65% of our sales are new books.

When ringing up sales at Pegasus Books, I've taken to asking people where they're from (?)--at least, those people I don't already know.

An interesting new pattern is emerging. 

First of all, there are a huge number of Californians and Washingtonians and other out-of-staters. As I've mentioned, I believe that this is not despite the virus, but because of the virus. I believe we are just enough off the beaten track to attract them, but not so far away that they can't reach us. So that's good. Over the last couple of decades, September has turned into a good month: I think that's because older tourists are still taking advantage of nice weather. 

Anyway, besides tourists, an astonishing number of customers are new residents. And they seem to love us. Like tourists, they come in and see us as a bookstore, and because of that, they are likely to turn into return customers. 

Here's a startling fact. 65% of our sales are books, and just 15% are monthly comics. This doesn't mean I'm neglecting comics--the footprint for comics hasn't shrunk even a little bit. But I've finagled more space for books and games and toys. Even in hinddsight, I'm  not sure how we've accomplished that...

So if I was to go out and ask the average Bendite who's been here for a decade or more, they would tag us as a "comic shop." I'm not ashamed of that, but I am a little frustrated by it. Nothing I do seems to change that impression.

We have a lively and idiosyncratic curated selection of books, but we are also becoming more and more mainstream. We now carry a nice selection of new best-sellers. We've even managed to create a credible selection of non-fiction books, which I thought was out of reach.

So the promising sign is that all these new customers will remember us. And maybe, in another coupld of decades, a few of the old-timers in Bend will come in see what we're dong.

Meanwhile, I'm having a grand time finding those books that people immediately glom onto. That can only increase over time. What fun. I've always maintained that to avoid burnout, I need to reinvent the store on a regular basis. 

Meanwhile, we've just decided to boost our games stock by a substantial amount for Christmas. And somehow, miraculously, I've figured out where to put them.