Geek Formula....

Linda and I knew we were going to open a used bookstore at least 10 years before we did; if you want to get down to brass tacks, probably 20 years before we finally did. I started carrying used books at Pegasus about 8 years ago, and got the chance to observe which books really sold and which books didn't... and why.

So I had a number of years to look for opportunities to stock-pile books; I bought out portions of three different bookstores over the years, made sure my family knew I wanted the inheritance of the family library (it was a lot of books folks, and high quality books), found access to used books from out of town bookstores, and just kept on looking for books everywhere I could.

I also watched the operations of used bookstores, trying to figure out what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong and how I would do it differently. (For instance, we noticed that most used bookstores were messy and disorganized and crowded and we wanted to avoid that.)

And I did as much research online as I could, reading every article, every news story I could.

Then we brainstormed it, looking at it from every angle, and tried to think outside the box. Tried to winnow it down to basics, and with the mantra, "Keep it simple, stupid."

So when we opened the Bookmark, we had worked out a bunch of premises that we thought would work. Trading policies, displays, tactics and strategies. And we did some things that we saw no one else doing, and didn't do some things that everyone else was doing.

And I'd have to say most of the business plan worked well. We had to refine the formula a bit, but mostly it proved out.


I'm now trying to do the same thing on New Books. I've come up with a beginning formula that I'm going to try.

First I should say that I developed this formula with my own store in mind; that is, I'm in a high traffic downtown, without a lot of repeat customers, and with limited space.

The other point I'd make in advance is that I think that most new bookstores would do well to carry high quality used books; and the opposite, most used bookstore would do well to carry some new books (though my own wife refuses to do so, and well, it's HER store.)

And the final premise is that I'd be delighted if books account for 25% of total gross sales, and I am not really expecting it to exceed 20% of gross sales, so I can do things that maybe another bookstore couldn't do.

Here's what I have come up with:

Most new bookstores seem to expend about 80% of their time, money and space on;

A.) Latest Releases (which they hope will turn into...)
B.) Best-sellers (which are often...)
C.) Oprah books (and/or...)
D.) Book Sense selections, picked out by the American Booksellers Association.

It appears to me that 20% is everything else:

A.) Classics
B.) Mid-list books by bestselling authors.
C.) Cult and/or Favorite books
D.) Discounted and/or used books.

I'm going to the exact opposite percentage.

I want to try 80% classics, mid-list, cult, and discounted.

I want to try 20% new releases, best-sellers, Oprah, Book Sense.

By all means I'll carry the Best-sellers and Oprah and Book Sense and New Releases. But I'm going to try not to let this be my real focus. Amazon and Borders and Costgo are likely to get these books sooner, in greater quantities, and to sell them at major discounts. They will have huge advertising budgets, big displays and endcaps (for which the publishers pay them) and will have the ability to pretty much return 100% of their books for credit.

Instead, I plan to carry other titles by best-selling authors, the two books before and the two books after the mega-hits. Most stores don't seem to be doing this. The so called mid-list product is going by the wayside in pursuit of the Next Big Thing.

But in my opinion, many of these mid-list books have a great selling point; the very best-seller the other stores are carrying, nestled in the other books by the same author, casting a glow on an author the customer knows, but a book they don't.

New releases are just fine. But it seems to me that I have hundreds of years of history to look at to know what are good and classic books, which have stood the test of time. Again, most stores aren't really carrying a lot of these older books. Even books of current authors that were the good books of say, five, ten or fifteen years ago have dropped off the radar.

Often I can pick up these mid-list and classics for a very good discount.

Or I can get them used.

My biggest advantage as an owner/operator of a bookstore is my own love and knowledge of books. I should be able to carry in the store just about every book I ever read and loved, and every book my friends and family ever read and loved; and the books that the culture at large has decided in their collective wisdom should be passed along to others, to the next generation, the 'cult' favorites.

I don't know if this is going to work. Maybe I'll realize that best-seller, new release method is the right one, but with all the difficulties that both new and used bookstores are having, it's time to try to think outside the box, and because I'm not depending on books to survive, I have the luxury of experimentation.