Have you been there, Exapno? Or are you just speculating on the economic profile of a store you’ve never been in?
Speculating from twenty-year-long experience with why sf bookstores need to add other sources of revenues. (Remember that sf bookstores rarely sold comics until the independent comic distribution explosion of the 80s.) Basically, the margins are different on the various products, and book have lousy margins. And poor sell-through. Another clue is that Fat Cat only mentions comics on their What’s New pages.
I’ve been a professional in the sf field for 30 years. If somebody is doing something so unique that nobody else in the business has picked up on the model I would dearly love to know about it, as I said earlier. Failing that assurance I’m going to assume that life doesn’t change much because the structure of the business doesn’t change much.
Really, I keep saying that if you know differently about any store you should please let me know. Why not do that?
A good independent used bookstore in a college town is a boon because I can find out of print and gently used/heavily discounted academic titles that I need for my research. These stores also have a French language (among others) selection. I consider them invaluable, I will give them my business whenever I can (fn.1).
In my experience, these types of stores generally have a limited SFF selection and their proprietors are not up on current hot/good titles in that genre. However, if you’re looking for an introduction to the classics of 50s, 60s and 70s SFF (especially science fiction), then, if the bookstores I know and love are any indication, you might get lucky here. Maybe its something about the proximity to a college/university, but, in my experience, local bookstore owners are very fond of the Sci-Fi of that particular era and will be more than happy to give you some recs.
For obvious reasons, the stores reflect their proprietors. I know that my mother has better luck getting romance recommendations at the local store owned by a woman who really loves romance novels, whereas my dad has better luck finding his old mysteries at the bookstore owned by guy who probably has a bunch of half-finished crime novels in the drawer (fn.2).
Obviously, others may have had different experiences.
I say that if you’ve got a local independent store in your area that has a good selection AND a proprietor/employees who are willing to get to know you as a customer, buy from them when you can. OTOH, if your local stores are understocked, engaged in price gouging, or run by people whose agendas would make Jerry Falwell or Joseph Stalin blush, then go to the chain whose selection best matches your taste and make yourself a regular. Get to know some of the employees, and they’ll be more than happy to help you out–most of them love books and read widely (but do note that it may take a few encounters to bring them out of their “I hate stupid people” shell). I’m fortunate in that quite a few of my students work at the local [chain name here] and are always happy to help me and are quite willing to order anything I have that they don’t want. It’s not quite the “independent” experience, but I don’t feel like I’m being cheated either.
(However, explaining to my darlings over and over again that it is not ethical for me to use their employee discounts, even when they’re not technically my students anymore, does get tiresome! :smack: 
)
Footnotes:
- No matter how good an academic selection, I would refuse to spend money at a store where the owner constantly made rude comments about ALL genre fiction, frequently berated customers who purchased genre books, or demonstrated a truly appalling lack of knowledge about my chosen genre of SFF (i.e., didn’t know who Tolkien, Asimov, etc. were). Fortunately, I have never encountered such a place.
- How is it that I live in a “college town” with tens of thousands of students and no independent book store in sight, while my parents, who live in the sticks, have three GOOD ones less than a 30 min. drive from their front porch? Cities are always better my [censored].
They’re also happy to order anything I want that they don’t have. :smack:
Um… Johnson city is adjacent to Binghamton (and also Endicott. They used to make a lot of shoes there). That’s east of Syracuse. Really not Western NY. Just so you know.
Because I won’t pretend to know something I don’t. As I wrote above, I have no idea about the business end of Fat Cat Books - I’ve only seen it as a customer. But I’d be surprised to find out games were keeping it afloat - compared to bookstores, games stores are few and far between and almost always fail so I can’t believe the games business is all that profitable. And while I don’t know about the profitability of comics, I do know that at least 90% of Fat Cats’ inventory is non-comics, so I’d be surprised if that small segment of their business was floating the rest of the store. That said, I could be wrong; Fat Cat Books may be a small money-making comic book shop with a big money-losing SF bookstore wrapped around it.
I’m a native New Yorker and I’ve lived here all my life in several different areas of the state. So while I may not know bookstore economics, I am familiar with NY geography. Enough so to know that the eastern limit of where Western NY begins is pretty nebulous (albeit not as debated as the mystery of how far south Upstate NY is or where the soda/pop divide lies). In my personal opinion, everything west of Route 81 (including Johnson City) is Western New York.
If you think that, you are certainly a native New Yawker. Don’t you have some Yankees to root for?
Sorry.
Heinlein heroes are more of the “Love 'em and they are so enthralled with his manly virtues that they hang around forever and freely share him with every other female that comes within the same planetary system, because he is so manly and all.”
Damn. Wrong thread.
Us old folks sometimes get confused, you know.
(Clean-up on Aisle 5!)
