booksellers about
as uncommercial breed of
people possible
In a world gone crazy, when I am grasping at anything that points the compass in a positive direction, I found the recent article in the New York Times, Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free By Maureen O’Connor to be something of a word of hope.
To quote Big Bill or better to quote Portia in the Merchant of Venice, So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Or maybe best to quote Willy Wonka and say, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
At least, for a moment, this story about how Barnes and Noble is pushing the chain to act more like the indie stores it was once notorious for displacing under the direction of a new CEO, James Daunt.
“The curious trick has been that if you actually let the local book-selling teams do what they think is best, you suddenly get much better bookstores,” Mr. Daunt said. Then he quickly added a caveat: “About a quarter of them become dramatically better, and a quarter become dramatically worse — but it is much easier to focus on that quarter and improve them.”
The change goes along with his strategy of embracing the mind-set of his typical employee. “Booksellers are about as uncommercial a breed of people as it’s possible to come across,” Mr. Daunt said. “The irony is that the less concerned we are with the commercial, the better it works commercially.
“You need to love books, and you need to know how our customers shop for books,” says a long term Barnes and Noble employee.
I read and I believe it, but only because I want to believe it.
I spent 12 years working for a chain bookstore.
For many employee’s it was a job.
For me and many employee’s and many of my good good friends that I worked with, it was a calling.
And it was a fight against those who went into it as business and tried to make it business while we tried to keep the faith.
So to read, “The curious trick has been that if you actually let the local book-selling teams do what they think is best, you suddenly get much better bookstores.” almost makes me want to cry.
I worked for Waldenbooks.
But I lived in Michigan.
If you loved books and you lived in the State of Michigan, at some point in your life you ended up at Border’s Book Store, a stand alone, independent love-affair with books in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
If you went down that path, you also at some point ended up at John King Used Books in Detroit but that’s another story.
Among booksellers in the State of Michigan, Border’s was the gold standard.
It had sofa’s and chairs and probably some sort of cafe before Starbucks.
They had a service desk set up and staffed by three people, in the pre computer era, who did nothing but researched hard to find titles so a customer could order the book.
They had floor upon floor of books.
The had an art print / map section and I still have prints on my office wall that I purchased there, using my grocery money instead of using my grocery money for groceries.
When I started with at my bookstore in a mall, I saw how it could embrace some of what Border’s was.
I fought for chairs in the store.
I fought for more and more copies of different books rather than 100 copies of the same bestseller.
We worked to create displays of content that meant something.
I started as a bookseller then assistant Manager and finally, Manager.
Though I used label tape and put the title, GUY IN CHARGE on my name tag.
One of the many, many things I did that got me trouble.
My battles can be kind of summed up when I made a display of books for Valentine’s Day.
Regardless of the topic or author, I took over a wall and made a display of every red book we had in the store.
My District Manager came in, took one look at Car Repair manuals next to Novels next to books on Knitting but ALL WITH RED COVERS surrounded by cardboard hearts and he ran back out to his car to get his camera.
“That’s the type of thinking we want to see Mike!,” he told me.
I banged a big red American Heritage dictionary against my head.
“This is Walden’s, Mike”, he would say, “Not Border’s.“
The really funny part of this story is that after I was asked to leave the employ of company, another long story, Walden’s relocated it’s headquarters from Stamford, CT to ANN ARBOR and then bought out Border’s and in an effort to change the brand, changed the name of the Company TO Border’s Books!
In the end I guess I won.
To read Booksellers are about as uncommercial a breed of people as it’s possible to come across is a tonic to my soul.
Some where I have a book, I think it’s an autographed copy of Lake Wobegone by Garrison Keillor.
It was picked up for me by a Waldenbooks Regional Vice President.
Her office was in Ann Arbor and I got to know her when I worked at the Walden’s in Ann Arbor when I was in College.
I was allowed to switch back and forth between Grand Rapids, where I lived and Ann Arbor.
I would have long talks with this VP on bookselling as a calling and she would explain bookselling as a business.
She knew I liked Keillor and arranged to get an autographed copy when he made an appearance at some other Walden’s.
Inscribed above the author’s autograph was this sentiment.
“To the most un-corporate person I know.”
And she signed it.
When James Thurber’s dog Mugg’s (The Dog that Bit People) died, he writes, “Mother wanted to bury him in the family lot under a marble stone with some such inscription as “Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” but we persuaded her it was against the law. In the end we just put up a smooth board above his grave along a lonely road. On the board I wrote with an indelible pencil “Cave Canem.” Mother was quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph.“
To the most un-corporate person I know.
Should I have a tombstone someday, I would be quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of that sentiment.
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No Haiku For You 