Sidelines
Shane Gottwals
Gottwals Books
www.gottwalsbooks.com

What are those “extra” items you keep in stock?  My wife and I have recently begun to carry educational puzzles and toys, with mixed success.  (I, of course, want them to fly off the shelves, but I guess I should be patient.)
I was told one time that “Books are what makes the business; sidelines are what keep the doors open.”  Gottwals Books is opening a second location (www.gottwalsbooks.com), and we just decided to stock $20,000 worth of toys by the time we open in another month or so.
A well-known toy store in our shopping center closed down (due to the fact that it was a national chain that went belly-up).  So, the thought of replacing this shop while opening our own is very appealing.  Why not bring those customers into our shop that might be coming in for toys?
Well, I have been a little concerned with the decision.  I want people to know that we carry toys, but I don’t want to lose our identity as a serious bookstore.  We have 30-40 feet of window space to display the pretty, colorful, plush toys, but will that push anyone away?  I assume that, as long as we keep it a “bookstore that carries toys” instead of a “book and toy store,” we’ll keep that long-acquired identity.

I suppose that, if I were the client instead of the owner, I would rather not sit on a plush leather couch in a store where there were plush giraffes hanging over my head.  Yet, will 200 square feet of floor space in a 3500 square feet shop really have that great of an impact?  If anything, the bright colors will be a little distracting.  Yet, what does the average 2009 customer really expect from a book-buying experience?  The big chains seem to do OK with their multicolored, three-dimensional kids areas.  However, is that what anyone wants from their friendly neighborhood book dealer?
I would like to know, from a business perspective, what those little things are that you booksellers keep in stock that bring in extra funds.  Have sidelines been successful?  I must admit, as a used bookseller, it is very nice to know that I can reorder certain items by just calling the distributor.  It is not quite that way with used books… I often cherish those good trade-ins and other finds, knowing that I might not soon see them again.  Re-ordering is a lot easier that scouting, that’s for sure!
It seems pretty obvious that carrying sidelines will help financially, but I don’t want to be like that Christian bookstore in town that keeps 50% books and 50% figurines.  I guess, as a bookseller, I do not want to lose my roots in books for the sake of making 50% on a reasonably priced selection of toys.
So, I amend my original question: “What are those “extra” items you keep in stock” and have they made your store into something you do not want to be?

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Most book dealers state they take books in “good” condition.  Some customers have an interesting definition of “good.”  Many of these arguments on “why won’t you buy this hideous book?” end up with the customer arguing “but its a good book!” and telling you all about the wonderful story and how it moved them.  This is all well and good, but when the book is missing both covers and smells of cat pee, you generally don’t want it, no matter what the contents are like.  If it’s a truly rare manuscript entirely valuable for its writing, then perhaps you can learn to love the smell of urine… but it never is. How hard the person argues “but it’s a good book!” is inversely proportional to how valuable it is. The person with the coverless Danielle Steel that you can smell from six feet away is the one that wants to argue about value.

Sometimes you wonder how they missed just how awful it was.  If they’ve clearly tossed all the loose books in a box and you find one the dog ate, that is understandable.  Or one in the box has a warped cover from coffee. Everybody misses one or two.  It’s the ones that bring you an entire box that appears to have had a nest of incontinent weasels in it that you wonder about.  Why are they bringing it to you? Do they really think you’ll buy it?

The boxes that smell clearly of mildew are the most perplexing.  I’m not super sensitive to mildew, but have had customers come in with boxes that made my eyes water and nose clog from six feet away.  How the heck did they pick it up and carry it around without noticing?  How did they drive over in a car without dying of respiratory failure?

But really, this is all a lead up to showing you a picture of an awful book.  I’m unsure of the original source, it’s just been all over the internet recently.  No explanation of where it was found.  I have nightmares that this book will arrive at the store.  “But it’s a good book! It’s The Good Book!”

NO, I DON’T CARE HOW “GOOD” IT IS, IT’S GROWING MUSHROOMS!!!

I have personally had people bring in books covered in visible layers of mold “fur”, but never actual mushrooms.  But I’m sure a mushroom covered book will show up one day…

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President Obama at the White House Easter Egg roll, improving your business. Yes, YOUR business.

Less than half of children under five years of age in the US are read to everyday.  That more than anything helps cement a love of reading and prepare kids for school.  Even babies and toddler benefit from being read to.  Studies show that two year olds that are read to everyday have larger vocabularies, more developed cognitive skills, and better language comprehension skills than those that are not read to.  And that’s in kids that are only semi-verbal!

