Just-in-Time model.

What I've been doing up to now:

I order some bestsellers each week, but I reserve most of my budget for backlist and...

new bestsellers that came out in the last month or so.

In other words, I hang back a beat, wait to see what's actually selling, and THEN order it. Because most of my buyers aren't coming in specifically on the week something is released to buy something from us. They come in more or less on a whim, tourists or locals out for a lark, and so what they see is all new to them.

My theory is that many stores have already moved on the next new shiny title while there is still demand for that last new shiny title that might have come out a few weeks back. It's kind of a sweet spot where I can see what's actually in demand and then order it and have a pretty good chance of selling.

In some ways, this was necessary because I wasn't returning books.

Now that I'm starting to return books, I can take more chances on this week's shiny new book.

But what I don't want to do is go away from what was working. So I've got to try really hard to find space for this week's shiny new books and last month's shiny new books. 

The problem, as always in our store, is finding space for both things when I barely have space for one thing. 

As I said, I'm bringing in a few new shelves which should allow me to show off about 75 new titles that I couldn't before. So I should be able to do both if I'm careful.

The other thing I'm going to start to do this summer is ordering more than one copy of any backlist book that has a record of selling. I do this already on the very best of them, but I think I can take a chance and order more copies of all the backlist books with a good history.

Up to now, I've been mostly getting one copy of most backlist books, figuring that I'm only a few days from replacing it from Ingram, and a week or so from replacing it with Penguin Random House.  It's the Just-In-Time model of stocking.

In theory, if I have two or three copies, if one sells, I still have a copy in stock, covering the time it will take to get another copy in. 

In theory. 

It's summer and I can experiment a little bit. It's always fun to try to find more effective ways to sell things.