Four Things I Learned in 10 Years as a Bookseller

A woman walks into our bookstore. She’s looking for a book on grief for a friend who just lost her husband. I direct her to our small collection of books on grief and help her find something.

During my decade a bookseller, I never came across a manual on how to grieve the loss of a business, specifically a bookstore. 

How does one do that? 

I need to figure it out, because we closed our store.  

At the heart of the issue, I am at peace.  I believe in God’s sovereignty.  I believe in a free market economy, where consumers vote with their dollars and innovators win. 

I love that there are new, cheaper ways to buy books and access information and learn and be entertained. 

The natural result is that brick and mortar retail stores are affected. 

As I figure out how to let go, I realize I’ve learned a lot in ten years.  

About retail.  About business.  About myself.  About readers.  About consumers. 

But mostly what it takes to get a book from the author to the reader. 

1.  Connecting good readers with good books is hard work. 

Somebody’s got to do the work:  the author, the reader, the marketer or the bookseller.  

Sometimes an author’s network does the heavy lifting.  Sometimes the reader’s network does the work. Often it’s a combination of all of the above.

But someone has to do it. 

It’s a communication issue, as well as a trust issue. 

Authors who make the effort to do 90% of the work to find their audience are likely to find success.  Authors who depend on marketers to do the work or wait for readers to find them are likely to fail. 

Booksellers can help bridge the gap.  Bloggers, podcasters and other media outlets can also meet this need, helping connect good readers with good books. 

A best sellers list can’t flesh out the picture of author or book the way a blogger or podcaster can.  

And bloggers, podcasters and media outlets can be impartial in a way marketers can’t. 

2. There are millions of books that don’t go far.  

They live and die close to home and become garage sale fodder without making much of a splash.  Some of them are good books.

Of course, we love best sellers and don’t like to think much about the books that come and go without really finding their audience.

For books that sell incredibly well, there is an element of mystery.  

There’s a tipping point when a book buzz takes on a life of its own.  Without any control or direction or plan, the flame spreads and people hear about a book and read the book and talk about it.

3. The easiest way to sell your book is to get famous first.

Sometimes the spark that starts that fire smolders for a decade or two.  Sometimes it’s nurtured and tended within the author’s sphere or just within the author before it spreads. 

Before Michelle Obama wrote a book, she was a household name.  Many people were curious about what it’s like to be the First Lady and the path leading to that position. Her book sold well.

If you want to get famous, writing books is a slow way to get there.  It has nothing to do with an ego trip.  It’s just a matter of people knowing your name and what you’re all about. 

Books from unknown authors do sell if they solve a persistent and pressing problem.  That would apply mostly to non-fiction books. 

In the fiction world, the author really has to be known.  Or, at least, get good reviews.  Or be recommended and endorsed by reliable people.

4.  There are some books that people prefer to own and some they prefer to borrow.

Some books are for entertainment and diversion.  Others are for information and enlightenment. 

The reason you read might determine whether you buy or borrow. 

Many an avid fiction reader doesn’t have the budget to buy everything they want to read.  Lots of non-fiction books can be borrowed, too.  In general, people prefer to buy devotionals, Bibles, blank journals, workbooks and books they want on hand for reference.  

Some books are so great, readers want to mark them up and write in them or have on hand to loan out.  That’s one more category–books that are so great that people want to buy them and  give them away. 

As I transition into a new chapter, I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to be part of the book machine.

As Anne Bogel says, “Book people are the best people.”

I’ll miss them.

“I grew up transient, with change as my constant. I lived a privileged life in many ways, and benefited from a plethora of experiences denied many of my more settled peers. In fact, I felt competent to handle most of what my spinning world threw my way. It was when the world stopped spinning that I got dizzy.” Dr. Rachel Cason

I resonate with Rachel’s words, because her experience mirrors mine.

I’ve lived on the East Coast, the West Coast and the Mid-West.

I’ve lived in the Middle-East, the Far East and Mexico.

My nomadic life began before I was old enough to decide and continued when it  was my turn to choose.  I developed coping skills for transition, not for rootedness.

And now, my world has stopped spinning.

I have unexplained confusion in my life. This is why I write. To untangle it.

One thing I’ve come to believe to my core is the critical importance of community for emotional health.

Maybe for the nomad it looks different.  Maybe for the nomad it becomes more challenging to find people who understand you.

