In my post Strategies for Summer, I mentioned that we were going to try Thursday morning book talks. Well, we had our first one yesterday and, I must say it went great. One of the things I loved about it was the range of books each staffer picked.
JP, the staffer whose idea it was, had the best attitude about it. She was all about keeping it relaxed and flexible, which was a perfect counterpoint to my angsting about no one showing up. We’ve only started promoting the talks, and I was fearful that there would be no crowd. Turns out we had two people who were thrilled to hear the book talks.
JP and PJ were the two staffers who did the book talks. JP is a seasoned book talker, having been a school librarian for 20 years. PJ, is our youngest employee at 2o,who has convinced herself that she’s terrified of speaking to groups. PJ saw that there were two very friendly people eagerly wanting to hear about books and she wasn’t scared.
I worked the register while PJ and JP and were book talking. As I listened, I was blown away by how well they were doing.  The book talks were lively, informed and did a wonderful job of talking about the books without giving the plot away. Best of all each woman made everything sound so enticing.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the fact that these two customers bought three of four books PJ recommended and two of the four that JP book talked, seemed like really great numbers to me. And while these customers are from out of town, they signed up for our online newsletter, took a paper newsletter and vowed to shop with us online. We served cheese and crackers and a good time was had by all.
Who knows what will happen next week? I can’t wait to find out.