Tear Down to Always Start Over
When I entered the bookstore this morning all the pop fiction in English paperbacks were stacked around the display table in the aisles. You, naive reader, might think "what a mess, what disorder!" In fact, there are so many stacks of books in every section of the 30' X 50' space, that the popular fiction looked pretty much like the "lit" sections, the childrens corner, the sciences, politics and the history nooks - both for French and English.
Maybe the tearing down of what Q accomplished will lead to some rebuilding of a decent display for the pocketbooks. I trust that's the owner's intention. But to do it right (i.e., raise a shelf in the middle of the display table so there are three or four levels of display from the top up) will probably require rethinking the whole thing. At a minimum, the raised shelving must be securely fixed so that it doesn't tumble on a patron.
More power to the messy owner. I've given up all hope for solid results. She should have disposed of or given away 30% of the old paperbacks that aren't selling anyway. This week-end there was a huge bazaar at the church across the street. They had a book section. The bookstore had a chance to start clearing out the aisles AND getting free PR and advertizing all in one fell swoop. But the owner doesn't operate like that. She went over and BOUGHT MORE BOOKS !! To put them online for sale I presume.
In fact, she bragged that she found an old volume on English Dog Breeds that is "worth" $160 at ABE or wherever. Lots of luck selling it, I say. Just because it's for sale at that does not mean anyone is buying it at that price . . .
1 comment:
I saw the mass market paperback display table.
CC turned Q's shelves upside-down and affixed them with extended sides above the books lying flat on the table display surface.
As soon as LF clears out the overstock, it will probably be an improvement. But that was the problem to begin with. That she is way overstocked and people like me and the other patrons have to always dig.
Unless, by chance, what we want is on the new shelves, we still have to dig. And there are always books in stacks and piled on top of every shelf falling down around us.
Every time I go into LF's bookstore, one or another customer is knocking over a pile of books somewhere in the store. And most of them feel guilty, as if it were their own clumsiness.
I notice that the clients digging for books are just shoving the books that are in their way on top of the other display. The total anarchy is making it harder week by week to find good books, although we all know that they are there somewhere!
I know the staff does their best, but the place needs a good cleaning out so that everybody who loves to read around here can make a fresh start.
A few of us have already volunteered to lend a hand at clearing out the junk and rearranging to good stuff so it is well displayed and no longer a danger to life and limb when we try to navigate boxes stacked 4 and 5 layers high until they lean like the Tower of Pisa.
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