There’s two different ways to incorporate healthy community into your life:  find it and create it.

Two essential elements that both require initiative. In general, they are not going to fall in our laps.

What are some tips for finding community?

Be patient.

Looking for community can be hard. You can feel uncomfortable, awkward, on unfamiliar ground. It might take time to build relationships and bridges. You might feel like people don’t really “get” you.

Trust takes time to develop. New communities don’t look like old communities.

Contribute. Participate. Even when it’s awkward and uncomfortable.

Accept the limitations and imperfections of new communities.

Take advantage of reunions with old communities, but don’t compare. Every community has it’s own personality and timeline.

How about creating community?

We start creating community when we meet someone for coffee or dinner, when we invite them over and even when we bump into them by chance at the store and stop to catch up. Those are the seeds.

But, it can grow to form a group. It could become a party, a retreat, a tradition. It could develop a purpose and a mission. When we start to do life with other people, we create community.

Community is built on individual relationships. Brick by brick. One by one. So strong communities are built on the foundation of strong relationships.

Friends that will help you when you are in trouble, when you need help.

Friends who will listen. Friends who will accept you for who you are, warts and all. Friends who are faithful.

These are the elements for building community.

It doesn’t hurt to have two or three tribes. It’s probably necessary to have overlapping community.

With the internet, it’s easier than ever to find your people, but maybe harder than ever to establish and maintain real relationships.

What truths have you discovered while finding or creating community?

You might also like:  3 Ways Global Nomads Find Community and the search for community as told in metaphor.

I have a severe directional disability.

I’ve had some bad experiences lately.  On one occasion, my gas tank was empty, my bladder was full and I was lost.  Not a good combination.  I can hardly describe the relief I felt after making a pit stop to take care of the urgent needs, then turning onto a familiar road that would take me home.

It’s causing me so much stress in my life, I’ve decided to analyze it, to see if I can figure out why I have so many problems and make some improvements.

Some relevant factors:

I don’t know which way is North and South.

I don’t know East and West if it’s night or mid-day.

I often confuse my Right and Left.

I get disoriented easily.

I have massive short term memory failure.

Brain fog.  Yes, that’s a thing.  It’s also a symptom of thyroid disease, so I’ll blame it on that.

I’m a slow learner.

I’m technically challenged.

I need to use reading glasses, which are not always close at hand.

I’m not used to my phone and don’t know how to operate it well.

I have trouble making decisions under pressure.

I drive a stick shift.

I don’t have a bird’s eye view of geography.

I don’t know which direction cities and towns are.

I don’t know where I live in relation to other cities and towns.

I don’t carry a map in the car.

I often forget to charge my phone.

When I print directions I forget to look up a return route.

I’m not used to using google maps on my phone.

After missing a turn or getting lost, turning around can be stressful.

I day dream a lot, especially in the car– riding or driving.

I’m not detail oriented.

I’m not observant.  (Maybe one reason I love Sherlock so much.)

I have trouble with focus and concentration.  My mind wanders faster than a two year old.

This is my life and it isn’t pretty.

Having broken down the components of the necessary skills, there’s some areas I can work on and improve.

Here’s what helps:

1. Doing my homework before I set out.  This is key.  Life is busy.  It’s tempting to think “I’ll figure it out on the way.”  Plus I’m preoccupied with what to wear, what snacks to throw in, what else do I need to bring, who do I need to communicate with and what’s the weather going to be like.   (I do live in Indiana, after all.)

But, if I don’t take enough time to actually study and understand the directions before I leave, I’m setting myself up for a bad experience.

Also, it helps me to take a minute to be mindful about which direction different cities lie  and which direction I’m heading.

I also need to plan a return route.  When you’re severely directionally challenged, you can’t just re-trace your steps.

2. Two sets of directions.  One printed from Maquest, plus Google Maps on my phone.

3. Make a cheat sheet. For me, this means a condensed version of the directions, with all the critical info written in large type.

4. Recharge the phone in the car.  Easy fix.

5. Focus and concentrate at the critical junctures.  During a one hour trip, for insistence, there might be only twenty minutes when concentration is necessary and 40 minutes of smooth sailing.  It’s not necessary to be on hyper alert the whole time.

If you never have a problem getting where you need to go, more power to you!

And three cheers for any analysis that makes life better.