I just wanted to share a quick link to a Fox news piece on one of our contributors, Gottwals Books. Not only is it nice to see one of our writers get some free publicity but it is especially nice to hear that their business is doing well.
Here’s a link to the news story:
http://www.fox24.com/news/local/fox-in-focus/45189632.html?skipthumb=Y
Here are a couple of Shane’s posts here at The Bookshop Blog
How Many Hours should your bookstore be open?
In the used book business it’s easy to get into a rut, especially in
buying. Like with a lot of things, if you stick with a system you’ve
developed, it often starts to seem like it’s being proved right.
For example: When we opened 6 or so years ago we tried just about every
fiction genre in the shop and online. Romance, thriller, literary,
classics, crime, etc. etc. I should add the caveat that both of us (my
brother and I run the store) have, as the Irish put it, “notions”, so we
were hardly married to the romance and thriller end of the spectrum.
After a few months the Tom Clancys, Danielle Steeles, John Grishams, and
Nora Roberts weren’t exactly running out the door, so we bagged ‘em and
concentrated on books that we knew something about.
Time passed and we were proven right! We didn’t sell any of that stuff
(though we kept a stash of a dozen or so hyper popular authors boxed in
the basement for emergencies). What’s nice about these broad decisions is
that they save a lot of time - you can stop looking at broad swathes of
categories and just put them out of your mind completely. This is
reassuring but not always any more useful than “company policy” is at a
more traditional business.
Last year we moved our shop across town (Boston is a small town so the
move amounted to a longish walk) and the new location had slightly
different tastes, so when people brought in piles of books, I was more
likely to take a longer look. So, in that mode, when a woman brought in a
few bags of vampire books - mostly what they are calling paranormal
romance - I was more inclined to look. Obviously we’ve paid some measure
of attention to Anne Rice (as she’s slowly become impossible to sell) and
the Twilight books have moved rapidly in and back out of the shop, but I
was completely unprepared for how this phenomenon still has legs. We
purchased maybe 50 of these and they have flown out the door.
Now, this phenomenon was ably profiled in this
very space, but I think it may have understated the breadth of this
category - more than just a spiking of vampire popularity, it’s staking
claim to wide swathes of romance territory. Hundreds of novels that were
once romance fiction, romance suspense, romance historical fiction, are
being absorbed under the (increasingly broad) paranormal romance category.
As near as I can tell, there are two types as represented by two general
cover designs.
The super sexualized Goth cover:
and the charmingly cartoonish:
Sometimes the publisher even has a change of heart (focus groups being
what they are) and one is swapped out for the other:
The cartoon Lynsay Sands covers are generally out of print now. Perhaps
bound to become collector’s items (I’m kidding of course, there must be
100,000 of them out there)? There’s not a big difference in saleability
as far as I can tell, just two different targeted market segments. What’s
most remarkable about these is how they sell though - online, in the
store, and even though they are often 5 years old (which is usually ages
with this sort of thing). It just goes to show that even though you might
think you know what’s going on (I’m down with Twilight, watched the True
Blood mash-up of James Lee Burke and Vampires), you can still be missing
everything beneath the surface. Some of the series just go on and on -
the Laurel Hamilton one is approaching 20 in the series.
So I’ve vowed to be more vigilant, less opinionated, but also to peer more
intently at the horizon. For I’m sure some of you are on top of this
already and have shrugged at my revelatory tone. So you count yourself
ready for the continued love affair with vampires, but are you prepared
for the next wave? What will follow Vampires in a world where Jane Austen
and Zombies is a bestseller with a movie deal?
Amorous were-wolves (it’s been done - here’s a
whole subsection of Werewolf and “Shifter” stories)? Naughty nymphs?
Lascivious Satyrs? I wouldn’t even want speculate on the narrative
possibilities of centaurs or harpies. Zombies are a tough sell,
romantically, but how about Mummies (you could just un-mummy the mummies
like the movie franchise did so famously. This worked in Twilight - what
if Vampires could go out in the daytime? What if they were unbothered by
crosses, garlic, running water, etc. What if they were exactly like
normal people only much more attractive and awesomer? Sold!). Demon
lovers are as old as the hills, and Patrick Swayze sort of put a stake (so
to speak) in ghosts, but how about lovable poltergeists or revenants.
The list could go on (goblins, golems, ginger-bread men) but whatever
happens, I’ll be ready the next time.
–
Pazzo Books
1898a Centre St.
West Roxbury, MA 02131
617-323-2919
web: pazzobooks.com
blog: pazzobooks.com/blog.htm
twitter: twitter.com/pazzobooks
A Guest Post by Kim Allen-Niesen, co-founder of Bookstore People
For information on becoming a contributor click here..
********************
When I tell people I write a blog about independent bookstores, the discussion quickly turns to e-books. Aren’t they the death knell for bookstores? Aren’t I beating a dead horse by promoting visiting and shopping at bookstores?
Hardly.
I received a Kindle for Christmas, 2008. I read the New York Times and half a book before putting it away in my bottom drawer. My husband tried it twice. My teenage son tried it once. My son may have used it more, but it’s one thing to lose a book and quite another to lose a $399 Kindle. A Zogby poll just over a year ago showed that 82% of readers preferred a printed book to an e-book. Cuddling up to a screen isn’t inviting to many. 
Literary agent Bonnie Nadell said at the LA Times Festival of Books that she prints out material sent to her electronically because reading on a screen converts everything to the same voice. I agree, for me it is a fairly flat voice. Also, I find with screen reading that my concentration level is lower. The researcher Jakob Nielsen proved my point scientifically by testing 232 people on how they read from screens. The research subjects tended to skim. In fact, Mr. Nielsen noticed an “F” pattern. People read the top, then down the side and taper off towards the middle. Just like me.
Booksellers, Allison Reid and John Evans of Diesel, described the difference in reading on a screen and from a printed page. Screen reading is for information. They foresaw a time with the reference section or travel section in bookstores disappeared. Avid booklover that I am, 99% of the words I look up are on dictionary.com. Years ago, I used to research a trip for hours in a bookstore eventually buying three or four travel books. Now I buy one overall book for the area I’m visiting and spend hours researching on the Internet. However, Allison and John said that book reading was necessary for knowledge. In their opinion, and there are studies that back this proposition, the concentration and evaluation needed to truly know a subject and build on it required reading from paper.
I’m not a Pollyanna though. People are reading books on their iPhone, and while just visualizing that gives me a headache, electronic reading is part of the future. I’ve met several people who bought the Kindle and think they would like it if only they could get it away from their kids. In part, this could be an age issue; the younger generation is more comfortable reading from electronics. Either way, e-books are here to stay.
The discussion over which reading is better is a battle booksellers need to be aware of to help direct their customers. But it doesn’t stop there, with the advent of e-publishing, there will be an avalanche of choices for readers. This is exactly where booksellers shine, taking a myriad of choices and winnowing out the best. As Bob Lewis pointed out on this blog in “The Second Renaissance-bigger, better, faster!” these are exciting times, and one of the questions is how do booksellers add value and receive compensation in the e-book world? The answer will require innovation and experimentation. What are your thoughts?
Introduction:
Kim Allen-Niesen is co-founder of Bookstore People, a blog that reviews independent bookstores to encourage people to visit them and shop. In addition, books and various literary topics are discussed.
Did I hear you say its time to go to the store?
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?
Sleeping on the job... again. Worst watchdog ever.
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?”
The book you want is ALWAYS under the cat
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)
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?
