You'd think the biggest publisher in the world would have its act together.

Ever since I got an account with Penguin Random House, I've been trying to figure out a formula for reordering. I thought that eventually I'd figure out a time of the week to order, which would turn into a predictable time of arrival.

But no matter how many variations I've attempted, none have worked. 

I made an order from PRH two weeks ago and there is still no scheduled arrival date. Waiting more than two weeks in this modern world is ridiculous. Absolutely no other wholesaler I deal with takes more than a week. It's inexplicable.

Sometimes I get deliveries from orders that I made a week after earlier delinquent orders. Same damn warehouses. How does that happen? 

The other problem is being able to schedule stocking the books. Every big order takes most of a day to put on the shelves. It would be great to have a DAY when that happens. But with PRH, books arrive willy-nilly. A single order could be split into three or four shipments arriving on different days.

Thing is, PRH gives me a 10% better discount. That's hard to pass up. It has kept them in the game.

On the other hand, Ingram delivers in two days. Completely reliable and predictable.

Over the years I've often chosen the more reliable, if slightly more expensive option. In fact, I could make a pretty good case that choosing to do so has helped us survive. All the way back to sports cards where I made an early decision to order  lower discounts from a middle man, in exchange for being able to predict when and how much would arrive.

It's not always the option. I used to get fast shipments from Diamond so that I could brag, "I'll have that for you in 3 days." But eventually, the extra shipping costs became prohibitive.

Back to PRH. 

Last Christmas I decided that I simply couldn't wait two weeks for books to show up when the Christmas season is only about three or four weeks long in the first place. 

It didn't seem to hurt.

I'm going to make the same choice for summer. Starting in June, I'll be ordering twice a week from Ingram. I won't have to buy more than one or two copies of most books since I'll have them back in stock so quickly. I will forego the extra 10% in exchange for availability and predictability. 

I'll order books from PRH that Ingram is out of stock of and/or comes from the secondary warehouse, which takes an extra week.

On particularly hot titles, I'll order a copy from Ingram and perhaps a backup copy from PRH. But any way you look at it, this is going to be thousands of dollars per month--perhaps tens of thousands of dollars--of book orders going to Ingram instead of PRH. I'm sure that isn't enough to change PRH's mind about how they do business.

But I can't be the only one.

I've been neglecting this blog. But today I have news!

Thing is, I write here everyday but only for myself. I don't post these. I think I've reached a point of wondering whether my opinion matters in anything. I mean, am I really saying anything that hasn't already been said?

The stuff I write to about myself are tentative, self-doubting, not exactly flattering. Or slightly politically incorrect. Or a little mean toward others. When I first started, I was worried about what other people would think of me, but the farther along I went, the more I worried about what I thought about other people.

Either that, or I'm talking about business in ways that compare my store to others that I don't really want others to read. 

Or I'm talking about mundane things like dreams I've had, what I did that day, and so on.

In the beginning, I told myself a blog was worthless if it wasn't truthful and candid. But the more truthful and candid I try to be, the more I risk insulting others and/or having people judge me. 

But if I water it down, then it comes across as so mild as to not be worth saying. 

Anyway, at least today I have a little news! Pegasus Books' manager, Sabrina, has a comic she wrote coming out today. It's call "Tales of Nottingham," and is a genesis story of Maid Marion.

We have a special variant Pegasus Books cover coming in over the next ten days or so, which we'll have for sale. Meanwhile, we have the regular cover and the writer there Tuesday thru Saturday to sign it!

If you see a book you want, buy it!

It's amusing to me, if frustrating, that people seem to believe that bookstores have every book they could ever want in stock.

Not only do we have a tiny, tiny fraction of even currently published books, the odds of a bookstore carrying a specific book besides current bestsellers isn't all that great. 

I don't think people fully realize that passing up books in stock at my store with assumption that they can get them later and/or at a cheaper price means they may be missing their best bet. Passing up a book you want to read because you already have too many books is fine as long as you realize that when you finally get around to it, that book may be gone. 

I realize that the reader is right now thinking, "Sure, buddy." (I realize that a certain number of you will say that's why you don't buy from bookstores or that you read ebooks, so good on you. I'm talking about when you find a book you want to read and put on your bookshelf right in front of you.)

I can't tell you the number of times that a customer has passed on a book that "they've been looking everywhere for" because it's not a used book or because it's a hardcover (or softcover, as it may be.) I used to straight out tell them, "You're not likely to find that anywhere else..." but have stopped saying that because for some reason the customers see it as a challenge, or worse, as if I'm trying to mislead them.

