It is a sad truth that bookselling, like so many other well-intentioned pursuits, is not immune to the ravages of Murphy’s Law (“anything that can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible time”). Fortunately, bookselling is a gentle art, and so the worst possible outcome is not along the lines of, say, botched brain surgery or the rupture of a rocket’s service module oxygen tank. The world will not end if something goes awry with a book order. However, I don’t advise saying this out loud to customers; relativistic reasoning does not soothe a teacher whose 50 copies of The Catcher in the Rye fell off a conveyor belt somewhere in the southeast.
Which got me thinking about the corollary to Murphy’s Law: Booksellers’ Bane. Booksellers’ Bane dictates that the moment you feel a sense of control over your business/customer relations approach/book knowledge/inventory, the gods of bookselling will laugh and toss you on your keister.
Minor examples of this phenomenon include:
1) The inevitable fact that after you have finally dismantled your stagnant Alphabet section—shelves that haven’t seen action since 2003—and integrated those titles into the regular picture books, you will receive twelve earnest requests in as many days for a “special area for alphabet books.”
2) That when you finally re-shelve a customer’s six-month-old special order (after having made three phone calls to the customer over that period of time to remind her of the book), somebody will buy it. And then the customer will come in, wanting it desperately, and be mad that you sold it.
3) The day you deep-clean the floor, either carpet or wood (it doesn’t matter), a freak storm blows through and people stamp their snow/mud/rain-covered feet all over your store.
4) That the minute you return that obscure philosophy book that’s been collecting dust on your shelves for two years, someone comes in, not only looking for it, but horrified/disgusted/offended that you don’t carry it.
Major examples of this phenomenon:
1) Just when you think you’ve got your little business off the ground, chain stores will start taking over the country.
2) Just when you think you’ve found a way to compete with the chain stores, an online megastore will start taking over the country.
3) Just when you think you’ve found your niche among the chain stores and online competition, publishers themselves will begin to sell directly to your customers, at higher discounts.
4) Just when you hope you’re wending your way through the obstacle course of competition from all sides (including the grocery stores, drugstores, discount clubs, big box stores, drycleaners, and clothing stores that are now in the game), books go digital.
Hahahahahaha!
Hmm, the minor examples are funnier.
Booksellers, what are your Bookseller Banes? (The minor, funny ones, please. I don’t think we’re up for any more of the real ones today!)
When you so carefully follow the rules for an embargoed book released just this past Tuesday, only to find that some of your customers have purchased it the prior Saturday at the local grocery store. So much for strict on-sale date. Now I’m competing with the grocery stores too! Think I’ll start selling milk..cheap!
When, as a small publisher, you plan a special promotion with the local independent bookstore, keyed to an ad in the Thursday newspaper … you pay for the ad, include the bookstore’s information and logo … take in a promo flier (in a plastic stand) and autographed books early in the previous week … then go into the store the following Sunday afternoon and find your materials stacked behind the counter. Who’s side are these folks on?
When you have a wonderful author come, the event is more successful than your most anxious dreams, all the copies sell, and the pre-sold copy with autographing instructions, carefully saved up until the end of the 2-hour signing — and the author mis-reads the instructions. You realize this a day later, call the customer to apologize, re-order the book and e-mail the author to request permission to send it to her/him. The author graciously agrees and when the next copy arrives you mail it off with careful instructions and return postage. Instead of the usual 2 days it takes the book a week to reach the author. The customer calls, twice, to ask how it’s coming. There’s nothing you can do, which makes the customer furious because she wants her children to hand the book to someone who is about to leave town. The author calls: the book has arrived, but was soaked en route. You ask the author to send a copy from her/his own stock directly to the customer, overnight, and you will send the author a replacement. And the extra postage. The customer calls back to scream that you’re not taking her problem seriously, and that she thought this was a better bookstore than that. You keep staring at the mis-autographed book on your desk, and you take another aspirin. Or something. You send the author the replacement book, postage, a gift, and profuse thanks. You take another aspirin.
A very minor example, but–guaranteed–as soon as you start dusting/straightening a bookshelf, that is exactly where the single customer in the store wants to browse.
1 week after you return 2 cases of a hardcover to the publisher–having sold maybe 1 copy in a 6 month period–the local paper reviews it in the Sunday paper.
Just when you remember which imprint belongs to which publisher, and where that publisher is distributed, it changes. So and so imprint or publisher changes distributors or is bought by another publisher. Or, so and so publisher is now sold by another rep. I tell all my booksellers never to gloat about thinking you know which book come from where. Because once you do, it changes. Keep in mind, that we all depend on the collective knowledge and memory of our colleagues for knowing anything about the book business.
When you spend an insane amount of time researching a book with a customer who only knows the cover color, finally figure it out, hunt all over the store for it because it happens to not be shelved in the right spot, hand it to them and they say, “It’s only in hardcover? Never mind.”
The customer comes in and asks for a particular book. You take them over to the shelf and put the book into their hands. The customer goes into raptures: “Oh, you have it! You really have it! I’m so happy!” Then they leave. Without buying a copy.
You research and compile a list of math related children’s books including cover photos, e-mail it to the anxious teacher. After you e-mail to assure she received it and all, she calls later to assure you she is still interested but is waiting for $$. Months go by and later you find she had to spend the money quickly and wound up going elsewhere but she sure appreciated the list.
You’re alone in the store for the day. You wait until there are no customers around and decide it’s safe to eat your sandwich. As soon as you take a bite of sandwich, someone either walks through the door or calls, and there you are, with your mouth full of food. (The same principle applies to trying to take a bathroom break…)
also, the minute you open a box to process.
These examples are SO true, and so funny!
Except for the one from the indie publisher, who is rightly frustrated. Nothing funny about that experience. It’s a great reminder that it’s really important for all indie businesses to support one another. Definitely a two-way street.