25 Things I Learned From Opening a Used Bookstore

1.  People are getting rid of bookshelves.  Treat the money you budgeted for shelving as found money.  Go to garage sales and cruise the curbs.

2.  While you’re drafting that business plan, cut your projected profits in half.  People are getting rid of bookshelves.

3.  If someone comes in and asks where to find the historical fiction, they’re not looking for classics, they want the romance section.

4.  If someone comes in and says they read a little of everything, they also want the romance section.

9.  No one buys  self help books in a store where there’s a high likelihood of  personal interaction when paying.  Don’t waste the shelf space, put them in the free baskets.

10.  This is also true of sex manuals.  The only ones who show an interest in these in a small store are the gum chewing kids, who will find them no matter how well you hide them.

11.  Under no circumstances should you put the sex manuals in the free baskets.  Parents will show up.

16.  Most people think every old book is worth a lot of money.  The same is true of signed copies and 1st editions.  There’s no need to tell them they’re probably not insuring financial security for their grandkids with that signed Patricia Cornwell they have at home.

18.  People use whatever is close at hand for bookmarks—toothpicks, photographs, kleenex, and the very ocassional fifty dollar bill, which will keep you leafing through books way beyond the point where it’s pr0ductive.

21.  A surprising number of people will think you’ve read every book in the store and will keep pulling out volumes and asking you what this one is about.  These are the people who leave without buying a book, so it’s time to have some fun.  Make up plots.

22.  Even if you’re a used bookstore, people will get huffy when you don’t have the new release by James Patterson.  They are the same people who will ask for a discount because a book looks like it’s been read.