And the problems pile up over the years, resulting in kids falling farther behind with each grade.  These problems persist for a lifetime and cost the government (and taxpayers) trillions of dollars.  In some states they use the third grade reading proficiency scores to estimate future prison need.  Why?  85% of prison inmates cannot read proficiently. Simply increasing the graduation rate by 5% would save the US $5 BILLION annually in prison related costs.

Every 26 seconds, a kid drops out of school in the US.  Over their lifetime, each high school drop out costs the US government roughly$260,000.   In adults, 43% of people that are not proficient readers live in poverty.  Of those that are proficient readers, a mere 4% live in poverty.  Over the course of their lives, those with lowest literacy rates cost the government four times as much in health care costs as the most proficient readers. Annually an additional $73 BILLION is spent on health care for those with low reading proficiency due to low literacy skills in the form of longer hospital stays, emergency room visits, more doctor visits, medication errors, and increased medication. US businesses spend $60 billion annually on remedial training, mostly on reading skills.

One in seven adults in the US can not read this post, let alone anything complicated like list of side effects on medication or the fine print on a loan application.

What does all this have to do with bookstores?  The key to literacy is access to books.   In low income areas, 80% of preschool and afterschool programs have NO age appropriate books for kids!  In middle class neighborhoods, there’s roughly one age appropriate book per 13 kids between the library and private holdings.  In low income neighborhoods, the ratios is 300 to 1.

A bookstore by its mere existence improves access to books for all people in a community.  Even more than actually selling books,  a used bookstore is a major book distributor to those that cannot afford to buy books.  If you operate a used bookstore, you probably receive multiple calls per week about “will you just TAKE my books? I don’t want to throw them out!”  A used bookstore serves as a collection and redistribution point for books of all types.  Books that would never sell in the store and sell for pennies online often make it into boxes destined for prisons, schools, homeless shelters, literacy programs, and other places in desperate need of books. Even if you make faces at having a box of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books left on your doorstep, once they’re sent off to a new home at a school or prison, they can be a godsend.

Additionally, having various programs at the store can help boost literacy.  Story hour helps kids learn to love reading.  Even if they buy nothing that day, that can help boost literacy in your community which saves your business money (in the form of lower property taxes) in the long term and increases the market for books.

Obviously making kids books affordable and available has the biggest impact because of the ripple effect over time.  Yet many used bookstores don’t accept children’s books.  This is because they’re often hard to shelve, often are in terrible condition when the arrive, and often don’t fit the focus of the store.  (and that totally ignores the issue of CPSIA, another major problem) Where do those books go?  Some do get donated to places that need them, but even more end up thrown out.  If you have a store, take them.  Even if you give no credit or pay nothing for them, even if you don’t have space to put them on the shelves, many people just want to pass them on to someone.  You can find them a good home with a group that truly will put them to good use… and remember your largesse. (and may be tax deductable too!)

While giving away books does not seem like it really helps your bottom line,  that is because it has little to no visible impact when you focus on monthly or quarterly sales.  However, over years or decades, it ensures there’s an ever growing market for your product.  If you’re writing a ten year business plan, donations of books, services, or just plain money to local programs that increase the literacy rate should be part of that plan.  Even if you allocate no money to it, as you are simply redistibuting overstock, simply making the committment to give away X number of books per year and hold Y number of story hours, it will make a huge difference in the long term viability of your business.

Now obviously this applies most directly to brick and mortar stores, but online only places can play their part as well.  When you’re scouting books, consider buying some collections at a flat rate to take it ALL, even what you consider junk.  You may well be able to get a better price by agreeing to take it ALL than picking and choosing the few volumes you want.  Bundle up the rest and donate.

Schools and literacy focused programs are the obvious place to start, but adults need books too!  Improving adult literacy improves the outcome for their kids too.  Places like the local social services office, prisons, hospitals, rehab facilities, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters can all make use of these.  In many cases, these are places with captive audiences that would never read for pleasure on their own (or could never afford to spend money on books)… but give them a book to read while waiting and they just may find it’s fun.  Or may spend that hour in line sitting and reading to their kids.

If you’re willing to pay for postage and want to do something beyond the local area, sending books to military bases overseas is also an excellent option. A box of books can make a soldier’s day. They’ll be shared around, passed from person to person and unit to unit. Some units in low-conflict areas may also hand out children’s books to the local kids. When eventually the unit moves out, they leave the majority of the books behind.  That dogeared, highlighted copy of a classic may be worth pennies stateside, but when left in a fa away land it may take an honored place in the local library’s English-language collection.