So here's the truth.

Books are everywhere, but individual titles aren't. Other than current bestsellers or the greatest classics of all time (though most classics can't be found in most bookstores, except as I say, "the greatest,") most books have a certain length of time in the pipeline and then become backlist books, which may or may not stay in the system...usually, not.

The fact of the matter is that lots of books are out-of-print. Those midlist books that are still in print are not carried by most bookstores. If a book isn't being talked about, it fades, and that is 99.999% of the books that have ever came out.

So when I have the odd midlist title in stock and the customer proclaims he wants it but...it's not used or it's not in the right format and they pass, they don't realize that they are missing an opportunity.

Hell, even if another store does has it in stock, just the time, energy, and gas you expend to find it more than makes up the difference in price, but that's an argument for another time.

What I'm talking about is the odds that that midlist book is to be found anywhere else, including used bookstores, and believe it or not, even Amazon. 

The most likely way to find an out of print book is through Amazon, to be sure, but even there books aren't always readily available, and even if Amazon is free postage, the actual seller may not be. I've been surprised by how many titles aren't even available on Amazon, or at such outrageous prices that you have to really, really want that book

The second most likely place that will have a title is the publisher, but buying a single book from a single publisher simply isn't feasible.

The third most likely place a title will be found is at Ingram, the last remaining national distributor, but Ingram lets titles slide after their time in the sun. 

I'm going to say that the average time in the system in bookstores for even bestsellers is a couple years, with huge sellers, maybe three or four. For the average book, it may be six months or a year. With wholesalers, it may be a little longer than that if there is residual interest, but most books drop out. (Available for reorder, but my experience is those reorders almost never show up.) 

So even a good selling book that is more than four or five years old will be gone from most bookstores and even the wholesaler. I see this all the time with Book Clubs who have picked a title that a member loved a few years back. I always check, but more often than not, any book in this time range isn't available anymore. (Should be a rule of Book Clubs that they check availability, right?)

With mass market books, the turnover is even greater. There is a reason that most bookstores these days concentrate on trade paperbacks. Both hardbacks and supermarket paperbacks have a limited shelf-life except for the biggest authors.

Linda and I owned a used bookstore for 15 years and there were a ton of good titles and authors that simple NEVER came in, or would come in once a year and sell instantly. Sure, we had lots of books, but the customer looking for a specific book more often than not couldn't find it, especially if it was an older midlist book. That's why it was so frustrating when they did find one and still passed on it for some reason. The fact was, the bookstore across the street was equally unlikely to have that title.

Good luck with that. 

My store specializes in still-in-demand midlist books, which is a niche most bookstores ignore in favor of the current bestsellers. If I find a cult author, I try to carry every book by that author. I try to keep books that have any kind of following in stock. But most bookstores are focused on current sellers, and they send back those that have slowed down. 

So yeah, chances of a bookstore having a current bestseller are good, but other than that, the chances for midlist books being in stock are almost random.

You pass on it, and it's probably unlikely you see it again. Of course, if you passed on it after saying "I've been looking everywhere for this," I have to assume that you didn't really care about that title after all.

Human choices for human people.

I just discovered a application in one of supplier's websites that I didn't know existed and which will make things more efficient in the future.

I feel stupid when this happens. I stumbled upon this app, and it makes me aware that there are probably tons of apps that I don't yet know about, that I should know about, and that I could probably learn if I applied myself to that goal.

See, I'm still stuck in the mindset of trying to learn it all in my head. I come from a time when if you wanted info you had to go to the library or buy a book or go to school. A time when the media was newspapers and magazines that were tossed when you were done skimming them, plus a half hour news program once in the evening. When if you wanted to catch a movie, you had to go to the theater during its brief run or skim TV Guide listings for late night showings. 

So obviously there are lots of disadvantages to still being of that mindset. I tried a point-of-sale computer and hated it. I have been paying by check for years and only yesterday did I realize that I have only a couple of places I still send payments by mail. I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the future. 

And yet...

There is so much capacity for info out there that it is very easy to get overwhelmed and unfocused. I'm not sure that curating a bookstore isn't done better on a human level, one book at a time. Algorithms are pretty soulless, no matter how well designed. It seems to me that algorithms can only analyze what is, not what could be.

Making choices based on what's in my head by definition makes Pegasus Books more individual and eclectic. I believe human people still recognize and appreciate human choices. I think, in some ways, that's why small bookstores have made a comeback.

