Mini-makeover

I'm busily planning a mini-makeover.

It's been a couple of years since my last one, and that's about as far as I can go without going stir crazy. It's better than the every six months I changed things in my first decade, and yearly changes in my second decade. And it's one hell of a lot better than opening a second store or moving or expanding. It will have to satisfy my itch. Heh.

I used to plunge right in. Now I sit back and plan and cogitate and scheme, and buy this and buy that, and then rethink it again. I measure once, twice, three times. (Where, oh where do all the tape-measures scamper off to? Are they playing with my screwdrivers and hammers in the land of lost tools? Next to the land of lost socks, and lost pens?)

The tape measure is crucial, because once I make my plans I find that every element of it is off by one half of an inch. The Rule of Half Inch. It is impossible to move a fixture if it is one half inch too big. Arrggghhh!

Right now, I'm thinking I can fit in about 8 full bookcases. This may seem impossible, but there are ways -- If I'm completely ruthless.

For instance, I have a computer nook -- that has no computer. I've got some boxes of papers there and lots and lots of wires, but, really, it's wasted space. My "other" computer is a laptop nowadays, and I have a couple of storage rooms I can put the extra stuff into.

One bookcase.

Secondly, I have a Cabinet of Curious but Useless Toys. (Austin Powers, anyone?) I can take that out and put two half sized bookcases. I also have a wall of 'good girl' Japanese toys which I love the look of, but which never sell. Time to consolidate.

Second Bookcase.

It's time to consolidate my packs of cards again. I've sold down enough that I'm mostly there, anyway. I'm probably going to bust up one of the extremely heavy card racks, because they are a total bitch to move, and I'm ready to burn that bridge. I'll still have a dedicated space to sports cards and non-sports cards, so that's O.K.

Time to retire a few lines of toys. Shove them in boxes and let my ancestors have them.

Third and Fourth bookcase.

I've been preparing for a long time to take two of the green bookcases I currently use for manga, and use them for mass market paperbacks. The whole back wall will be manga and anime, so I'm not really stinting there.

Fifth and Sixth bookcases.

I'm going to take the two poster racks, that hold 20 posters and replace it with a single rack that holds 48 posters that is actually 8" thinner. Take up another few feet of toy wall space, and put in another bookcase.

Seventh bookcase.

I'm going to move the green mass paperback shelves forward, and move the t-shirt rack, the toy spin racks to the back. Move the half priced graphic novels to the back of the other side of the store where I have the back-issues, and put a bookcase facing forward.

Eighth bookcase.

If everything works the way it's supposed to, it will actually make the store look more streamlined and less cluttered. Which is weird, because it's an overall addition, more or less three steps forward, and two steps back.

Everything would be much easier if I could still get the 24" white laminate shelves instead of the 28" white shelves. That extra four inches plays hell with the space.

I'm going to wait until the summer is officially over, before I make the physical changes.

Meanwhile I'm ordering product. I'm going to try very hard not to fill every inch of the new shelves with new books, but instead use about half that space to better display the books I already have.

Still, I have some ordering to do, and I've decided to take a couple grand of my Christmas profits and spend them this fall.

I'm still not satisfied with my method of finding books. So far, it's completely haphazard. Someone mentions Lolita, and I think, Oh, Yeah, I should have that, and I order it. Someone else mentions Kafka, and I get a selection of Kafka, And so on.

I'm going to tiptoe into the newer newer books. Some of the best-sellers, or the newest books by favorite authors. I'm still pretty leery of carrying new hardcovers, and would prefer to order the trade-paperback versions of the same books -- but all the press is about the new books, not the change in format six months or a year later. So I've got to figure that out.

At least I've gotten that far. I think my distributor actually sends a catalog of new trade-paperbacks, and I need to keep that around.

At the end of the process, I'm going to look much more like a bookstore -- even if I'm not a full bookstore. In fact, I'm going to have to find ways to downplay that, without discouraging sales.

For one thing, I'll be mostly fiction. With a heavy element of genre fiction. I will have literature, but it will be classics and or cult books, mostly, not necessarily best-sellers. It'll be interesting to see how everything works.

It looks right now like three of the shelves will be a mix of mainstream graphic novels and art books -- which will fit in with regular books. Two of the cases will be mass paperback, one mystery and the other S.F. One case will be 'paranormal' romance. One case will be for "new" arrivals. Really only have to buy the mass market paperbacks to fill in, the rest will spread out the material I already have.

It's a bit of gamble, but I'm replacing elements that really aren't performing, so either it will be a wash or an improvement.

If nothing else, it will be fun.