And all that eventually comes full circle.  While book people consider books a neccessity, in many places they are a luxury.  By providing the books necessary to build an education upon, it increases the demand overall, worldwide.  Increased literacy decreases poverty… and so there’s money available to spend on books.  And lower taxes from increased literacy rates means more disposable income locally to spend on books…  And higher literacy rates translate to more kids learning to love to read and consider books a necessity, not a luxury… And on and on…

Make the committment to give books, money, or time to the cause of building literacy locally and worldwide and help ensure a better business climate for yourself for years and decades to come.

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What Store Hours Say about You
Shane Gottwals
www.gottwalsbooks.com

There is nothing more frustrating than that locally-owned business who chooses to close right before or right after you arrive, correct?  It’s almost like the indie shops should do everything like the larger chain stores, including hold early and late hours.
Why should customers expect this out of privately-owned business?  Well, when you think about it, we often tout that we deserve their business in order to “keep it local.”  Don’t the customers deserve extended hours?  Don’t they deserve everything that the chain stores can give?
This is just the thing.  Indie bookshops are not corporate giants.  Oftentimes, even these giants will keep late hours while not making large profits during those hours simply so that they are known as an all-hour joint.  Confusing?  I call it the “Wal-Mart Effect.”  Anyone will shop at Wal-Mart because of their lack of exclusivity.  In other words, they have, literally, an open door policy.  They never shut!  Psychologically, this gives the consumer confidence, knowing that this particular business does not and will not shut down.
Should the indie booksellers stay open late and arrive early?  Interestingly enough, the “Wal-Mart Effect” has an antonym.  All are accepted into Wal-Mart’s doors.  This has hurt them in some regards, driving away elitists.  It is not exclusive enough.  Why do the liquidation outlets keep 3-4 day work schedules, opening only for a few hours on each of those days?  They are giving off the appearance of exclusivity.  The local bookshop succeeds in the same way.
My wife and I began our first store with hours that topped out at 9:30-9:00.  This wore us out and we weren’t seeing great results.  Customers were coming through the doors, however, so we kept the hours for quite a while.  When we did finally change to closing at 6:00, our sales were honestly unaffected.  Not only do people expect their friendly bookseller to go home to their family, they seem to understand that their used bookshop is worth stopping in earlier.  Gottwals Books is an exclusive shop to its customers, in many ways, because of our store hours.
We are closed on Sundays not because it is a “day for family” but because it is God’s day.  If we own one thousand stores, we will never be open on Sundays, even though Sunday sales are expectedly good.  Worshiping Jesus Christ is far too important for us to be open.  We also close early on Wednesdays so that any of our employees, including ourselves, can make it to their respective Wednesday night church services and prayer meetings.  So, in our case, we hope that our hours don’t scream “Exclusive!” as much as they do “Christian!”
What are your hours?
Have you changed them as time has passed?
Do you think my analysis is hogwash?
Do you still get angry whenever you drive past the big chain stores at 10 o’clock at night?  (Why can’t I have that many cars after 6:00, right?)

image is courtesy of Sally M at Flickr.com

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The cliche is that every bookstore has a cat, but it’s actually fairly rare to encounter pets at bookstores anymore.  Chains definitely don’t have them, so only indies still have the classic bookstore cat.  One of the common notes in listings for books on online venues is “comes from a smoke free, pet free home”.  These generally appear in listings from people selling off items on ebay, Craiglist, and so on, who clearly aren’t operating a bookstore fulltime.  While allergies are a concern for some, I’ve never had a customer actually ask whether the store has a critter in residence. Nor ask if I smoke. I can only recall one person with allergies severe enough that they decided not to buy once they saw the dog (and that was largely an issue of being unable to browse with the dog following her around going “why won’t the nice person pet me?”)

Have the days of the cozy bookstore with a cat (or dog) asleep in the window gone away? Are used bookstores now expected to be dust and dander free zones where every book and surface has been cleaned ’til it sparkles with everything in neat alphabetical order?  Or is the dust, fluff, and the cat sleeping on top of the teetering pile of books part of the charm of the indie?

From the comments from my customers, much of the charm is indeed that there is a dog in residence.  People bring her cookies.  She amuses children while parents browse.  And generally looks cute sleeping in the window or amidst a pile of books.  People stop in just to pet the dog and something catches their eye while they were there and they walk out with another book they just had to have.  They never would have come in if it weren’t for the dog in the window.  She is the best form of advertising.

