Bookstore 101 Started Last Night

And what a pleasure !  The first night we discuss the types of bookstores that the students would like to have. Art. Only.  Black Studies. Only. Bricks & Mortar stores - Yes. Internet sales - Yes. Where ? A resounding response: "Why, here in Las Vegas, of course."  Almost perfect business models for this town and this time.

If You Have A Dirty Mind...

Do you have a sense of humus ?  The non-misspent part of my youth involved reading all the jokes from Bennett Cerf's humor books, Reader's Digest page bottoms, and in particular the Boy Scouting magazine, Boy's Life, Think and Grin page. My sense of humor is still rather juvenile, but I never play practical jokes, just tell old ones. I must admit that the most hilarious, and most extremely raunchy, jokes were told by Buddy Hackett in his Live and Uncensored show in the Catskills -

Tits On A Stick

Every day as Barbara & I wend our way to work we see a billboard that is rather disgusting. It advertises a nightclub - not a (non)Gentlemen's Club - with the portrait of a young woman who appears to be completely drugged, with vacant eyes, a vacuous expression, open arms, extending her hand to anything - or nothing - that might be in her line of sight. Her appearance and costume inspired this article's title. Her name is not Elizabeth Gaskill, also known as Mrs. Gaskill.

Cat's Curiosities

Our friends and colleagues Vin & Amy - I prefer Amy & Vin -  have a retail operation that is unique in the Las Vegas Valley: Amy, who is the one with exquisite taste owns a vintage clothing business that's quartered in one of the collectible malls; Vin, who has an excellent eye for and knowledge of books, sells, strangely enough, books in the same mall. He also sells and buys books on the Internet. Here's one of his recent electronic exchanges with an II:

H.P. Kraus

The BookThinker copyrights their articles, which of course is the right thing to do, but they are kind enough to permit republishing of their articles, as long as they're credited. Here at Greyhound's Books, we always give credit where credit is due, and damn just as freely. Kudos again to The BookThinker !
H.P. Kraus

Borders Is Dead, and Rightly So

In both Bookstore 101 and 102, I stress the need to have a smart business model for  my students' putative bookselling operation. The CNN article below tells the sad tale, and points out why we didn't "make a run for the Border(s). CNN Borders  It's quite a cautionary tale.

Completely Useless Bookseller Alert !

On August 3rd, I ordered a book from Boardman Sales in Ohio. Today, after 10 e-mails to and from the Selling Site - in this case, Biblio - I received a refund, because, although the sale had been confirmed, and the book shown as sent, the book was "out-of-stock". It was a pricey book that I ordered at a quite advantageous price. This leads me to believe several things: 1) they never had the book; 2) they realized that it had been mispriced; 3) both.  Given all the aggravation, and the fact that Biblio has no mechanism to leave feedback on this type of (non) transaction, I feel compelled to let you all know that this dealer is unreliable, and certainly justifies the label on this post.

One of The Reasons Borders Failed

Again from Publishers Weekly,  an interesting article:  More Wonderful Employees

We Don't Have Employees

Many bookstore have part-time employees, some of which are unpaid apprentices - read "Book Groupies" - who want to learn the trade. Publishers Weekly links to blogs that sometimes have interesting articles. Here's one:  Employees From Hell !

From the Current Bookthinker

I like reading the BookThinker articles, because many of them reinforce my buying policies and philosophy. Thanks to The BookThinker for permitting the reprinting of their copyright material:
 
 An ad popped up on craigslist for a professor's library priced at $32,000. I don't always respond to craigslist ads that feature interesting books because many times you almost have to call before the ad appears - if you know what I mean. But a library priced at $32,000? Seemingly, this would put many other booksellers out of the running, so I called.

Our friend and colleague Maryann the writer has several interesting posts at her blog. Check them out, and maybe even subscribe at: Maryann's Blog