Chapter Four: A Crash Course in Bookselling

This week I finally started at Changing Hands in Tempe! Here's what happened during my first three days:

Day One

Today started off with me receiving my very own Changing Hands email account!! This account gives me access to the work schedule, employee manual, and various other documents associated with the store. I actually spent a good portion of my first hour reading the employee manual, which was probably the least exciting thing that I got to do today. However, it was interesting to read a little more about Changing Hands' history (and various previous locations) and compare the store as it is now to how it used to be.

Next, I spent a little time learning about how barcodes on books and shelving works. Changing Hands sells both used and new books, so the barcodes are slightly different on each. On new books, the barcode labels are placed on the back of the book (usually where the barcode is printed on the actual book) and are white. However, for used books, the barcode label is put on the front of the book and is white and green and a colored dot sticker is put on the spine. As for shelving, all of the different book genres have a three-letter shorthand (i.e. LIT=Fiction, MYS=Mystery, KTN=Teen/Young Adult Fiction, etc.).

However, I spent the bulk of my time today helping make displays in the Children's section. Some displays are seasonal (like the spring gardening display), others are related to upcoming events (like the Kate DiCamillo and The Cat in the Hat displays), and the rest are just dependent on the types of books and merchandise the store has in stock. Overall, I really enjoyed this part of my day, especially because I got to work with Faith, the woman in charge of the Children's section displays and the storyteller to end all storytellers (Dinotrux and The Princess and the Pony are my new faves).

After grudgingly leaving the Children's section, I got to see how Staff Picks work at the store. Staff Picks are book reviews written by Changing Hands employees that are put on the shelves with the books in order to tell customers a little more about books and why they should consider buying them. Lauren, who is in charge of printing these out (among many other things), explained that the Staff Picks are a way of making the book-buying experience more personal for customers. With the help of these and the knowledgeable employees, customers can receive personalized book recommendations that are simply not possible with the use of algorithms.

Finally, I got to help Joel set up for an event that was to happen later in the night. This was a smaller event of only around 35 people, so the setup was pretty straightforward: some folding chairs facing the front of the room , a chair and whiteboard for the speaker, and a display of the books written by the speaker. The whole setup only took the two of us around 20 minutes and it was a good view into how events are handled at the store.

Day Two

For the majority of today, I was put in charge of culling used books. When Changing Hands takes people's books at the used book counter, it is always taking a gamble. An employee will look at if Changing Hands already carries or carried the book and how well it sold. Sometimes, though used books don't sell like they were expected to ad rather sit on the shelf for more than 9 months. This is when culling come in. The books that haven't sold are taken off of the shelves to be moved to the sale section and, if they still don't sell, to be donated. I culled books from the science fiction, science, and children's sections.

I also got to take a break from culling and work with Brandi, who is the children's book buyer. It was really interesting to see how she chose how many of which books to buy. A lot of times, she would only purchase a handful of copies, maybe only one.It all depends on past sales history and what customers have been asking for.

Day Three

Today I spent the majority of my day with Jazmin, the Assistant Gift Buyer. She showed me all of the different gift displays around the store, explaining how the gifts had to cater to Changing Hands' diverse customer base. Next, we changed over some of the displays in the children's section (even one of the displays I had worked on just two days ago). She explained that the displays are constantly being altered to try to highlight different products. The displays we worked on involved a new shipment of rabbit stuffed animals and were spring-themed.

After we finished the displays, Jazmin showed me how she does gift buying. Most of it has to do a lot with experience, knowledge of the products, and knowledge of what customers have been asking for. She tries to make sure that there are constantly unique products in stock that set Changing Hands apart from its competition. 

Jazmin is also one of the six girls in charge of the Changing Hands Instagram account. She showed me the schedule that they use to coordinate posts (the account is for both stores) and I even got to help her make a post.

Unfortunately, my time with Jazmin eventually came to an end, but I'm positive I will be working with her again sometime in the future. However, I did get to help out behind the used book counter with Robert. There were a few people who came in to trade their books, so I got to see how the selection process works. I mentioned this a little bit when I was talking about culling, but Robert mainly used sales history to determine if he should take a book to be sold. Again, a lot of the decisions relied on his experience as well as his personal knowledge of books. After deciding which books he'll take from a trade, he'll mark them with prices and tally all of the prices up, giving the customer 50% of what he will sell them for in the form of store credit. 

