How we became a pop culture bookstore.

I've decided to write a series of posts about Pegasus Books.

First off, I thought it might be interesting for explore how a store that had sold comics, games, cards, and toys for 25 years became instead a store whose sales are 75% books and graphic novels, while at the same time maintaining the same level of sales on the product we'd always carried.

It was a long process, especially at first, as we sort of tiptoed into becoming a bookstore. 

When we decided to start carrying new books, we started out with classics that were constantly being asked for but which never seemed to come in used. Titles like, "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Catcher in the Rye." To these, we added other classic authors: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and so on. Basically your average high school syllabus. 

We then moved on to our own favorites books: "Lord of the Rings," "Watership Down," "The Once and Future King," etc. 

As we got more comfortable buying new books, we started responding to requests, especially of books that we already knew about. We discovered that these books would usually sell, and it didn't necessarily have to be the people who actually requested them.

As time went on, we realized that some books constantly sold, and that they weren't always the books we expected to sell. Titles like "The Princess Bride" and "Hyperion" and Edith Hamilton's "Mythology." We called these perennials.

By this time, we realized that new books were outselling used books 5 to 1. When Linda sold her used bookstore, we got out of used books completely and turned that space over to new books.

At the same time all this was happening, Sabrina had revived the Manga section, which we had given up on. She too was responding to requests. In fact, the first decade of new books were mostly responding to customers. At the same time as Manga was becoming more popular, so were young adult graphic novels. This genre fit right into what we were already doing.

We began to view the store as a continuum of stories; from books with all pictures to books with all words. It all fit. 

Over time, we added more and more cult authors; Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Charles Bukowski, etc. We learned that by carrying almost all their ouvre, we could usually catch even big fans with a titles they hadn't yet gotten. 

Adding to cult authors, we also found titles that were so quirky, that they became bestsellers for us. For instance, our bestselling book of all time is--believe it or not--"How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety."

Here's the thing about perennial sellers: once you identify them, they sell continually. In effect, every perennial we discover is a permanent part of our sales, day after day, year after year. In some ways, our most important job is to discover these titles and make sure we have them in stock. 

Anyway, leading up to Covid, new books had become an important part of the store's inventory. We'd built them up to 25% of our sales. A nice sideline, you might say. We were constantly scouting for more space to display books, because we could sense the demand was there for more books -- but it was a struggle.

When Covid happened, we took the opportunity of the two months we were closed to lay down new flooring. We had to move everything out of the way, so when we put the store back together, we decided to once and for all make the move to new books, but only if we could do it without relegating our main product lines to second-class status.

By having the chance to redesign the layout, we were able to add at least a third more space to new books. Within the months and years following that, we added more and more shelves until we'd probably more than doubled the space for new books. 

Finally, we took the plunge to ordering new books, especially new hardcover bestsellers, on a weekly basis. 

Something extraordinary happened. Tourists and new customers started referring to the store as a "Bookstore" with a capital B. That is, they saw it not as a comic, card, game, or toy store but as a pop culture oriented BOOKSTORE. 

Meanwhile, sales on all the other product continued to sell as the same levels as before. 

Book sales sort of, well, exploded. It was all in addition to what we'd been doing before while our overhead hadn't changed at all. 

We've continued to add more and more features to the bookshelves, started ordering multiple copies of books at a time, and so on. 

In other words, acting like a bookstore, while at the same time not hurting the impression of those who'd always viewed us as something else. 

It's a neat trick, I think.