The Great Purge Plan

Another month has ended and I have written only seven blog posts even though  May gifted me with an extra day! I am greatly dismayed to see this, as I had been writing at least a dozen posts a month for more than a year. It seems though that these recent days of bookselling have been the hardest of my fifteen year career. Partly it’s because of the fading public desire for physical books, but it’s also because of what a bookseller needs to do to succeed in this decade of blazing technological change. The motto seems to be “We can, therefore we must.”

I hate to sound like an old lady sitting on the porch swing reminiscing about the good old days, but I do think it’s interesting that I managed to write thirteen published books while being a bookseller during the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Today I couldn’t take time to  write my NAME, much less a sentence, or God forbid, strings of sentences that weren’t about books. Today I not only write researched descriptions for my titles, but I also take photographs, and engage in endless social media. I confine the latter to blogging (which I love), facebook, linked-in, and twitter (which I do not) and still feel like I’m running like a hamster in a maze.

There’s a number of reasons why this is so for almost all sellers – the deluge of online “dealers”, an economy still struggling to get its sea legs, e-readers, print-on-demand, free downloads  etc. – but even THAT’S just part of the equation. For years books came our way in vast quantities (Elmer’s enormous collection and the bookstore we bought in LaPort, Indiana spring to mind) and at reasonable prices. Back then I was the typical commodity seller though, only beginning to make the switch to antiquarian and collectible titles. Now that I have seriously  zeroed in on my goal the time spent with each book I list has become exponentially protracted, but also vastly more interesting. However, the desire to build a better, higher quality  list has also resulted in two other consequences I’m not nearly as happy about. The price paid per book rose dramatically, thus decreasing the profit margin, and such books as I seek have become ever more elusive. At least twice a week people phone wanting to sell us books, but rarely do they have anything  I want to buy.

By choosing to be an antiquarian and collectible seller I have also created a shrinking online  inventory. Even though the shrinkage is of my own doing – I am purging books with a vengeance these days – there’s no question that less books translates into fewer sales. So why ever would I do this? The answer is three-fold  – a.) I want a pure list which reflects who I am as a seller at this point  n time b.) many of the titles purged can be sold in the store or at the mall and c.)I will not ship books at bargain basement prices. Right now I have a lot of new inventory, but the need to get it online is pressing (see photo of my office above!). Right now I only have about 4000 books online and the number drops exponentially every day as I purge even more. I suspect that when it’s over I’ll be down to about 2000. Fortunately, I have a lot of new inventory right now, but what I lack is sufficient time to get it listed quickly.

Which  brings me to another problem with purging. Presentation is primary to me when it comes to wrapping books, so it costs me about a dollar for every package that goes out the door, a dollar which comes straight out of the selling price. Could I do it for less? Most definitely I could, but I choose to do it this way because it pleases both me and my customers. Therefore I cannot (and don’t even want to) ship inexpensive  books.

I guess it could be argued that I’m making it all much harder than it has to be, but I don’t think so, at least not in the overall scheme of things. As we speak, the market groans under the weight of commodity booksellers (most of whom are lacking in both passion and knowledge), at a time when readers drift in significant numbers towards electronic devices. The current system simply cannot sustain itself. There WILL be fall-out and I don’t plan to be part of it.

So my new motto is  "I MUST, therefore I WILL continue to purge my inventory.