they rise up, knees up, knees up..
So I'm back from the festival in Paris which was quite frankly astounding. I sold some books, bought some books, left some books behind and got a whole new reading list.
For those of us who don't really feel like handing in to the large consumer empire I discovered a shining example of commonsense in André Schiffrin. Son of Jacques Schiffrin who started both 'La Serie Pleiade' and the Pantheon Press, André advocates the decentralisation of the book publishing industry which by extension can be made for the bookselling industry too. Centralisation encourages the homogenisation of an industry which, for the most part, has played its most important roles in the communication of revolutionary ideas and then counter-revolutionary ideas. It is also, by any account, an industry which thrives economically on that which is personal and quirky. You can't sell a million books the same way you can sell a million ipods. Here's how it works.
Bookshops mostly have their ordering done for them by central hubs. I won't go into any details but you know who the culprits are. Thus the ordering is done by popularity, what sells the most and is in The Bookseller as a best-seller is ordered in and kept in order to satisfy popular demand. Fine. What is not fine is the refusal of booksellers to stock a book on the grounds that it won't be profitable enough. Well, y'know guess what? Books don't make money if you only have the same ones in stock! Whereas six people might each buy a copy of one book and six other customers buy a copy of any other book, if you don't have the variety in stock you'll only sell seven of the original best-seller to those twelve customers.
And it makes sense. The same principles that apply to the book publishing world apply themselves to book-selling too. And it ain't easy.I have a small selection of about four books right now that I can sell to individuals. Some books that I sold out of within a week of being in the bookshop (hand-to-hand def my forte) were never replaced on the grounds that they would never sell again and I remember another instance of where I sold five or six copies of a book in a week and it was 'replenished' with twelve copies as opposed to the original five. (which makes no sense because I'm not going to be able to find more people to buy more of the same book based on the same time frame) And no matter how many people come in to the bookshop and tell me it's a nice place I have to be honest. I look around at the austerity and the impersonality of the shop and I know that it's all a little forced. The Bookshop, when I arrived had really excellent staff, tremendously knowledgeable booksellers who loved what they did. And now of the original set up only two or three besides the management staff are left. It's been at least 4 months since I stopped telling certain people I work there because I find it just a tad uncomfortable.
If you have managerial status and are looking into how to make more money in your business without turning into a mere vending machine, book-selling by the best-selling numbers read André Schiffrin's book The Business of Books. I need to go to work right now otherwise i'll have one less reason to be able to call myself a bookseller. More on this issue later on.
For those of us who don't really feel like handing in to the large consumer empire I discovered a shining example of commonsense in André Schiffrin. Son of Jacques Schiffrin who started both 'La Serie Pleiade' and the Pantheon Press, André advocates the decentralisation of the book publishing industry which by extension can be made for the bookselling industry too. Centralisation encourages the homogenisation of an industry which, for the most part, has played its most important roles in the communication of revolutionary ideas and then counter-revolutionary ideas. It is also, by any account, an industry which thrives economically on that which is personal and quirky. You can't sell a million books the same way you can sell a million ipods. Here's how it works.
Bookshops mostly have their ordering done for them by central hubs. I won't go into any details but you know who the culprits are. Thus the ordering is done by popularity, what sells the most and is in The Bookseller as a best-seller is ordered in and kept in order to satisfy popular demand. Fine. What is not fine is the refusal of booksellers to stock a book on the grounds that it won't be profitable enough. Well, y'know guess what? Books don't make money if you only have the same ones in stock! Whereas six people might each buy a copy of one book and six other customers buy a copy of any other book, if you don't have the variety in stock you'll only sell seven of the original best-seller to those twelve customers.
And it makes sense. The same principles that apply to the book publishing world apply themselves to book-selling too. And it ain't easy.I have a small selection of about four books right now that I can sell to individuals. Some books that I sold out of within a week of being in the bookshop (hand-to-hand def my forte) were never replaced on the grounds that they would never sell again and I remember another instance of where I sold five or six copies of a book in a week and it was 'replenished' with twelve copies as opposed to the original five. (which makes no sense because I'm not going to be able to find more people to buy more of the same book based on the same time frame) And no matter how many people come in to the bookshop and tell me it's a nice place I have to be honest. I look around at the austerity and the impersonality of the shop and I know that it's all a little forced. The Bookshop, when I arrived had really excellent staff, tremendously knowledgeable booksellers who loved what they did. And now of the original set up only two or three besides the management staff are left. It's been at least 4 months since I stopped telling certain people I work there because I find it just a tad uncomfortable.
If you have managerial status and are looking into how to make more money in your business without turning into a mere vending machine, book-selling by the best-selling numbers read André Schiffrin's book The Business of Books. I need to go to work right now otherwise i'll have one less reason to be able to call myself a bookseller. More on this issue later on.
