I worked at Pegasus Books on Monday.
Cameron wanted a day off, the bastard. Ungrateful wretch.
Anyway, I took the opportunity to do a book order, going around the store, looking for holes to fill. There are no holes, but there were places I could still stack. Heh,
My mind flashed back to a day in 1997 when every category of product was in decline. Comics, cards, games, toys.
Worse, I couldn't think of anything to do about it. There was product out there, but I didn't have access. Toys companies were impossible to deal with, book distributors weren't much better. Diamond didn't deal in the breadth of stuff they do now. Even graphic novels were relatively skimpy.
I was ordering everything I could think of that was readily available and it wasn't enough. I'd hit a glass ceiling in Bend, limited by the population and the relative strengths of product that was beyond my control.
My decision was to dive back into Magic, which I'd abandoned because of rampant discounting. I gave in to reality, gave people discounts, and sales picked up, if not profits. The end result was that when Pokemon came along shortly thereafter, I had the mechanisms in place to take advantage of it.
Over the next few years, Diamond eventually came through, offering a wider variety of games, toys and books, and especially graphic novels, and the store became at least marginally profitable.
Little by little, I was able to get access to more and more stuff, and then--about a decade ago now--I dove fully into Games and New Books, both of which were a risk. Games were a risk because every single time I've invested, a full-service game store has come into town shortly thereafter. This time I just accepted reality and expected it and designed it accordingly. (Sure enough, two stores quickly followed, one mostly magic and the other boardgames and magic). But we can still sell stuff mostly because of our location.
But it was new books that was the real eye-opener. I'd stayed away from new books because the wholesalers really didn't want to deal with comic stores. Ironically, the popularity of graphic novels in regular stores made the bias silly and moot and they finally came around.
I'd also heard so many horror stories about books. I kind of went all in when Borders and B & N were still going strong, when digital looked like it was going to conquer the world.
But the thing I've discovered is this -- if I carry a really good book, someone will buy it. And there is a long history of good books. It doesn't take research to realized that "Dune" will always sell or "The Alchemist" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and so on. I mean, there they are--proven books--and you are allowed to order them and stick them on your shelf, and then you find hidden gems, and then...
The point is--my problem is no longer finding enough stuff to sell, my problem is choosing which of those things that sell I can fit in my store.
A much nicer problem.
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3 comments:
Have you ever done any demographic analysis on your clientele?
I'm just wondering who in the world buys books from a book store these days?
Are they mostly vacationers, tourists, passersby who are way from their Amazon address and need a book to pass the time?
Or locals who are wandering downtown and have a nostalgic flashback about perusing a real-live-smelling bookstore?
Or?
Demographics change all the time.
As to the rest:
Yes.
So you got me thinking. Demographics are complicated.
If you include "locals" as meaning Central Oregon, and "tourists" as everyone else, that still doesn't tell the story.
Probably a more accurate way to look at it is how many of the customers are there as a "destination." That is, they have come into the store to shop and do so on a regular basis.
Locals who infrequently come downtown, for instance, are more like tourists.
So if you include the very casual local browsers as tourists, I think it breaks down as follows, very, very roughly.
Comics and graphic novels: 30% tourists.
Magic: 30% tourists.
Toys: 60% tourists.
Boardgames: 50% tourists.
Books: 90% tourists.
Something like that.
So for books, I really am depending on the appeal of nice books that people want--and some people still want books. I'm often better off with a nice hardcover, even if it's expensive, than a cheap mass market paperback, even though (or because)it takes up the same amount room. (Space always being a premium.)
For readers, the cheaper versions are great, so I have my favorites that I can recommend, and evergreen books that people are always reading.
But for people adding to their libraries, the nicer books, hardback or at least, trade paperbacks, often do better.
I have to admit the whole thing surprised me, but it works great. I don't have to try to be a full-service bookstore, especially with the new bestsellers, which are everywhere. I just have to catch that person who has heard from 5 different friends that "Dune"is a good book, or who have heard of Bukowski but haven't read him, or want to get a copy of that Vonnegut book they remember.
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