{"id":747,"date":"2010-04-14T09:25:36","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T14:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2010\/04\/14\/the-perks-of-owning-a-bookstore\/"},"modified":"2010-04-14T09:25:36","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T14:25:36","slug":"the-perks-of-owning-a-bookstore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=747","title":{"rendered":"The Perks of Owning a Bookstore"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many bonuses to owning a bookstore in a small town. Everyone knows you, which can be lovely, but not when you’re in your sweatpants running to the mini-mart for butter and a young child shouts,”Hey, it’s the Flying Pig Lady.” Yes it is.
\nThe perk Elizabeth and I got to enjoy last night was being “Celebrity” waiters for the Ronald McDonald House fundraiser. This event pairs local celebrities with real wait people who endure novices taking orders, making salads (croutons go on by hand, I learned a lot last night) and getting drinks. All the tips get donated to our Ronald McDonald House which helps families with kids in the hospital. The goal is to get your tables to massively tip for a modest meal. We had the luck of working with another celebrity, fellow comedian Tracie Spencer, who was great, so we laughed a lot.
\nThere is a non-too subtle competition between the “celebrities” as to who can reel in the most money. We were valiant in our efforts. Elizabeth brought some copies of her book, My Father the Dog<\/em>, and anyone who left $50 or more got a personalized copy. We worked as a great team: I would show the book to everyone in our section who seemed likely to want a signed book. I would come back with their check and ask if they’d like a signed book. And everyone did! We made more than $300 in tips just from the book
\nLet me just say something about waiting tables: it’s really hard, but I loved it. It was like the store was sa busy as it’s ever been and everyone needed help at slightly different times. The pacing was amazing. Drink orders and menus first. Put the order in the computer — they let us send orders! — run to the bar to get the drinks. I was amazed every time I’d put in a drink order that it would appear in the bar two minutes later, just waiting for me. Take the orders, put the apps in first (apps, they actually say that), then when they’re almost done with the appetizers, send the entree orders, etc. Customer service is key. And it’s tough.
\nImagine if customers at the bookstore could say, “I’d like Cat in the Hat<\/em>, but you could you put a cover on it?” “We’ll share The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/em>, so cut that one in half.” “Could we get There’s a Monster at the End of this Book<\/em>, but could you take out the monster?” Oh, and throw in some copious amounts of alcohol, at least for one table that we were all afraid of, and it made for a pretty interesting evening.
\nAnd I got to end everyone’s meal by saying, “Would you like a book with that?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many bonuses to owning a bookstore in a small town. Everyone knows you, which can be lovely, but not when you’re in your sweatpants running to the mini-mart for butter and a young child shouts,”Hey, it’s the Flying Pig Lady.” Yes it is. The perk Elizabeth and I got to enjoy last night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}