February 7, 2019
This is, first and foremost, the question that defines my job. As a bookseller, it is my duty to help you find a book (or more than one) that will satisfy you. Whether it’s a specific title or just a general idea of what you need, as long as I can help you in some fashion, my duty is fulfilled.…
September 7, 2017
Booksellers may seem like they live the good life, working in a bookstore, surrounded by books and dragon plushies and hosting the occasional Harry Potter party. But bookselling isn’t always fun and games. Sometimes it can be difficult when you have a customer who just doesn’t have the title right and you’re unable to figure out what it is they…
June 1, 2017
People can come into bookstores with some pretty odd notions. Most of the time they’re confusing the bookstore for a library. Other times they just think they know better than the booksellers. But the truth is that the customer is far from right (and whoever coined that phrase clearly never worked in a bookstore — or in any sort of…
April 6, 2017
No, we’re not getting on a giant boat with a lot of animals — that’s an ark. ARC stands for Advance Reading Copy. Or Advance Review Copy. Or Advanced Reader’s Copy. Or you might see ARE for Advance Reader’s Edition. The point is that a book that is labeled as such is an early copy that hasn’t yet hit the…
February 2, 2017
Customers can be…odd. That’s the polite way to put it. For every fantastic or wholly normal customer a bookseller meets, there’s always that one person who has to mess up the day for everyone. Some infractions are minor whereas others can get downright frustrating.
January 5, 2017
Booksellers get a lot of questions on a daily basis. Where can I find this book? Who wrote this book? When was this book published? Is this in paperback? When will this author’s next book be available? Most of these questions are pretty typical (and normal), but there are still plenty of things that a bookseller won’t know and, unfortunately,…