The dog also appears on the frequent buyer discount card. When someone else is minding the store and the dog is left at home, people are often disappointed that there is no dog to pet.  If she doesn’t immediately come scampering at the sound of the bell on the door, customers first question is often “where’s the dog?”

While I don’t have a cat at the store proper, I have two cats at home that patrol the stacks of rare books, sleep in the shipping boxes and generally sit on whatever it is you’re trying to work on. There is, of course, the occasional crash noise as they tip over a stack.

Cats and dogs seem to be the only pets that appear at most stores, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a store out there with something unusual like an iguana or parrot.  If you own a bookstore, do you have a creature in residence?  Or if you’re a reader, does your local indie have a furry little helper? Is a pet in residence a turn off or turn on? (assuming that the pet is well mannered.  Nobody likes a cat that bites your hand when you pet it… like the white beast shown here.  There’s a reason he’s not at the store proper.)

Who rules the bookstore pet world, cats or dogs? (pictures are of course welcomed)

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Another nugget of insight from one of Canada’s premier used bookstores Fair’s Fair of Calgary, Thanks George . Please take a moment to visit Fair’s Fair. Google and Microsoft started in times like these. I remember hearing ...

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Shane Gottwals Gottwals Books www.gottwalsbooks.com Bookseller needs help with bookselling book! I am in the process of writing a book all about the struggles of the independent used bookseller. I am a semi-accomplished writer but, more importantly, I AM ...

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When books become available and affordable, the value of reading and writing became apparent. Ideas could be spread rapidly. When people could read they could learn more from others and from the past. Things started to change very rapidly (for the times). Can you imagine how exciting it would have been to live during the renaissance?

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Book banning takes on an ugly new face due to CPSIA.

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Have you read all these books? I have several answers, including: – “I’m working on it.” or “Yup. Twice.” Another one: “Do you read much?” Me: “Four or five books a week.” “I wish I had the time to ...

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Amazon.com 's letter requiring compliance with CPSIA regulations.

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The government thinks books are a danger to children and mandates destruction of millions of kids' books starting February 10th, 2009. It sounds like the plot form a science fiction novel, but new regulations are all too real.

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Bookstore Shelving

Bookstore shelving can be one of the more difficult decisions for a new shop owner to make. The look and feel of his shop will obviously be affected quite a bit as will his budget. Our bookstore has been open for three and a half years now, long enough to see how our shelving choice has stood up. For the reasons mention above we decided to skip custom shelving and go with Ikea. The look of their black-brown veneer shleving has been commented on by a majority of our visitors all in the positive.

We also need to consider the practicality of building or having somebody build your shelves. All the cutting, measuring (twice of course!) and especially staining and finishing is quite time consuming. If you are paying a contractor to do this it will get expensive fast.You will also most likely be forced to keep the shelves where they are. What I really like about the Ikea shelves is that not only were they a breeze to construct, taking about ten minutes per unit, but if you ever decide to modify the layout of the shop you can easily move the shelves around. We have actually done this three times already.

Calculating the cost is simple enough, just calculate the wall space, or floor space that you need to cover, jump onto the Ikea web site to see the sizes they offer and do some simple math. You will quickly see what your costs will be. Now find a contractor and ask for an estimate. Keep in mind the overruns in cost (often over 25%), add in the dust/noise/inconvenience/smell of varnish and time chewed up and you should have a fairly clear view of which choice to make.

One other quick word about color choice if you decide to go with the Ikea shleves. We chose the black-brown option and are quite happy with it. You would think that a darker color may not be the best choice for hiding dust but it works fine. The shelves are easy to maintain and the dust that does accumulate does not really show.

Another bonus with this system is that all but the middle shelf are replaceable. If you have some shelves that become bowed over time it’s very easy to buy a replacement shelf. This has not happened to us yet.

So to finalize we went with Ikea’s Billy system, black-brown veneer finish for our bookstore shelving and are quite happy with the results.

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Yet another customer sighs and notes that owning a used bookstore is
the ultimate dream job. She muses on how lovely it must be for me to
be surrounded by books, reading in between helping readers pick out
the perfect novel; absentmindedly petting store cat Sam and sipping
herbal tea while ringing up stacks of books.

