What I Learned From Opening a Bookstore

When people make lists like that, they usually come up with an odd number, like 8, and then think "Hey, if I think of two more I can make a list of 10". That's one of many reasons why such lists usually aren't reading.<p>With this list, I get the impression that instead she crossed off a few less worthy items to get the round number because it's pretty hard to find any fluff.

Turns out mild loathing towards users isn't unique to software.

<i>People are getting rid of bookshelves. Treat the money you budgeted for shelving as found money. Go to garage sales and cruise the curbs.</i><p>I found this amusing as the first bullet point, since it pretty much screams, "Don't open a bookstore."

Having just come in to work at an independent bookstore, I find most of it accurate, particularly the part about checks. We have an abnormally high-quality customer in that regard.<p>The one gripe I have is the thought that when people ask for historical-fiction they want romance, that's hardly the case here. That probably comes with the fact we're primarily a niche store focused on the sale of West Virgina History, and related, and West Virginian Authors. We rarely carry supply of Best-Seller list titles, with the exception of children's titles, because Amazon has severely undercut that business. We handle special-orders in this case, which take on average about 4 days.

This was much fun too read. What I really would like to know is how book stores will look in 20 years? It seems the author sees her store more as a hobby and is not really concerned about the future?

<i>8. If you put free books outside, someone will walk in every week and ask if they're really free, no matter how many signs you put out .</i><p>That's because the book has a physical existence. It's made of paper and ink, has a cover, etc. Adults understand it costs money to make such things, so it's better to put an inexpensive price on it, like $0.50, than to try to give it away.<p>It's odd that the opposite is true of e-books and e-media. The low cost of frictionless delivery gets confused with the true cost of production.<p>Kids will always go for free gum btw. That's in chapter 3 of the "being a kid" handbook.

Great morning read, I'll have to be more careful about my fly...

This was a funny and somewhat insightful read; however, it misses some interesting points. Opening a bookshop (much better name than a bookstore, and if you think "what's the big deal about naming" you probably shouldn't even attempt to open one).<p>Allow me to offer my own list:<p>1. Opening a bookstore is very much like starting a startup in that a <i>really high</i> percentage of the attempts will fail. The big difference is that if you do succeed, you won't get rich.<p>2. If you think (1) is a sad consequence of today's soulless dominance of Amazon, people not reading, etc., then read Stuart Trent's <i>The Seven Stairs</i> where he chronicles his adventures in opening a bookshop in Chicago after WWII, where he details pretty much the same difficulties as today's bookshops face.<p>3. In order to succeed, you <i>have</i> to have a specialty, e.g. maps and map making, the classics, books on New York, etc. Stock a very good collection on the topic (or two) of your choosing and strive to be the best source of information and books in your state, than in the US for that topic.<p>4. Of course, in addition to (3) you have to have generalities, throw-away popular fiction, cookbooks, travel books, etc. But that it let dilute your niche.<p>5. Your store should have a unique atmosphere. Additional points if this correlates with your chosen topic niche.<p>6. Know and love your customers, even when they're weird (you'll encounter these much more frequently than would be expected from a normal distribution) and their flies are open. You have to earn their respect with your knowledge and collection. Again, refer to <i>The Seven Stairs</i> for a wonderful example of how this is done.<p>7. In case you skipped 1: remember that the wonderful Stuart Brent also failed (I had a chance to see his store on Michigan Ave in 1996, ran by his son, I believe; it was reduced to a standard B&#38;N type of store and was closed in the late 90s).<p>8. Reread 6! If someone with a classical bent asks for historical fiction and you take them to the romance section they will <i>never</i> come back. If you don't have even a small collection of timeless classics, say Aurelius' <i>Meditations</i>, Khayyam's poetry, <i>Ulysses</i> (and, of course, <i>Odysseus</i>) yours is not a bookshop.<p>9. Learn how to use the Internet! Understand that probably a good percentage (if not the majority) of your sales will come through the Web, so have Web presence as good as your store. Put useful information on your web page.<p>10. Lastly, you just have to <i>love</i> books, this is no endeavour that a truly sane or financially dependent person should attempt. If reading <i>Parnassus on Wheels</i> doesn't truly move you (to tears), you are in the wrong business.

