Just a hypothetical question, you understand, but if I wanted to open and run my own bookshop, how would start? Is there any way for an independent bookshop to compete with massive chains, or would I be better off just buying into a franchise? I think it would be wonderful if I could pull it off, but I also realise there are all the inherent risks of running a small business and being self-employed. So where do I go for advice?
I’ve started several businesses, but never anything like a bookstore. However, a friend of mine started a bookstore (a long time ago) and kept it going for 8 years or so, and I can tell you what I know of his experience.
a. Don’t try to sell new books; the giants will kill you.
b. Find a niche. Focus on something specific enough that you can grow a reputation in the right circles that you’re the place to go for that need.
c. On the other hand, don’t over-specialize. Have a decent collection of general books for walk-by shoppers.
d. (my friend really emphasized this) it’s all about being able to buy books. If you get a good location, and give it a little time, you’ll get traffic. The big problem is having the books your customer will want. My friend spent a lot of time going to estate sales, swap meets, etc. His yellow pages ad (this is pre-internet) prominently said “we buy books”
I should tell you that though my friend loved doing this business, he worked his ass off and didn’t make much money. Also, eventually he closed shop and found work elsewhere. I never really pushed him on why, but if it would’ve been a big success, I imagine he would’ve kept with it.
First of all, stop eating the books. That just cuts into your profits.
My brother-in-law essentially has started an online bookstore. Just about every week he goes to library sales, publishers sales, yard sales, etc and buys tons and tons of books, which he turns around and sells on Amazon. He checks the price on Amazon before he buys a book, to make sue he can sell it for more than he pays.
He puts in a lot of hours, and has had to find room in his house for hundreds (thousands?) of books. But he makes a couple of hundred dollars a day, and the hours are flexible, so he’s not doing to badly. He manages to feed a family of five while working from home (with occasional road trips to buy more books).
Move to my town of Marietta.
Our local book shop shut down last year as the woman who owned it retired.
We’re dying for a book store. The nearest one is a Waldenbooks 15 miles away in Parkersburg. So we’re looking at 15K people without a bookstore.
And I have connections on the local Chamber of Commerce that might be willing to help.
Seriously, if you mean it…contact me.
Thanks for the offer, but I live in the UK, so the commute would be a killer. 
What I’d love is to own and run the kind of local place that becomes a feature of the community - to see the same familiar faces and to run a nice, friendly place that makes people feel welcome.
And that’s exactly what we lost, dang the luck.
It’s cheap to live here…and they only talk sort of funny to my southern ears…
Just checking in so I can subscribe for everyone’s advice. There are so many new stores for rent in our neighboorhood and no bookstore around that I am sure I could make a decent living (and what the hell, my husband’s a lawyer so it hardly matters what I bring in ;)) and would love to have one (in theory). But it is a question of deciding what the niche is.
And no, Jonathan, I wouldn’t consider moving to Marietta. I went to grad school in Athens; that was enough southern Ohio for me for a lifetime!
So come on! More advice for Bibliovore, please.
As a general rule, in the United States:
a) all non-chain new book stores are dying or going out of business.
b) all used bookstores are dying or going out of business.
Thousands of each have already gone out of business over the past twenty years.
Even niche bookstores are having huge problems. Most of the major science fiction specialty stores in the U.S. have closed up shop.
You can’t compete with the 100,000 titles that a big chain bookstore has. It’s next to impossible to have enough volume from walk-in customers to compete with the range and selection and price of used books on the Internet. And any place that will house the few exceptions to the general rule already have thriving stores with loyal customers, so that no new stores can break in.
I’d love to see more bookstores of all kinds. But right now starting one is a prime example of the old joke: How do you make a small fortune? Start with a large fortune.
A bookstore in itself will probably fail. However, someone just opened a coffeehouse/bookstore near me. I haven’t been in yet, but I’m going to make a point of it. You have to cater to the whole reading experience. The lounging on soft couches, coffee and muffins, maybe the occasional speaker…something that is inviting to the locals. The big stores have this to a degree, but you’ll want to make it more personal.
That was sort of my plan, actually. I thought a travel/foreign language themed place (my neighboorhood is all immigrants or yuppies, and not much in-between) with some couches, coffee, guest speakaers, even people’s slide shows of trips etc. A travel store just closed near us so I thought to combine the two.
There is an art gallery/coffeeshop/Christian bookstore that I don’t frequent because they don’t sell books I like and they don’t display local art.
Other than that, it’s a great idea.
I’m wanting to open my own gaming/bookstore as well. I would love to buy into an existing bookstore, though, to get all the first work out of the way.
That’s why we’re perfect! No chains…no established competition…college town…
Please? Someone?
I disagree about used book stores- they are thriving around here. Even a huge chain can’t compete with used book prices and all those out of print books.
There is a thriving kids new book store over in Los Altos.
But yes, Amazon.com and the big chains will put most small retail new bookstores out of business.
What’s your community like? Who lives there, and what portion of their books needs/wants is not being fulfilled by the competition?
You’re going to have some tough competition on general-market new books. I can tell you what I blow the most money on in used bookstores (foreign-language literature and reference, obscure Soviet history topics, and cookbooks), but hey, I’m not your potential customer base (unless you find me something really good and possibly out of print, and then we’ll talk 
).
Get *Angua to bake the cookies for the cafe counter, and that’s half the battle. 
Since you’re looking for advice more than hard facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Now you tell me.
Yikes. Bibliophage and Bibliovore in the same place, one responding to a joke for the other. This is getting surreal.
My GF (soon to be wife ) runs a small, independent used-book store. She’s not the owner, but she and the owner are the only two employees, so she deals with all aspects of the business. I’ll see if she’ll write up some advice for you and post it here (and maybe this will finally get her to become a Doper!).
Please do. As this bookstore idea is pretty much my only five year plan, I need advice!
I took a course last fall about humorous literature. We read a lot of pretty standard classic stuff–Rabelais, the Satyricon, the Decameron, Chaucer. None of these four were present at Barnes & Noble. All were present at a small local bookshop, which manages to cram every single book a highbrow graduate student ever wants into its 600 square feet of store space.
I want to tell you to have a bookstore like that, but really, I’m not sure anyone ele bought Rabelais last year.