Bookselling Coincidences

OK, I'll start this by saying that I will post my wrap-up blog of my Iowa trip soon. I also note that I often promise "blogs to follow" without usually making good on said promises, but this time will be different. Hopefully.

Instead, right now, I wish to write about what I believe to be fairly common occurrences in the world of bookselling: requested book happenstances. More often than I care to count, a customer will come in, request a book that I do not have in stock, and then the next day or the following weekend or whatever, I will come upon the requested title. It happens so often that it must be a rule of bookselling or something.

Today, I encountered the corollary to the rule: in Iowa, at a bookshop run by the city library (or volunteers thereof), I noticed they had a hardcover copy of West With the Night by Beryl Markham. Now, I sell this book often (as often as I sell any book--end of disclaimer), but I usually only find it in paperback form and have even had requests for it in hardcover. Anyway, I didn't buy the book due to lack of luggage space, and sure enough, a customer just came in asking for the title. I do have two paperbacks in stock, which may be good enough as the customer (or potential customer) mentioned possibly coming back later in the week to pick one up, but if I had bought that book in Iowa City, the sale (with the accompanying story) would have been made without a doubt.

If you are a book BUYER, the moral to the first rule is that once you request a book the store does not have, check back in a week, as the book will often show up. The moral to the corollary for book SELLERS is if you have an inkling about picking up a book, PICK UP THE BOOK, luggage space or not.

--Greg