I'm suprised bookstores are still viable business. I can not come up with any real benefit of buying books in a store.<p>The only reason that comes to my mind is the joy of browsing, maybe buying something you've seen somewhere recommended before. Are impulse buyers a huge part of the market?<p>I've been to a local private bookstore twice and the only customers I've seen there are people who probably prefer face-to-face and resent the distant and modern way of buying things, where the only social interaction is saying hello to the mailman.<p>Could the bookstore provide me with anything amazon couldn't? Books that were unavailable to amazon were unavailable to them. Imports took even longer and due to not living in an english speaking country, 99% of the books on the shelves were translations which I don't want to read. Which is even more of a problem in bookstore chains. We have one with four large floors and a café. How many shelves of Twilight in German the day on release? About 10. How many shelves constantly filled with english literature? 1. Out of a number that probably goes in the hundreds.

One thing I do is keep old books in the trunk of my car. Whatever a store won't buy I put back in my trunk. Every couple of weeks I add some newer books and try again. Sometimes books that were rejected the first time are bought later. A few months ago I was on a short road trip and tried to sell my stuff in another town. They bought everything I had, even some old pc games.

I wonder if these smaller, indie bookshops would benefit by being a bookshop+cafe . A place you could grab a coffee and snack while catching up on reading or news. There was this very nice place back where I went to grad school. Old used books, good coffee and snacks. I really miss having such a place where I live now.

in my country, the biggest sections in bookstores are self-help and "how you get rich [really really fast]"

I saw the Salon domain and made a point of grabbing a beverage before settling in and clicking the link, hoping to read an engaging, well written, lengthy article.<p>While I was initially disappointed to see that this wasn't at all what I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the list <i>was</i> engaging and well written, even if it wasn't a lengthy magazine article.<p>This is a rare case where the HN headline would be better, to me, if the "25 Things" was left in the title, even if that is technically against the submission rules.

"people do in fact buy books based on the color of the binding"<p>Come on, tell us which colors sell better than others?

I asked this on her blog:<p>As a programmer who's always looking for new projects, this made me curious.<p>What is a piece of software that would make your life as a used book store owner easier?<p>What is a piece of software that would help your customers?<p>Please give me some ideas if you have any :)

