New book risk/reward.

First big batch of new books came in and I found places for all them. The new display racks have space for two or more books: one face out, the others in storage below. In theory, when one sells, there is another copy beneath which can immediately replace it. 

So they all fit in. But that was just the first week. They'll be another batch next week (actually, coming in today though not all can be put out until Tuesday) and another batch the following week and so on throughout the summer. At some point, some of them will need to be removed and stacked somewhere to be returned. (If a customer asks for a copy, I can give it to them for a big discount rather than pay the postage.)

I think I probably would have been better off increasing the number of new books I bought but keeping the higher discount I had before. I wouldn't be able to return them, but I think that if I were careful, that wouldn't have been a problem.

But I've bought all in on the program, and I'm ordering considerably more than I would have before, so we'll see what happens. 

I'm ordering books far in advance. I've always been a little leery of back-orders or pre-orders both; I much prefer to order books as they come into play. That way I know exactly how much I'm spending. The tough years trained me to never make purchases without knowing the totals. (I can still keep the totals, but it's a huge bookkeeping effort.)

But we've gone beyond that point now. There is no way to grow the business further using that method of buying. What I was doing until now was pretty much waiting for the books to become successful in the market before I ordered them, but by buying that way, I was missing out on the initial sales which, while not as certain as waiting would be, are probably the bulk of total sales.

In other words, I'm taking on more risk in hopes of more reward. Ain't it the way.