AS IF, as the kiddies say. I only get a few smidgens of reading time
in the depths of winter, when I can count the number of walk-in
customers on one hand and it’s just too cold to stray away from the
full blast of the heater. As a brick and mortar bookseller, I usually
have a long and tedious to-do list in order to keep the shop clean,
bright and organized. Open shop owners are storekeepers, make no
mistake, and much as I would like to be dipping into great literature
with a cat on my lap and a latte in hand, I am more likely to brandish
a dust rag or toilet brush.

Which brings me to the glamorous bookshop owner topic of windows. Who
doesn’t love to wash windows? At Old Saratoga Books, we have twelve
foot high windows, so that I can pile on the acrophobia while
balancing my squeegee, washer fluid, paper towels and razor blade (for
stubborn tape and insect removal and for my wrists in case I get more
than twenty versions of “How about coming over and washing my windows”
from the sidewalk gallery). Being atop the ladder does increase
sales, however, as the phone will undoubtedly ring and the door open
as I juggle my way up to the top rung, so there’s that.

The front windows are my store’s best advertising and they must be
cleaned on the outside at least once a year to remove all the pollen,
street dust and bird poop that obstructs the view of my beautiful
books. I try to wait until our village finishes with street sweeping
before doing my Spring cleaning, but they recently bought a new
Sweepster 3000 and keep dragging this new toy out to pacify the
taxpayers, so I am defeated there. The lower portions of the windows,
inside and out, need frequent window cleaning touch ups to remove the
nose glue from store cat Sam (inside) and face and finger prints
(outside) from Sam’s admirers.

I’ve tried various ways of cleaning windows, using newspapers, vinegar
solutions, chalkboard erasers, and the like, but I have found that
blasting the windows with a lot of blue window cleaner several times
and then following up with a squeegee produces the best, streak-free
result. Window cleaning on a cloudy day will also produce better
results than doing so in full sun, as solar rays apparently rearrange
window cleaner molecules into an opaque state.

Bookstore rule #1 is that you can’t leave books too long in the
windows or they will get sunned and faded. Some colors of book cloth
and dust jackets sun very easily, like strong reds and oranges, so I
take care to rotate the window book displays every couple of weeks. I
also found that applying an ultraviolet window film measurably reduces
sunning and book damage. I discovered this after noticing a lot of
flaky, shiny book dander on the floor in front of my upstairs
anthropology section. This section faced an eastern window and the
sun had cooked up all the Mylar jacket protectors and they became
brittle and shattered.

There are many different brands of window film at your local hardware
store and they all involve taking the window down to work on it when
it’s horizontal. Make sure you measure carefully and buy enough
material to cover your window area, or you may find yourself in a
endless cycle of hardware store road trips trying to find your
original brand. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions carefully,
making sure to dry the window first, then add the film and press out
any air bubbles to ensure greater adhesion. Some brands will also
recommend spraying window cleaner over the film, so make sure to do
everything accurately to avoid having to do this repeatedly. I speak
from experience and have one unruly window that regularly floppe down
from the top until I resorted to using clear packing tape to secure
it.

Bookstore housekeeping is tedious, yes, but there is a certain zenlike
state one can enter to make it pass more easily. Just pretend you are
are the kind of bookstore owner that is regularly ensconced in a book,
taking sips of your favorite beverage, and you’ll find those windows
have a way of cleaning themselves.

-Rachel-
Old Saratoga Books
Dan and Rachel Jagareski, Owners
94 Broad Street
Schuylerville, NY 12871-1301 USA

Check out our bookstore blog: http://booktrout.blogspot.com

www.oldsaratogabooks.com
(518) 695-5607
[email protected]

Store hours: Wed. through Sat. 10 am to 5 pm, Sundays noon to 5 pm

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What does a soldier stationed in Afghanistan write about? The most important thing in the world. From a post over at The Sandbox:

"This is what it's all about. You can see a lot of the emotions of Afghanistan on their faces. Determination, friendliness, happiness, uncertainty, and trepidation are all there on one face or another. The children of Afghanistan are the future of Afghanistan, and when these children are educated and grown and live in an Islamic democratic society that works, there will be no home in Afghanistan for extremism. That is what will make our country and all the countries of the world safer."

Go read the entire post (it's mostly pictures with commentary) and then, check out Gary Trudeau's book that is based on this blog. Yes, I'm talking about the creator of the comic strip, Doonesbury. He launched a blog for military personnel on the front lines, and this book was just released in October.



The book was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, and is "a fundraiser for Fisher House, a 'home away from home' for the families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers."

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