The Bookshop Blogger #24

Monday 30 August 2010

I have been worrying a lot about how much time is being taken up filling out forms and writing reports to ensure the so-called ‘ownership’ of our sections, but I might be relenting. But only slightly. I still think that priorities need redressing but, call me old fashioned, I think that a shop is only as good as it’s staff, not only as good as the forms and reports that those members of staff fill out.

Anyway, one of my sections is what we call the Till and Till Barrier Area. Now, when we first introduced the barrier as yet another space where those thoroughly annoying little gift books like Don’ts for Wives and Love Cheques could be thrust down our dear customers’ throats, I was not impressed. I have nothing against displaying books on the counter and, indeed, I have nothing against barriers with books displayed on them. I don’t even have anything against those annoying gift books, so long as the emphasis is on ‘gift’ rather than ‘book’ because they’re not really books. As such I’d rather see them in gift shops and not in book shops. But back to the till and, more specifically, the till barriers: we have new ones, you see, and they’re flexible! It means that now we can use them to display anything we want – subject to my report at the end of the week showing that my choices are selling and thus justifying the premium space that these barriers offer.

I have chosen to use them to display books of local interest - guide books and restaurant guides as well as books by local(ish) authors. It’s going rather well. I have mixed them in with the gift books and those little games in a box that Running Press do, you know, like The Mini Desktop Finger Football Kit and The Penguin Bowling Kit and no, I have no idea why I find these funny but Don’ts For Dancers so infuriating. What can I tell you? I’m complicated.

As for the area around the till itself, that is used to display what we call the Link Save; originally, there was one book that, when you spent over ten pounds, you got for the knock-down price of £4.49. Now there are usually two Link Save books or even three, which, in my opinion, is one too many and makes the counter all cluttered and I don’t like that. 

But two is perfect, if they are well chosen, and by well chosen I feel that there are three criteria:
 
1) A good book, obviously. 2) A book that is not plastered on billboards everywhere,  and therefore needs that extra push. 3) And finally one that means something to us as a store.

I shall give you two examples that represent the farthest reaches of good and bad Link Saves. David Nicholls’ recent(ish) book One Day is about one day over twenty years in the life of a couple. He takes a concept and weaves a beautiful, witty and human story around it. Furthermore, David Nicholls used to be a bookseller, which, for me, makes One Day a perfect Link Save. Not only is it a fine book, it also shows that our booksellers, when they’re not writing reports or even selling books, understand literature in the most fundamental way: by creating it.

At the other end of the spectrum is Paradise by Katie Price. 

Next time a couple of customers remind me why my job is important.