ShelfTalker: A Children's Bookseller's Blog

November 19, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

The holiday season is upon us. While this means increased sales and traffic, it also means seasonal displays must be created. I have to confess that if it were up to me, we'd have the same displays we had in 1996 when we opened. Thankfully, I'm blessed with staff who are not only good at displays, but they actually like them.

Over the years I've learned a few things about displays. Good displays are eye-catching, but also make people stop and actually look the books in the display. The holidays give you a great chance to make things look appealing. Two staffers spent part of the weekend putting gorgeous sliver and gold bows on gift books. The effect of this is two-fold. First, books that are already visually arresting now are even more so, and second, by ha...Read More

November 18, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

As the holidays get closer, the number of special orders we take rises exponentially. I thought I'd take a moment and trace how a special order goes from your list to our store.

1. Customers come in with a title, usually somewhat wrong, that they are looking for and whoever answers the phone at the store, helps them find it. I should say that is the hardest part of the special order process. Deciphering a title is a real skill. See the blog post When Titles Go Bad to understand the challenges we face.

2. The title gets placed on our latest purchase order (this is the form we use to order from). We rotate our orders with the three distributors we work with. Baker & Taylor and Ingram each have noon order deadlines. Bookazine has a three p.m. deadline. O...Read More

November 12, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (4)

It's time to start selling books hand over fist! The holidays are descending on us far sooner than we think. Forget that it was 55 degrees in Vermont today, sooner or later there will be snow on the ground and folks will come in with lists. Lists of people who need presents. It's our job as booksellers to make sure no one on any list goes without a great book, or two (or three) this holiday season. Just how we do that is the fun of being a bookseller. I love the challenge of the holidays. I try to open the store early, by 8:30 if I can, to get the parents after they drop the kids off, and I go all day. Holiday shoppers are like a captive audience of folks needing recommendations. It's fun, it's challenging and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Being a great handseller is about listening and sharing. You listen to what the customer says they want, or who they're lo...Read More

November 9, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

We had a great author event on Saturday with Grace Lin, whose latest book is The Mountain Meets the Moon. The event drew a diverse crowd of happy children and parents. (One child had actually made a card for Grace, which was awfully sweet.) Three things contributed to the success of this event.

The first was our promotion. The event was listed on our website, our entire email list got an invitation to the event on Thursday morning, and we had our event posters up all over town. I saw some new faces at the event and asked how they heard of it. This leads to item number two: author websites.

Grace's website is fabulous. It's chock full of information without being overwhelming, and it's very easy to navigate. Sometimes authors get really cutesy with their websites and it can be infuriating. As much as I loved the Harry Potter books, I grew to h...Read More

November 5, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (40)

I'm curious what everyone is reading right now. Currently I'm reading two books: The Maze Runner and The Demon's Lexicon. I don't normally read this much fantasy, especially concurrently, but both of these are extremely compelling and I can't bear not to read a little of each every night; they speak to different audiences who I think will enjoy them as much as I am. My current challenge is to not leap ahead into the spring 2010 galleys, although they look very yummy. I'm trying to get ready for the holidays by reading some gems that I might have missed.

As we are approach the heart of the fourth quarter, I find myself eyeing my shelves thinking about what I can actively sell to all the various gift purchasers shopping in my store. I know what my favorites are: Wintergirls, The Lion & the Mouse, School of Fear, Once Was...Read More