I'm really proud of Pegasus Books.

 

When I first started carrying books, it was a sideline. I thought that even if I did choose a few categories to be in depth, it wouldn't be possible to become a full bookstore.

Well, we've done it. I don't know how. We don't have any more space than we did before, but by being as ergonomic as possible, we now have a wide range of books: fiction, non-fiction, art books, biographies, true crime, Rom-Com, classics, mysteries and thrillers, fantasy and horror and science fiction, manga, graphic novels, pop culture books, literary, inspiration, self-help, journals, coloring books, puzzle books, children's and young adult. 

And we managed to do this without really infringing on the other product we carry. Amazing.

I did the math on the latest changes, which will allow us to carry even more books since we're shifting to returnability.

I started off by taking out the poster rack and the spin rack for greeting cards (we're converting to a smaller counter rack). I'll be sorry to lose the posters, but they really don't sell all the often.

By taking out one bookcase, substituting with a smaller bookcase, and by adding the three new faceout displays, we're:

Replacing 168" of linear space (that is, spine out or storage), with 296" of linear space.  Basically, it's letting us take out of the general fiction area the titles that I'm calling Rom-Com, (not all are comedy, but most are light, even if mysteries or fantasy), and giving them their own dedicated space. These aren't what I consider Romantasy, but there is some crossover. 

This opens up space in general fiction for more titles there.

But the biggest change is how much dedicated space we will now have to facing out books. We're going from 49 face-out book spaces to 111 spaces face-out.

In other words, we now have 62 more spaces to display new bestsellers. If we couldn't do this, I'm not sure it would make sense to order on a returnable basis. 

I'm going all in. My first order in June from Penguin Random house was the equivalent of a full month of normal orders. (It actually covers two weeks, because I had to wait until June 1st for their program to begin.) At this rate, I'll be almost doubling my orders.

So I needed that space. If I didn't have the extra space, I'm not sure it would make sense to order so much. We are very dependent on books of which people can see the covers. Because we're a tourist town, impulse buying is more important than people coming in for a specific book (though we try to have the inventory to do that too.)

Most of this won't be finished until this coming Sunday, then we'll be ready for summer. 

The final change for this season is that I'm going to take the standups out of the window. Seeing cartoon characters in the window makes us look less than serious to the casual passerby. We'll still have standups, but they'll be inside on the comic side of the store. 

To hide the backs of the three bookcases I have against the windows, I'll need to build some more window display. With the multiple copies of books we're be ordering this summer, we'll have more than enough bestseller type books to show off. 

I'm excited by the changes. I don't know for sure if it will change sales. We perhaps already had enough selection to get whatever sales we were likely to get. We will get some sales by having a hot book in stock without any delays, but I suspect this won't quite be enough to cover the loss in discount.

So I'm banking on more sales with the simple equation: the more titles we carry, the more we'll sell.

Most of all, I'm really proud of Pegasus Books.