Sour mornings in the used book trade

Archive: Online bookselling

First thing I do when I get to the shop in the morning is create a list of books to pull with ClipMate's Power Paste.

And some morning's I'm in a sour mood. Each book that isn't there when I first look feels like a slap in the face. Especially if the book was just cataloged and shelved. Then I blame whoever shelved the book (almost never me). Older books make me curse the customer who probably mis-shelved it. Luckily while I'm looking I do find the Russian history book that someone stuck in drama crit. when they decided they didn't want it. With even less they could just leave it out so we could spot it and put the book back on the proper shelf. Nicer books, art books you always worry may have been stolen. And you wonder if you forgot to mark it as sold when someone bought the book.

On my sour mornings I resent the books on the bottom shelves. I don't want to bend and if it s a slim volume with the title in small type it has probably slid half out of site in-between the larger books.

And I damn myself for the books I wish I'd never bought. When I was a kid Charles Goren was the most famous expert on bridge. Who knew we'd never sell a single one. Or do well with bridge books at all. Seemed like a topic made for readers and collectors. Probably is and we just have a pedestrian selection. At least you can rely on chess, even the common titles. Some of the oddball RPG books fetch good money. But nothing beats gambling books. Gamblers are willing to spend good money in their pursuit of wealth. I almost said unearned wealth. But if you are wracking your brains to beat the system I guess you are putting in some heavy if wretched work.

My second round of searching lets me discover that I may have cataloged the book as going in medicine but I wrote sociology in the book. And that the book by a southern journalist wound up in the gaming books because his name was Gambling.

Patience discovers the book a customer put back a few inches or two shelves out of place.

Not much you can do about the book that was ordered by Barnes & Noble, Alibris and Amazon on the same evening.

It is when I'm in my sour mood I'll start playing with the fonts I use on the mailing labels: Frutiger Linotype is much nicer than Tahoma, and Poor Richard has a classy look.

Some customer's funny name or address or the witless book they are buying makes me laugh and my sour mood dissipates.