I have the weirdest bookstore.

Every week I order the big books--the ones that will be on the New York Time's bestseller lists. For instance, last week it was "Women," by Kristin Hannah. The week before that it was "Gothikana," by Runyx. And so on.

I can tell they're going to be big books by how many copies my wholesaler has available; a pretty sure sign that the book will be heavily promoted. I have a benchmark number that I automatically order.

However...these books rarely sell for me. They certainly don't sell fast, and they don't sell in big numbers.

I know that most bookstores sell the hell out of these books. I often visit Brandon at Herringbone Books here in Redmond (a really great bookstore, by the way) and he sells most of the big new releases by major publishers far better than I do.

And yet...and yet...

I sell hundreds of books a week. We've been on a very healthy streak for years now. We ring up book sales all day. And there sits the #1 book in the country, gathering dust. 

If I had set out to change my store into a bookstore by doing the traditional things, the store would have failed. I'm not sure why--mostly, I think locals have a pre-concieved notion of what we are. 

Instead, I have a regular clientele of people looking for the unusual, the quirky, genre books, and standards; classics, cult books, etc.  We sell to tourists who are looking for something other than the usual Top Ten.

I pay attention to the books that are bestsellers, but with a long tail. I pay way more attention to TikTok books than I do to Publisher's Weekly. So the big book from a few weeks ago was, "House of Flame and Shadow," by Sarah Maas. This is the kind of genre book that will continue selling for me.

Don't get me wrong. When the USA today does their 150 bestsellers of the week list, I'll usually have at least 80% of them. 10% of the uncarried books are books I don't want to carry; 10% are books that I'm waiting to making sure they aren't a blip and are going to be on the list for more than one week. 

But what I try to do is identify books that sell and just keep on reordering them. Ordering them until they stop selling, by which time, I've usually identified another title that can take its place. 

90% of my books every week are reorders of the backlist. I call them "the standards." Kurt Vonnegut will just keep selling. Tom Robbins, Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Chuck Palahniuk, Murikami, and so on. 

I'm good with this. I think it's not a bad thing to have standards instead of so-called bestsellers, which can be hit or miss. 

And I think it makes the store more interesting and unique.