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In my first week at Changing Hands, I already got to learn so much about the store and how it works. Everyone has been very inviting and patient as I learn the ropes. I can't wait to see what next week holds, but until then, happy reading!

Chapter Three: Nashville's BookManBookWoman

The last stop on my trip was Nashville, Tennessee. I had an awesome time visiting the Country Music Hall of Fame and the world-famous Ryman Auditorium, a.k.a the Mother Church of country music.

As you can see, it was much warmer in Nashville than it was in
Boston and New York

The bookstore I visited in Nashville was BookManBookWoman. As is suggested by the title, the store is owned by a man and a woman and sells both new and used books. Before they opened the store, Larry and Saralee Woods were well-known book collectors in Nashville, but they wanted a place to expand their collection of books, so they opened a bookstore.

 The store is just one level, but it consists of a series of interconnected rooms that are all full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Even though it's a smaller space than the other two stores I visited, it's definitely not lacking in books! There was handful of people in the store when I visited, and most seemed to be college-aged (the store is right between the Belmont and Vanderbilt campuses).

There's a cart outside of the store where kids can
pick a free book each time they visit!

Nowadays, the books come from things like estate sales and private collections. In fact, as I was talking to one of the employees, the "bookman" was unloading boxes of books from his car. The employee told me about the history of the store that I mentioned earlier and also a little bit about how the store works.

Since the store carries both new and used books (as well as some textbooks), it caters to most customers. In fact, there is a special shelf of books that students often come in searching for, housing titles such as The Bell Jar, The Giver, and 1984. However, I was interested to learn that if a customer is searching for a particular book that BookManBookWoman doesn't carry, they will actually refer them to other stores, even the Barnes & Noble at the Vanderbilt University campus down the street. And, even more interestingly, the Barnes & Noble will sometimes also refer customers to BookManBookWoman if they don't carry a more rare book! The relationship between independent and chain bookstores, at least in Nashville, is much less straightforward that I had thought.

Of course, I couldn't leave the last bookstore on my trip empty handed, so I picked up five books. The Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (an amazing, beautifully written book that you all should read), so I'm super excited about that book. I picked up The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman because I had just finished one of his other books and fell in love with his writing. I picked up the two books by David Eddings because he is probably one of my favorite authors (The Belgariad and The Malloreon were my first "real" fantasy reads that I would recommend everyone reads). Finally, I picked up A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon because I read his first book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, last year and loved it, so I'm excited to see how his second book compares (which I am currently reading and thoroughly enjoying thus far).

I hope you enjoyed my bookstore-hopping trip! It was so fun to see how the different bookstores were shaped by their cities' cultures and histories. I'll be back tomorrow with a post about my first week working at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, but until then, happy reading!

Chapter Two: New York's Strand Books

Hello all! At the beginning of this week, I was in New York! It was definitely a different kind of winter than I'm used to: over the weekend, conditions were arctic with a high of as low as 0 degrees with wind chills of as low as -20 degrees. So I bundled up, and overall managed to go un-frostbitten. I also didn't let the weather stop me from visiting Times Square (and I even managed to take a jumping picture after it warmed up to a high of 40 degrees).

Most importantly, while in New York I visited The Strand (a.k.a Strand Books). Strand has gained fame over the years for its "18 miles of books".  It consists of three floors as well as a basement, all of which are full of books. 

The basement, first, and second floors focus on books of all genres you could imagine (including a particularly unique shelf I noted which housed books concerning the occult). Everywhere you turn, there are floor to ceiling shelves of books, becoming maze-like towards the edges of the store, as well as tables of books that all adhere to different themes, such as previously banned books, staff picks, and books about travel.

On top of books, Strand also sells a wide variety of bookish items, including a selection of hilariously relatable book- and reading-themed magnets. This part of Strand is definitely where I spent the most time (and the most money). But we'll get back to my purchases later.

The third and final floor of Strand houses its collection of rare and antiquarian books and is only accessible by elevator. The books (and other items such as prints) on this floor had a very wide range in price, with there being some pretty affordable options as well as the obviously expensive rarer books. This floor also featured some pretty cool book art that you'll be able to see below.

The "book art"

Additionally, after inquiring, I learned that the most expensive book in the store is $45,000. It's a rare 1935 copy of Ulysses by James Joyce with illustrations by Henri Matisse (yes, that Matisse). When he was asked to illustrate Ulysses, Matisse was under the impression that it would be the original Greek story. Thus, his illustrations don't exactly match the story, though they are nonetheless beautiful. Here are some pictures of the more expensive books Strand has to offer.

