he might consider
selling the book above MSRP? In a way buying a book from here is an
experience.

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tomcam
...because in his former shop, he had to carry a whopping 200 books!

------
tim333
Very Zen.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. – Confucius

~~~
krapp
I hate to be that guy, but Confucius probably said no such thing.[0]

[0][https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Confucius#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Confucius#Misattributed)

~~~
tim333
You seem to be correct. The dangers of googling stuff.

