ask a bookseller
Hey! You’re here. Thank you!
First things first, a little sports update:
The UCONN Huskies are national champs!! I should have known I would summon victory with this pairing. The Ocean Vuong - Ann Patchett - Jacqueline Woodson lineup is simply too powerful. You can read all my unhinged basketball/book pairings here. Lean into your obsessions, people. I don’t think there is a better way.
p.s. 41 days until the start of the WNBA season.
If the sports are not your ministry and you are still reading, you are a champion to me. On to more bookish endeavors. Except the book world and the basketball world aren’t as separate as you might think but I’ll save that for the imaginary podcast interviews I give in my mind.
Last week, I put out a call on my instagram for questions for my Ask a Bookseller series. I’m going to answer some of those here. If you have other burning questions for a bookseller, leave them in the comments! These can be questions about the bookselling trade or book recommendation requests or vibe requests for your next read or really any question you think a bookseller could answer. You’d be surprised by the depth of my knowledge/my ability to pretend I am more qualified and savvy than I actually am.
Why does it oftentimes take my indie so long to get pre-orders for new releases in?
Eeeek. Okay so I will admit that this question made me a little sweaty. I can only speak from my own particular indie bookselling experience (if you’ve been to Broadside you know we are unique!), but I can say with confidence that our goal is to get books in the hands of customers as soon as we possibly can. This includes pre-orders!
Pre-orders are valuable information for us about what customers are excited about. When a customer places a pre-order we operate on the assumption that they want it on pub day. That said, logistics do tend to get in the way (fuckers!). We just can’t compete with the speed of the big bad guy. It’s never going to happen. And sometimes that means delays in getting books in your hands. It sucks!
Whenever I take a pre-order over the phone or in person at the store, I try to be really honest with the customer that we will likely have it on pub day, but there is a chance it will be shortly there after. Also, if we are shipping the book out to customers we are not technically supposed to ring up the book and ship it until pub day so that does create a delay. Sometimes the delays are out of our hands, dependent on the speed with which orders are delivered from publishers. Sometimes, though, I’ll be the first to admit that delays are because of human error (I know her!). We make more mistakes than the big bad guy. It sucks!
If you have a relationship with a bookseller at your local indie (I recommend it!), I think it’s worth communicating to them that you are really jazzed about the book and can’t wait to have it. I know that I take note of when customers are just happy and excited to get their book and I try even harder to make sure their book gets in their hands asap. I’m not saying I try harder when a customer is kind and excited, but I’m not not saying that. I hope this was a little bit helpful and I hope you keep pre-ordering from indies when you can!
Are you allowed to read during slow times at work?
The short answer to this is yes, absolutely. The sad answer is that it doesn’t happen often. The bits and bobs of the day always seem to get in the way! I know the fantasy is that booksellers get to sit around and read for most of the day. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to report that this is mostly not true.
That said, I do think my reading makes me a better bookseller so every once in a while I try to squeeze in some pages.
Bookselling is still labor and I do not dream of labor. I dream of lounging in the Italian countryside with a stack of books and a wide open afternoon a la Timmy in Call Me By Your Name. Any one have any tips on how to break into that biz?
Can you take it that your dogs are so cute? Y/N
NO.
This is a real question submitted by a real, famous author. The answer is NO thank you so much for asking.
Also, Yaya in her apple hat is how I feel when I pay taxes.
How do you decide what books to stock, especially indie/small press books or older books?
What I love about this question is that you could ask a hundred indie booksellers all across the country and you would get a hundred different answers. Every bookseller would try to explain the particular alchemy that includes customer inclinations and interests, the values and priorities of the booksellers and book buyers, and a sprinkle of magic that makes each bookstore unique.
I recently attended a big, bookselling conference, and one of the purposes of such gatherings is to allow reps from publishers to meet with booksellers and pitch their books. I love it because it’s an opportunity to learn about books that might not otherwise get our attention - particularly books from small, indie presses.
I know I barely scratched the surface of your very good question, but the truth is that this is what makes small bookstores so special. You don’t always know what’s going to be on the other side of the door, but you can bet it will be a reflection of real people who care about books and readers.
Nobody asked, but my favorite fictional bookstore is Madwimmin Books from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For. Whenever I feel down or discouraged or like what the heck are we even doing here (I feel this a lot), I think of Jez and Mo and I feel just a little better.
Thank you for being here with me. I hope something good happens to you today. Specifically, I hope that good thing is a positive shopping experience at an indie bookstore followed by life’s greatest blessing - some quiet time to read.
I love you.
Love,
Rosamond