At a NECBA meeting last week, the lunch talk turned to staff picks. All the stores have them and all said how much of an anchor they are to the store. Independent bookstore customers are trained to seek out the staff picks shelf. The personal nature of the indie makes a staff picks shelf successful. As customers grow to know, and more importantly, trust, the picks on the shelf, they will seek out books recommended by certain staffers.
Every store does staff picks differently. Some pick the books quarterly, others at the beginning of the year. We tend to pick them as we are struck by them. Right now our staff picks case is actually an end cap that faces the front door, and is full of books we love. The range is current: How We Decide to the decidedly not so current The Stories of Flannery O’Connor.
I love eclectic staff pick shelves. I don’t want to see all the new paperbacks, I want to be exposed to the oddball books I might have missed but would thoroughly enjoy. Candy Freak by Steve Almond is a book that fits this bill and it rotates in and out of my shelf depending on my mood.
One thing all the booksellers said was the shelf needs to be changed at least once every two weeks. This keeps the shelf fresh so regular customers don’t tire of seeing the same thing.
It was easily agreed that the shelf needs to look full. There is nothing sadder than a shelf that has one copy of each book. The shelf needs to look full and robust. We’ve figured out that our shelves can hold four books in a stack, face out, so that’s how we order them.  It goes without saying that all books should be face out on the staff picks shelf.
Refill the shelf often because customer are loathe to take the last copy of a book on the shelf, especially if they know that there will now be an empty spot on the shelf. Check the shelf frequently for empty spots and fill in with other books if you need to.
In a perfect world every book would have a personalized shelf talker. I’ve been embarrassed by not knowing which staffer picked a book because it wasn’t labeled. Customers want to know who is recommending titles, so make it easy for them to figure out which staffer likes which books. Also, read all the shelf talkers yourself so you can be somewhat conversant in why your co-workers liked a particular book.
Lastly, have fun with your staff picks. Don’t limit yourself. If you can explain why you love a book, then it deserves some time on the staff picks shelf. I’m trying to be more aware about noting which galleys I’ve loved, so I can be better at picking my staff picks. Now that we’ve moved the store around, I’m going to more actively track sales of the staff picks. In a few months, I’ll let you know how sales were per linear foot.
If your store has some great staff pick shelves, please share with us what works and what doesn’t.  Also, customers of bookstores, large and small, what do you think makes a great staff pick shelf?