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May is here, and with it the summer slowdown. As if a weak economy wasn't enough to depress the book business, now we have this to face. Or do we? If you've been working harder to acquire good inventory, improving your marketing strategies, and in general looking for opportunities to grow your business, there's no reason at all why you shouldn't have a good season - in fact, we can almost guarantee it.
On the other hand, if you've been dragging your feet, why not take a hard look at the state of your business and begin to prepare for the fall boom? Yes, it's coming. Don't sit still, or worse, sit this period out. Do something now, something positive. Stop by that thrift shop you pass by every day, attend one more estate sale this weekend, place a classified ad for used books in your local newspaper, or take those tired books you've been trying to sell online and trade them in for something better and brighter at a used bookstore.
Recall how many times you've found good books in the most unlikely places at the most unlikely times, and use this to motivate yourself to start looking again with imagination and fresh enthusiasm. There's no end to the things that can help you upgrade your inventory or, for that matter, improve other aspects of your business, even if it's something as mundane as changing your packaging method. While you're doing them, it's likely that many others will be doing nothing and falling further behind.
Since acquiring good inventory is such a critical part of succeeding at bookselling, the Bookologist will be moving steadily forward this summer with its series on buying books for resale. Today, in Part III, we will take a side trip to, of all places, a Bozeman opera house to further examine the use of flashpoints, those delightful, sparkling details that can transform you into a world class book scout.
Along these same lines, the Bookologist's tip of the month will focus on a group of flashpoints that work at a distance. If you've ever walked into a room with several bookcases full of books, perhaps even an entire wall, felt competing buyers breathing down your neck, and wondered where to go first, knowing a few of these will steer you in the right direction almost every time.
Speaking of packaging methods, the Bookologist will launch its Review Department this month with a look at Horizon Trading Co.'s Pac-n-Seal system for packaging books. We confess to being skeptical about this system at the outset, also to being extraordinarily enamored of b-flute for this purpose, but we steeled ourselves anyway and ducked into the Bookologist's workshop to see what was what. We think you'll be interested in what we found.
Craig Stark, Editor
Email: craig@bookologist.com
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