From Publishers Weekly:
Life changes and people change—they redefine what success means to them,” observed bookstore consultant Donna Paz Kaufman of Paz & Associates. Since 1999, Paz Kaufman and her husband and business partner, Mark Kaufman, have organized training sessions for more than 550 new and prospective booksellers, a number of whom either transitioned out of highly lucrative careers or intend to do so. While their professional backgrounds vary, these booksellers have one thing in common: the skill sets they acquired in their previous careers have given them a running start as booksellers.
Jennifer Morrow first attended the Paz bookselling school in 2012 and then again in 2016, before opening Bards Alley in Vienna, Va., on July 15. The 1,300 sq. ft. store features a café and wine bar, as well as an outside patio. Morrow, who was previously a risk management consultant for the federal government, said that she decided to move into bookselling because her previous career was “a high-stress, 24/7 job.” She quit, first, to start a family, and then to become a bookseller. Although acknowledging that bookselling is not as profitable as government consulting, Morrow noted that there is a “trade-off between salary and benefits and investing in myself and my community.”
The skills she acquired as a risk management consultant have benefited her as a bookseller. “People skills come into play as much as business skills,” she said. “I have a lot of experience in finding the right people to build a team, and empowering [them]—delegating to achieve a common goal.”
The people skills that Bob Dobrow picked up during his tenure as a mathematics professor at Carleton College also helped him in his new career as a bookseller. Dobrow and his wife, Angel, opened Zenith Books on July 1 in Duluth, Minn. The shop is in a historic building with 1,500 sq. ft. of retail space and 20,000 titles, a mix of new and used books. “A professor has to take charge and manage a class, organize TAs, and juggle a lot of things at the same time,” Bob said. “When I’m in the store, [such] skills help a lot.” Angel, who was previously an accountant, “is in charge of accounting, the books, payroll,” Bob noted. “Everything that gives me a headache.” She set up the back office procedures for Zenith Books, which has two employees and will soon hire a third.
Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly
While reading the OP, PG thought of the old saying, “A yacht is a hole in the water surrounded by wood into which you pour money.”
“A yacht is a hole in the water surrounded by wood into which you pour money.”
I was into airplanes for a long time. I always had a vision of going up to ten thousand feet and tossing gobs of cash out the window.
I hate to throw some cold reality on the myths around here about bookstores pushed by all of you who have never run a bookstore, but if done correctly, bookstores in this new world, with the wide reach of the internet can be very profitable places.
And the reality is many of them are not run correctly, nor are they run in accord with the new world. Management is a legitimate variable to consider in any evaluation.
Poor management is not a myth. Poor business plans are not a myth. Under-capitalization is not a myth.
Lots of people are attracted to bookstores and are sure they will succeed. I wish them all well, then wait to see how they do.
WMG Publishing just bought a bookstore and trust me, it is not a hole where you pour money into. It is going to be a pretty major profit center for our company with five or six cash streams. But we know how to run a bookstore in this modern world and not only sell to foot traffic, but to the entire world.
Many old timers just thought if you put books on shelves, people would come. Stupid thinking and those are the stores that are closing.
This is my second major bookstore I have owned. The first one I started in 1977 and sold it in 1985 to write. It is still in existence and doing great, last I heard.
The one we just bought has been in existence for ten years, owner retired but will still be working for us two days a week. We plan to feature indie authors as things get settled because that is a really nice future cash stream as well.
I hate to throw some cold reality on the myths around here about bookstores pushed by all of you who have never run a bookstore, but if done correctly, bookstores in this new world, with the wide reach of the internet can be very profitable places.
And it seems to me that in this place that celebrates indie and independence, we all should be cheering those who take a risk to get out of government jobs and fly into the unknown. Just saying.
The store you bought was recently returned to it’s originator by a couple who couldn’t make it work. What did they do wrong?
What they did wrong is opened the door, killed everything that had anything to do with selling outside of the people who walked through the door, and sat back and expected to make it work.
Just as Felix and Terrance said below, and what I said, knowing the business is everything. But I also believe that sometimes people can learn and courage should be rewarded, not scorned as so often happens here. That was all I was saying. Just got tired of the general scorn when it comes to bookstores.
However, I sure have done my share of head-shaking about bookstore bad management, including B&N. And the owner of the store we just bought who had taken a very successful store and ran it into the ground in just over a year. Stupidity is in all professions, including writing and book selling.
Now only time will tell if everyone here is right, all bookstores are doomed, and I am the stupid one. But I have the courage to find out. And so do the ones in this article and I think that should be celebrated, not scorned. Putting your money where your mouth is tends to never be easy. For anyone. Let’s hope the people in this article do some fast learning and have successful bookstores.
All bookstores aren’t doomed.
But the number of the new book, foot traffic only stores will perforce go down. And the size and format of their replacement will be very different from the traditional “book emporium” or “cathedral of literature” just as today’s vynil boutiques are different from the record stores of old.
This we have discussed, probably more often than we shake our heads at people headed for, if not disaster, bigger complexities than they ever imagined. (Usually after reading about yet another B&N headscratching move.)
Since 1995 there have been three disruptive revolutions of bookselling coming from the mainstreaming of the internet: online sales of new books by Amazon and others, online sales of used books by AbeBooks among others, and the mainstreaming of ebooks. That, coming after the disruptions of the previous thirty years that came from the disappearance of jobbers, the rise of the mall stores, and the rise and fall of the superstores.
After two generations of disruption the publishing establishment is *still* promoting the mythical 50’s notion of the cozy little bookshop down the street that even Hollywood knew 20 years ago just isn’t viable. And people are still buying the myth, often to their regret. It’s now a business for clear eyed entrepreneurial types, not dreamers.
