Friday, December 21, 2007

The Edward Gorey incidents.

Twice this year I've had customers specifically asking for Edward Gorey books. "Why yes," I say, proudly, since I've always been partial to Gorey illustrations. "We've got a bunch of them."

"You don't have the one I want."

O.K. One Edward Gorey book is pretty much like the next. Really.

They look some more, and then the inevitable, "Is this all you got?"

"Well, we've tried to carry what's available," I say.

What I really want to say is, "Oh, you're looking for the Edward Gorey Store!"

After this last lady left, I counted my books. I had nine books, down from twelve.

So here's a challenge. Find a bookstore. ANYWHERE in America, Barnes and Nobles, even Powells, and tell me they have 12 or even 9 Edward Gorey books in stock.

I'm serious. This is cutting things mighty fine.

3 comments:

Duncan McGeary said...

I haven't mentioned games, even though most of the phone calls concerned games I've never heard of.

But we've just started, so I don't know which games are obscure and which we might someday carry....

Anonymous said...

I have had many eves with friends out of town that wanted Pictionary, scrabble, ... and there is NO where to go,

Just a collection of portable scrabble can be a hit, but you got to let the TOURIST know you have the goods.

I wouldn't focus so much on obscure games, as high quality known, FYI a traveler might not know about all the cool portable-scrabble games avail, that in itself is a niche, and YES duncan, get off your fucking ass and put this stuff on a website.

Yes, you have to have a niche, and there are lots niches, and you have inventory, but you have a real marketing problem, maybe you need to give the the city of Bend to rank you #1 game store in USA, see if you can get them to finance 90% of cost.

Mark said...

I disagree with bilbobend about one thing -- there are plenty of places to find mainstream games like Pictionary, scrabble, etc. -- try Target, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Fred Meyer for starters.

And to find out what is good in boardgames (and usually obscure as well) register and read http://www.boardgamegeek.com.