There is still a huge amount of groupthink in books. I don't know if the ABA is doing us all favors by recommending the same 25 books to every bookstore on their list. 

I suppose concepts like reading lounges and coffee shops are a way to bring the humanity back to the process, but even those are manifestations of groupthink. (Personally, I think time, space, and energy are wasted on these things.) 

My bookstore is stocked enough that I simply wait for a book to come to my attention rather than seeking out books. Sometimes I'll get a whim to find certain types of books, or I'll make an accidental discovery. A passing mention in an article, or a good review, or simply more than one person asking for a title.

Oh, I'm not above going to Tiktok books to see what's hot. (The response to these books have been rather amazing to me.) But I try not to be completely captured by them either. 

In other words, keeping the bookstore limited to the capacity of my own memory and tastes and guesses keeps to store interesting--to me and, hopefully, to my customers. 

The meaning of "nerd."

After forty years of being King Nerd, I wonder where I fit in. After all, can anyone be more of a nerd than a comic shop operator? 

Thing is, I don't remember the term "nerd" from when I was a kid (which was probably when I was at my nerdiest.) I remember my constant reading of books and my black framed glasses as marking me as different. I remember that I was always aware that I could be singled out for bullying. Each school year, I would spend the first few weeks trying not to fall into that category. Most of the time, I succeeded. 

In hindsight, what was different about me was that I was a true loner. Usually, I had a "best" friend and probably a "backup" friend, but I was rarely part of a group outside of organized activities. My mother constantly encouraged me to join in organized groups, but really I was most happy just frittering about by myself or with a friend or two. 

I spent a huge amount of time daydreaming. I think I always wanted to be a writer, and as I got older, owning a bookstore seemed like the best job a person could have. 

The turning point into "nerd" probably happened when I read Lord of the Rings. Or rather, when I read LOTRs too many times to count. Followed by Robert E. Howard's Conan, and then any other fantasy I could find, and most science fiction I could find. 

I finally wrote a book, Star Axe, which reflected my love of fantasy. I went to my first and last science fiction convention. From the moment I walked into that convention I realized that I was not like other nerds. These nerds tended to delight in joining with other nerds, while I wandered the hall alone.

When I bought the store, I had the same experience. It seemed to me that most nerds loved to mingle, whereas I could barely stand to be in the same room for too long. Nothing against nerds, just that I was a loner and it wore me out. I had to actually try to be as nerdy as my customers, though it wasn't hard. In other words, I sort of envied their ability to fit in. I still felt like the odd man out.

I also started to notice that while I loved nerd material, my actual interests seemed to be all over the place. This has remained true to this day. Currently, I'm reading Camera Man, by Dana Stevens, a book about Buster Keaton and his milieu. What possible good does it do me to read about Buster Keaton? No reason. I just wanted to. I am always reading a mix of things, fiction, non-fiction, nerdy or otherwise

My appetite for fantasy waned, and I started reading more mystery books. But then, I always read a lot of mystery books...and everything else. Whereas most nerds seemed find a single subject most interesting, and don't stray far away.

To me, a nerd is someone who has odd interests, gets totally into those odd interests for a time without regard to whether anyone else is doing so. 

Maybe I'm a nerd among nerds, I don't know. 

I'm constantly asked at the store, "How do you keep up?"

"What makes you think I keep up?" 

They think I'm joking, but as time as gone on and nerd culture has more or less conquered the world, I've fallen steadily behind.

Then again, my inclinations haven't changed. I'm still a nerd among nerds.

I'm never going to catch up and I'm never going to keep up.

When I bought Pegasus Books in April, 1984, I was behind on comic reading. I went on a spree of reading, and I read enough to understand the appeal of the X-Men and such. But I realized right away that I was never going to catch up nor was I ever going to keep up. 

I remember getting the trade magazine and simply being overwhelmed by the amount of information. The trick, as I learned, was to discover what was necessary to know, what was nice to know, and what was stuff I could safely ignore.

Back then, there weren't as many companies doing comics and there were fewer comics overall. Still, it was a daunting task to order material three months in advance with, if you were lucky, a paragraph of information. This was non-returnable material that had a short shelf life.

Later on, graphic novels came along and they had a longer shelf-life and I knew what I was getting. So a big improvement. 

But no matter how hard I tried, I could never quite make enough money on comics alone to survive, so began my odyssey of trying to find supplemental product to sell. Sports cards, beanie babies, pogs, Magic and Pokemon, toys, boardgames, and finally, books. 