Bookstores don’t have to die, not individually and not as a category, but they do have to change. And we discuss that too.
Not all are ideas that Indie sellers could implement but a few are, like the comic shop model of going vertical and deep into a genre, carrying books, movies, magazines and collectibles. We’ve heard of stores focused on mystery and SF, but what about romance? A store focused on selling romance as a product, both in B&M and online. Books, movies, music, candies, wines, maybe deals with florists and bakeries, attire… Too many of the bookshop owners highlighted by the establishment are focused on the smallest, least profitable genre–litfic–while giving short shrift to the cash cow that is romance. And often, genre in general.
There is room for new thinking.
It’s the old ways that are fading.
In the age of next day online, B&M needs to give customers a reason to make a regular pilgrimage to the storefront. Those that do will… well, live long and prosper? 🙂
Too many of the bookshop owners highlighted by the establishment are focused on the smallest, least profitable genre–litfic–while giving short shrift to the cash cow that is romance. And often, genre in general.
Those cash cows have already left the barn. Closing the door now won’t work.
I know of several successful romance bookstores. One is run by Nora Robert’s husband who does many of the things you suggest. He has made it into a destination store with events and they sell online as well.
He has also failed to set their website up with a valid https certificate, so visitors automatically see a browser challenge that says the site is ‘unsafe’. Color me not impressed.
The store and website predate https. Rather than criticize, inform. Send an email explaining why you won’t order. I guarantee it’ll change.
I hoped the idea was obvious enough that somebody had to have tried it. Good to know it has. So there are at least prototypes out there for romance, mystery, and SF genre stores. Yay!
Now, if somebody thinks of franchising a dozen or so regional replicas… 😉
Now only time will tell if everyone here is right, all bookstores are doomed, and I am the stupid one.
All bookstores are not doomed. But the excess capacity is doomed. Capacity shrinks by store closings and shelf reduction. Bookstores have been losing market share for years. Amazon took lots of the market share, and eBooks took another big chunk.
The external environment is not positive for book stores. The negative factors outweigh the positive. Some would contend that the internal management skills of some specific entrepreneur are sufficient to overcome the external situation. OK. But the specific economic micro does not overcome the macro. The excess capacity will still disappear.
We might admire Amazon’s courage in opening up bookstores, but we would also have to acknowledge they have knowledge of consumer buying and consumption patterns that no other bookstore operator has.
So, courage is admirable when coupled with skill and knowledge. When it isn’t it’s like observing that train wreck from on high.
And I will indeed put my money where my mouth is. I won’t be investing in bookstores. Best of luck with yours. Some people are very skilled at operating in a falling market.
Might even be the best time if you’re good enough.
There *will* be survivors.
If you’re reasonably certain you’ll be one of them it is worth going for it.
There’s lots of ways of making money.
Last week a commenter at Mobileread noted he made a fair chunk of change off B&N stock. By shorting it for five months.
Safe bet, that. 😉
Sure. The survivors will be those who make it through the competition among bookstores. How many chairs will be left when the music stops? Lots less than there are today, but someone will be sitting in them..
Wouldn’t the key clause be “know what they’re doing?” Because it’s hardly clear a retiree coming from a background of doing paper studies for Uncle Sugar (a breed I all too well acquainted with) has even a shred of the experience and entrepreneurial drive to come up with the 5 or 6 revenue streams you know of.
You said it yourself: “stock it and they will come” by itself won’t work anymore.
Pretty much everybody around here knows of one or more succesful bookstores. The ones that draw skepticism are the ones that envision bookselling as a bucolic passtime for retirees and empty nesters.
The issue isn’t with bookstores but with the starry eyed dreamers marching into a business they have little familiarity with.
Rather like the dreamers riding the query go round, certain they’re just an agent away from fame and fortune.
Articles like the OP do nobody a service.
It’s all about location. If the store is in an affluent area with some foot traffic, yet with low rent due to the building being decrepit and unsuitable for food or franchise retail, they could do just fine for a few years until the landlord puts on the squeeze or the building’s slated for demolition. As long as the business premise isn’t fatally flawed, a couple of smart, hard-working people can run a retail business that breaks even or pays a bit. And it can be satisfying. Except when customers want to return things that are no longer resellable. Then it feels like you’re being robbed by strangers daily.
a risk management consultant for the federal government
Now, that is more interesting than any bookseller.
I’ve always heard that owning a boat was like standing in a cold shower tearing up $100 bills.
Twenty years ago people like this were buying Bed & Breakfast inns. I’m really curious to know where they got the idea that owning your own business is less stressful than working for somebody else. That was certainly not my experience.
Some of them watched the Bob Newhart Show. The others watched Ellen.
What is they say about being an entrepreneur? They’re people who will work 80 hours a week for themselves so they don’t have to work 40 hours a week for someone else.
My dad was a teacher his whole life, and would hugely romanticise working for himself. My girlfriend (who is about a third of his age and worked for herself for a number of years) popped his balloon by suggesting that a) income wasn’t guaranteed, b) no one paid you to go on holiday, and c) no one paid you if you got sick.
I can understand the drive to work for oneself, but man oh man, most people really underestimate it.
Is this a bookseller version of a vanity press?
It is said that the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day they buy a boat, and the day they sell it.
The 1,300 sq. ft. store features a café and wine bar, as well as an outside patio.
After all that, how much space is left over for the books, was my first thought. Though I guess if there’s no seating inside it might work?
I’m also thinking three years down the line a lot of these folks are going to get a life lesson from the IRS on hobby losses, viz:
The IRS presumes that an activity is carried on for profit if it makes a profit during at least three of the last five tax years, including the current year — at least two of the last seven years for activities that consist primarily of breeding, showing, training or racing horses.
Assuming they’re still around, of course.