I don’t remember if it was or not. I probably couldn’t find the place again because I was wandering around lost with a friend when we found it. I would know it if I saw it again, though. hugs copy of From a Whisper to a Scream found there
Well, I started shopping at Bakka about twelve years ago. I didn’t want to say thirty years, because I don’t know for sure when it started. Therefore the more conservative number. I did say, “At least…”.
Wrong end of the state. More like “let’s go watch the Habs at the Forum, eh?”
I’m a native New Yorker, too,. Upstate begins at Yonkers. Western New York begins at Poughkeepsie.
One of the first things you learn in retail is that the profit points are almost never what strike the customers’ eyes. Most of the stock is simply a lure to bring in customers and get them to purchase the high mark-up, high profit items. Car dealerships, for example, make more money off their service areas than from new car sales.
Here’s a Google cache quote about the Something Wicked bookstore in Evanston that started this off:
Guess where the profits come from?
Same for Fat Cat Books. A store in a college town? Skew young. Binghamton is the worst book city in New York City. I was there a couple of months ago talking to the owner of a great used book store downtown that was closing because the landlord tripled their rent. She was stunned that Rochester has five Borders and B&Ns. Binghamton has one. Rochester has three Walden’s. Binghamton has one. It has one paperback used book store. It has Fat Cat Books. And that’s pretty much it. There are no other general used or new books stores in the metro area.
So you do what you can to survive. Comics fans tend to buy a number of titles every month. Games fans stop in regularly to see what’s new. Book fans tend to buy a book or two irregularly. If you’re trying to keep a store going, which would you rather have as customers?
In fact, the size of the book inventory tends to be a liability rather than an asset. The larger and better looking the inventory, the more customers who stop in to browse. But the larger the inventory means the larger the store and that means that the fixed costs - rent, utilities, percent of funds sunk into stock that doesn’t turn over - also increases. Most specialty bookstores are hole in the wall operations in funky parts of town because of this. All those titles that comprise 90% of Fat Cat Books are loss leaders to pull you in. That’s not where the store is making money. They make money by getting you to buy the latest brand name bestsellers and a few high profit specialty items. This is exactly the same business model as B&N or Borders, in fact. It has to be. That’s the way retailing works.
Oh, and that used book store that was closing down? The storefront was closing, but they’re just moving their operation entirely to the Internet. Fewer fixed costs allow for more inventory.
Now this is a general picture of the industry. There’s been a general downturn in sf, comics, and game stores nationally with all three going out of business in droves. That’s a major reason why the survivors are tending to consolidate operations. Limit the non-selling inventory and stick to the high turnover profit points, and hope that the variety will keep the non-regular customers coming in. It may work or it may just be buying time until the inevitable end. And certain stores do better because they have a better feel for the proper mix to use to match up with their customers.
What do they do to achieve this? That’s what I keep hoping to find out.
because my local bookseller got a difficult book for me in two days when everyone else told me two weeks and Amazon – believe it or not – didn’t have a copy to sell.
Yeah, for a big chain, Borders seems to have more knowledgable Booksellers. Better than B&N, IMHO. Better coffee, too.
I don’t see the fuss about “Independent bookstores”. Independent non-specialty new bookstores are no big deal- prices are high, selection is low, and more often than not, the owner is a petty tyrant. (anyone ever go to the old “Change of Hobbit” down in Santa Monica?)
I do mourn the loss of the independent SF/Mystery Bookstore in Palo Alto a couple years ago. Can’t remember the name. 
*Used Book stores * are another thing entirely. They are Gawd’s own work, and should be patronized heavily. I am going to shill here for **Recycle Books ** in San Jose, which has two cats no less. They have books which are hot off the presses too, not just old stuff. If you really want that new HB, but don’t want to pay the price (which I understand) then you can often find it there @ 1/2 off.
So there we go- Big chain brick and motar, on-line stores, then local independent used book stores. All we need.
But everyone who enjoys buying used books should buy an occasional new book. You’ve got to prime the pump.
Hell, where I live, we can’t even depend on the big box stores. If I want to get anything on the day of release other than movies, I have to buy online. We have one chain bookstore in a mall here, but I’ve seen clothing stores with bigger dressing rooms. We also have one independent/used bookseller, but there just isn’t much there. Of course, I live in a city that seems to be like a pimple on the ass of Canada, and there isn’t a large enough group of people who read things other than best-sellers or romance novels to sustain a bigger store.
Very true. 
All the new books which are not “must keep and treasure” I either lend out or sell to Recycle. I buy more than half of my books new.
I buy used books and trade for books that I’m taking a chance on most of the time. If I know I want it and want it bad, I’ll be at Borders the day of the release with cash in hand. For authors I really, really like, I even buy the hardcover. To me, support authors is more important than supporting stores.
happy book dance