Making Room For Books, Part 2.

I mentioned two weeks ago rearranging my bookshelves to make room for three large orders.

Two of those orders came in over the last few days, so that by yesterday morning I had 12 larges boxes of books waiting to be shelved.

Almost 500 books.

Maybe that doesn't sound like that much. But it's nearly 5000.00 worth of retail. If I stacked them, it would be like, like, 55 feet tall. O.K.? (1.3 inches per book.)

If they fell on me they'd crush me to death.

Get my point? Lots of books.

As you know, my predilection is to get inventory. And then more inventory. Fill every nook and cranny and then some. Can't sell it if I don't have it.

For instance, yesterday, I filled a hole in my classics and got a bunch of the Shakespeare plays. A bunch of Bernard Cornwell historicals. That kind of thing.

What I'm finding by working less days, is that I'm pretty much working every minute once I get the store. In fact, I was here for an extra two hours last night. I had gotten so good at pacing myself that I almost felt like I wasn't working. But these jammed packed days show that I was working, I just was stretching the labor out.

Back to the books.

Many of these books were bought at a volume discount, so I wanted to figure out the retail price as I went along and that took extra time. But I felt like I needed to justify to myself the expense; that I wasn't being foolish buying them this way.

I may not have been foolish, but I need to not do again for a long while.

Most of these books are what I would term "mid-list" books; necessary for a good bookstore, but not fast movers. Buying these at a discount makes sense, and I can only buy them at extra discount if I buy in volume. This gives me more time to sell less books and make about the same amount of money as I do for my primary books that I pay full price for.


The irony is -- by dealing with 500 books yesterday, I probably only sold 1 book all day. Because -- as I've learned -- I have to make sure that each book reader is welcomed and oriented in the store, or they walk out. When I'm up to my eyebrows in stacks of books I can't really do that....

But...well, it's the slow time of year and the best time to restock.