A $2,000 first edition copy of Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Issue #10 of Picture Magazine

A $1,100 signed limited first edition (1/850) of 
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
by Stephen King and a signed limited edition
(1/1200) of The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
by Stephen King

A $1,500 set of the early American editions of
vol 1 &2 and a first American edition of vol 3 of
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

On top of its mammoth size, Strand was also absolutely full of people. The main floor was probably the busiest of all four with a steady flow of people coming into the store and the third floor was probably the quietest with only a couple of people in it. Overall, the Strand felt like much more of a big-box store than Brattle did. This probably has to do with the way they have marketed themselves and established their brand. For one, Strand has very active social media accounts (including a tumblr account that often posts pictures of their rare books). Also, the store has set up kiosks in Central park, getting its name out more to the casual buyer. 

To close, I would say that Strand Books seems to be thriving with the help of its global fame and insane stock of books. Strand has made itself an integral part of New York, a hub for book-lovers from all over the world to flock to in search of cool books (and adorable merchandise). I hope you enjoyed my post, and until next time, happy reading!

P.S. As promised, here's what I picked up at Strand Books:

Chapter One: Boston's Brattle Book Shop

Hello all! This week marked the official start of my senior project, but I will not start working at Changing Hands until the 22nd. For the next two weeks, I will be visiting Boston, New York, and Nashville looking at some of the colleges I applied to (and seeing how I fare in "real" winter weather). However, I still wanted to supplement my senior project while I was away. Thus, I will be visiting a local bookstore in each of the three cities I'm visiting. My first stop was Brattle Book Shop in Boston.

Brattle Book Shop, one of the oldest antiquarian book shops in the United States, is tucked away on a quiet one-way street just off of the Boston Common. The street it's on is pretty easy to miss (I almost walked by it completely!), but the store itself is easy to spot by its huge book-shaped sign, the pencil above the door, and its lot of sale books (ranging from $1 to $5) right next door.

As I entered the store, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of books that are packed into it. The first floor isn't huge, but there are at least a dozen shelves loaded with books of all genres.

After perusing the shelves and refraining from buying all of the books, I talked to the woman working at the front a little more about the shop itself. She gave me a pamphlet containing the history and general description of the store (from which I learned that there are about 250,000 books crammed into the shop's 5,500 square feet) and answered some questions that I had that related more to the purpose of my project. 

Firstly, I asked her about the types of people that generally visit the store. She explained that customers come from a variety of backgrounds. In her words, there are some regulars who "call in sick" when they can't make it into the store one day while at the same time people passing by will stop in off the street just on a whim.

I also asked her what her take was on how online options and e-books might be affecting the shop's sales. She asserted that she doesn't think online shopping is making that much of a difference for Brattle, especially since it caters to such a niche market. The shop does have a website for the higher ticket items, although they don't waste the effort on the majority of their lower-priced options. And regardless of the website, she mentioned that sometimes people will call to inquire about certain rare books. These books are outside of the mainstream books that are carried by big box stores and websites, so Brattle has been able to stay afloat.

Next, I moved upstairs to the second floor. The stairway is plastered with posters boasting rare books and other antique items that the shop has sold. Notable sales include a signed photo of Abraham Lincoln for $75,000; the 1860 Baseball Players' Pocket Companion for $12,500; an inscribed biography of George Gershwin with for bars of music for $20,000; an original signed drawing by macabre artist and writer Edward Gorey for $6,500. 

The second floor has the same kind of books as the first, but a narrower set of stairs tucked away in a corner leads to the third floor, which houses most of the shop's rare books. There was another employee on that level, so I asked her about what she thought about the health of bookstores in this age of technology. She admitted that independent bookstores are "a dying breed", adding that Borders, a big box bookstore, closed a few years back and there are only a handful of independent bookstores left in Boston now when there used to be one on almost every corner a few years ago.

I then proceeded to browse the rare books for a good half hour. Some interesting ones that I remember looking at are a special edition copy of The Wizard of Oz from the 1990s and a very old copy of the Bible (with the Old Testament and New Testament bound separately).

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Brattle Book Shop and even managed to not buy anything, although I do still have two more bookstores to visit, so I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on that. I'll be back next week, but until then, happy reading!