<i>"... What I really would like to know is how book stores will look in 20 years? ..."</i> @sunnysideup ~ <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518193" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518193</a><p>This is really the most insightful question here. What would a book store look like? I'll have a stab.<p>Eighteen years ago the Internet existed but the Web was just being born. I come from Melbourne. Melbourne really is a book city with bookshops catering for different interests. Those who liked comics, science fiction or books on artwork gravitated towards Minotaur in Swanston St, classics or first editions One Tree Hill on Collins, old books and out of print first editions a small shop at the top of Swanston St. The general public might go to a chain bookshop like "Collins" or "Angus or Robinsons". But if it was anything technical, you turned to McGills.<p>McGills was a second home to people needed fast access to very specific information. You would probably buy the source of the information if you needed it in a hurry or read it if out of interest. Remember the Web was in its infancy. To gain access to technical information to build things (software) there was no other choice. McGills was a hub for nerds. You'd find programmers, engineers and scientists who would pop in, look for a particular reference book at lunch time. As the afternoon wore on it would fill up with students too poor to buy monthly subscriptions to Wired, Game programmer or the latest Dr.Dobbs. The era at this time was disconnected but strangely connected.<p>Now we have seen what's happened in the last 20 years. The publishing industry is changing their distribution technology from print to electronic displays. The demise of the bookshop and books. Even so, the prices are similiar.<p>What might happen in the next 20?<p>Discoverability<p><pre><code> Everyone has a little Nancy Drew in them. Stock up on the mysteries. It is both true and sad that some people do in fact buy books based on the color of the binding. </code></pre> We used to go to book shops to find books but the next 20 years is going to get more frustrating when choosing. Twiddling your thumbs over the "next" button is the new walking down the isle looking for one particular book. You want the google equivalent of book finding. It might be by colour, author, a quote, a film reference, music or voice of a character that played it on the successor of Hollywood. Companies are still working on this hard problem. How to see the product readers want from millions of titles on one small device.<p>Location<p><pre><code> If you open a store in a college town, and maybe even if you don't, you will find yourself as the main human contact for some strange and very socially awkward men who were science and math majors way back when. Be nice and talk to them, and ignore that their fly is open. </code></pre> Books have a social element. Instead of going to a bookshop you now go to your favourite cafe who have installed a new WIFI gadget. It's only found in particular cafe's catering for the intersection of coffee lovers and technical book readers. It has all the latest Open Source manuals, blog articles collected into books. We dropped the ePub or electronic reference to books years ago. This place is "hacker friendly" so you can chat to other hackers. Specialist WIFI gadgets are appearing all around the place in food outlets catering for particular audiences. The social aspect of books hasn't disappeared, just morphed.<p>Sharing<p><pre><code> If you put free books outside, cookbooks will be gone in the first hour </code></pre> Sharing is now a problem. There are free books and restricted books. If you can't afford a book you can book it at the library to download it. It ceremoniously burns on your machine when the time to hand it back has passed. Another person can now borrow a digital copy. The concept of digital ownership becomes a political one. Book owners don't take up the "Cloud" concept after the great cloud hack in 2028. Millions of books are electronically burnt on owners devices as rouge elements of "Anonymous" take their "Library of Alexandria" action too far. All in the name of freer access to live news feeds. We still hook up to bookshops; glorified websites with sparse text and images of book titles and a google like search engines with predictive analysis software. Sharing of books is difficult. The hardware detects who is using the book. Sharing is not impossible but difficult and risky. Hacks for reader devices are there, if you want to risk being detected and black banned from device sellers. There is always the black market. One of the unintended consequences in ownership restrictions, is if you move from one area to another your book becomes locked and you can't read it unless you pay a regional fee.<p>Information<p><pre><code> No one buys self help books in a store where there's a high likelihood of personal interaction when paying. </code></pre> The price of certain types of "information of value" skyrockets. Value is dependent on information usage in the market. There are market indexes for everything. Even childrens books like Dr.Suess. Censorship is rife but regional. You can't access certain types of information in books in certain areas. Old printed books that contain this information go up in price if they can be found. Information is bought and sold on ones ability to locate valuable information in private libraries. Enterprising companies that use software to mine old or cheap information and repackaging it as specialist books thrive. Software companies specialising in producing software to extract the essence of book classics like Shakespeare and write alternative scripts for media-vision networks. There's the Chinese version of "Macbeth" portraying the past regime and a portrayal of the Steinbeck classic, "Grapes of Wrath". Recast to the present show the migration of Californians moving east to escape the water crisis bought on by severe temperatures and drought. New publishing empires are formed.<p>Cost<p><pre><code> You will have no trouble getting books, the problem is selling them. There's also no need to perpetuate the myth by pricing your signed Patricia Cornwell higher than the non-signed one. </code></pre> The economics of book production change. The cost is now reflected in popularity, the sophistication of the language, translation, region and censorship restrictions. Books that have been simplified are now more expensive than complicated books. The cost of books fluctuates as the numbers of people who buy it increases or decreases. Books that are popular in certain areas of restricted information become expensive. Some people set up companies to monitor the costs and allow customers to purchase books at their lowest cost.<p>Display<p><pre><code> People are getting rid of bookshelves. </code></pre> The display is the new bookshelf. People spend lots of money to purchase the latest hardware. When at home, bookshelves are projected on the TV screen to show what you might want to read. The constraint of the reader is size. Large screens solve this problem scanning personal readers and the network feed then showing a physical representation of the book on the screen for users to see and pick.<p>Psychologists work out that humans are still optomised to scan for titles laid out in physical space. Humans can't interface directly with the reading devices yet. That invention happens 10 years in the future.

After trying to run an ebook marketplace, I can empathize with #14.

I thought this was great, and rather humorous. Funny thing is, unlike #1, I just bought a bookshelf less than two weeks ago.

Reading her list reminds me of when I worked in a record store back when I was a teenager.<p>One thing I quickly learned is when a grandma asked what album/artist do I recommend for her grandson, she wasn't asking for MY recommendation (i.e. Zodiak Mindwarp and the Love Machine or whatever the heck I was listening to).<p>The correct answer was almost always Rick Astley.

WONDERFUL!