Swinging and missing

People often ask me what I do for a living and I respond, "I'm a bookseller." Frequently people will say, "There has to be a better title than that." And, it's true, it is something I've given a good deal of thought to over the years. Tastemaker is a term I've heard used by friends both in and out of the book world. But no matter how that word is framed it just seems highfalutin to me. I am a bookslinger. I am a bookseller.

There are lots of aspects of this job that I like but the best part for me is recommending books to a reader or for someone to give as a gift. It's always fun and challenging and rewarding to help get just the right books to people. Earlier today I had a customer tell me I had helped her choose a book for her father and that he had loved. That, alone, makes a day worthwhile. That is all we can hope for.

Yet, there is failure. A failure to understand who the gift is for exactly. Their particular likes and dislikes--some of which we weren't privy to. A failure to match the right reader and book on a particular day even. A failure to find the novel that is "entertaining, but not overly simplistic. not middle-brow or too esoteric." I admit it: sometimes these things do not work out. And that's no fun for anyone involved. People often complain about baseball players or weathermen. Three and a half out of ten will get you into the Hall of Fame or 50% is doing your job well. I, we, want to do better than that and know that if we only get four or five out of ten right then people will quickly be looking for other options.

So when I hear from a reader that didn't like a suggestion I try to remain calm and let them know it happens. I'll try harder. Tell me what you didn't like. What else should I be looking for? That puts us back on the trail towards success and a book that will please.

Like all fun things, there is a little danger in suggesting books. It's a high-wire act without the threat of death. And, for that, I am thankful.

New oddities

I love the simple style of the silver type on the basic brown jacket. The commonplace book is one of those items rarely seen or used today but this gorgeous 'notebook' jointly done by Cabinet Books and Proteotypes. $14

Trinity University Press is located in San Antonio, TX and most of the books they publish are Texas history and culture titles. However, when they publish more general books they are, as a rule, awesome. One of my all-time favorites, Peter Turchi's "Maps of the Imagination" was published by them in 2004. They also published a collection entitled "Home Ground" which includes line drawings, quotations and descriptions of American landscape. The newest one of theirs to strike my fancy is "Aelian's On the Nature of Animals" $15.95. Claudius Aelianus died sometime around 235. I have to admit to knowing nothing about him before seeing this book. His collected opinions on animals are part fancy and lore and part early science or nature writing.

The bookplate is another facet of book life that has faded out of usage. "Ex Libris: The Art of Bookplates"(Yale University Press $15) is a little, sweet, taste of some of the fine art we're missing out on. It comes with 100 plates and has nice french flaps on the jacket. I admit to having bought a copy of Dos Passos' "1919" solely for the old bookplate in it.

All three of these books are fairly priced and beautifully made books published by independent presses.

Interesting thoughts on Indies from St. Louis

A rep friend of ours posted this on his Facebook page last week and I read it over and found myself agreeing with it nearly completely. I don't know Jarek Steele but he deals, honestly and fairly to my mind, with the difficult issue of vanity publishing and indie publishing. Many times I've thought about addressing this same issue here but have never figured out a way to find the right tone. Not condescending or sarcastic but true to the real problems almost all of these books cause for bookstores.

Maybe the most interesting piece of the puzzle is the back and forth in the comments section. This is clearly something that lots of people feel strongly about.

In the spirit of celebrating some under the radar indie published books I'll highlight three new titles in my next post and focus on one press, Akashic Books, that is doing very well for itself right now.

Discounting this and that and everything

If you're among a certain demographic, let's say 25-40, your e-mail inbox is likely filled each morning with the promise of great savings. It started with Groupon who was quickly followed by a slew of imitators. These companies found local businesses to offer coupons at discounts of at least 50%. Consumers quickly followed. Groupon was the fastest growing company since Amazon. Yet I thought, locally, we had reached a kind of tipping point in the last few months. The local places offering them were inching more and more away from Mpls/St. Paul. And few companies wanted to run the deals more than once because, frankly, they were losing money or barely breaking even.

I was strongly tempted to run a Groupon deal at the beginning. I thought it was a good way to reach a younger audience in a new form of advertising. I lost the vote here due to concerns about too little cash coming back and the possibility of our stock getting hammered in the week the coupon ran. Looking back, I'm glad we held off. Since then we've been contacted by no less than eight other companies running these deals. They all have a different slant with the same end result. The promise is an influx of cash(despite the fact that it comes in around 1/4 to 1/5 of cost) and new customers(some of whom were certain to become regulars). Anecdotally, through my personal experience and from talking to other stores who have run coupons, I don't believe the second fact to be true at all. Most users are bargain chasing and unless a majority of users spend way beyond the value of the coupon it's trouble for the retailer.

Word on the street is that both Facebook and Google are implementing their own bargain programs this coming Fall. Obviously the sheer numbers of people both of these groups can reach immediately dwarfs Groupon or LivingSocial, Crowd Cut, TC Daily Deals, Dealebob, etc. Recent reports are also reporting that Groupon is nearly insolvent as it stands and they're the most successful of the bunch. One has to wonder how long this can economically continue. It seems to be a failure sandwich with the only winners being the consumers in the middle of the sellers and the businesses.

What most concerns me, as someone in retail, is the continued idea that nothing should cost what it really does. We've become a discount nation and it would benefit us all if we remembered the old adage, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

on-line fun for readers

People of all stripes in the book world start their day by reading Shelf Awareness which is an industry daily with reviews, interviews and all kinds of news. Today they have expanded and are presenting a more general 'readers' update as well.
If it is anything like the original it is sure to be good. And free. Good and free.

A sad day for Hans' everywhere

I don't know how it took me two whole days to get this newshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif.

Since I have been hand-selling the novels of Hans Keilson and Hans Fallada to anyone I can this especially saddens me. But look at that outfit. So refined and snappy.

"Comedy in a Minor Key" and "Death of the Adversary" are top notch.

Hans, I will miss you.

One of the big books of the summer

This book has already danced around the interwebs for the past few months and became big news by hitting #1 on Amazon months before its fall release date. Akashic bumped the date up and we now have the book.

Cover your sensitive eyes and ears because Adam Mansbach's book is here.