I learned through all this that I didn't have to know everything, but I had to know enough to talk about it with my customers. Frankly, I also had to learn to fake it. (I never did play pogs, beanie babies were cute, but come on...) 

Thing is, this wasn't laziness or neglect on my part. I remember saying when someone asked me if I was going to carry electronic games, "My brain will explode if I have to learn one more thing."

So it's a constant triage of what's most important.

Currently, books and graphic novels are 2/3rds my business, comics about 20%, and toys, games, and misc is the last bit of percentage.

Sabrina takes care of ordering most of the comics and graphic novels and the games. I order most of the card games, toys, and, most importantly, the books.

I'm very much a generalist in knowledge. I know a little bit about a lot of pop culture. I think it has served me well. In every product category, I sort of have schematic in my head where everything slots in. 

With books, my schematic is pretty wide and detailed. I've always had a voracious appetite for knowledge about books and movies. So I'm in pretty good shape there. 

The interesting challenge to me now is the growing importance of anime, manga, and electronic games. They have gone from interesting sidelines to being a major part of the business. I may not carry electronic games, but I'm carrying a lot of books that are about them or inspired by them.

Manga has become so big that it has more or less changed the landscape of Young Adult books. A hefty percentage of the YA books I sell are graphic novels, and I think it was the success of manga that brought this about. 

The point being: I need to pay attention to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean culture: this includes DVDs, books, graphic novels, art books, and toys. 

I've been bringing in a lot of Japanese material, especially toys. Again, there is a vast array of material to choose from. I read somewhere that half of Japanese publishing is manga. Imagine that. Comics are tiny, tiny, tiny comparatively. (I'm not talking about the influence of comics, which has become huge. I'm talking about the actually reading of comics.) 

With manga, I have a pretty good idea of what is selling. I'm sort of like a restaurant who has to choose what types of meals to offer, because, believe you me, it would take a city block to try to carry every manga available.

Most of the Japanese figures I get are based on shows I've never seen. Here's the thing: these figures are relatively expensive. Hundreds of dollars for some of them, with minuscule profit margins. A relatively cheap figure might run $50. They sell "blind boxes" which have one small figure in them for anywhere from $5.99 to $19.99. 

The simple answer would be to only order toys from the well-known manga and anime. Demon Slayer, Jututsu Kaisen, Naruto, One Piece, Attack on Titan, and so on. 

The problem is--I don't know who the major characters are in each of these shows; or, at least, the characters my customers would be most likely to get.

What I finally decided to do was to order only those figures that had a "cool" factor--to me, if to no one else. The figure had to be aesthetically pleasing, something I could see having displayed on my own desk. Most of these are probably a mystery as much to my customers as to me. So they don't sell often and they don't sell fast, but in the meantime, the store is full of cool stuff.

Almost everything in my store needs to have the "cool" factor, including books. I'm not above ordering bestselling material that doesn't appeal to me, but when in doubt, I always resort to ordering something that I like. 

If what I like doesn't match the customers', then eventually it will catch up to me. 

So far it hasn't.

All the fixings of a used bookstore.

I'm just going to put this out there: I have all the makings of a used bookstore that someone could start with very little money. They might even be able to make a (very modest) living from it.  I've got about 18,000 books, 25 bookcases, a bunch of other fixtures, a cash register. And lots of free advice.

I keep wondering why Redmond or Burns or a lot of other Central and Eastern Oregon towns don't have a used bookstore.

All of this exists because it was my own backup plan for if I got bored while retired. I figured it wouldn't require more than 600 to 800 square feet, limited hours--12:00 to 5:00, Tuesday through Saturday. Very little downpayment, and in some of these smaller towns, the rent should be affordable. 

A knowledge and love of books would probably be necessary. I'd recommend buying books for a year or so off of liquidation sites to spruce up your beginning inventory, and I think if you're willing to buy good books, you could have a decent business. Nothing to make you rich, but someone just starting out might be able to turn it into something without a huge investment. Or someone older who doesn't want to sit at home. 

My own plan was to find another one or two retired folk who could watch the store if I wanted time off. 

I might still do this down the road a few years if no one appears or I can't get what I think the materials are worth. (Like I said, I think starting a used bookstore is probably the most achievable thing to do for someone with limited funds but lots of enthusiasm.)

If anyone is interested, you can just message me on Facebook or on this blog. I kind of wish I could do it myself, but my own store is doing fantastic so I'm sticking with that for now.