Business as Usual

I own a small used-book store in a town of over 300,000 people. I know that it is customary to call it a used bookstore but somehow that seems so gramatically incorrect. Would that make me a used bookseller? Yikes! I do hope that this is a used used-book store. A very well used one indeed.

I carry over 10,000 paperback and 5,000 hardcover titles with several more boxes of books to be put on the shelves when the space appears. I find it quite funny that people walk into the store and claim to have just as many books in their homes as I have in the store. That must be a cramped home! I have 1,200 square feet and I don't have space for beds, couches or a kitchen table. I spend so many hours here it feels like home.

The store opened in November of 1996. Since then I have moved it twice. Each move has increased the size, quantity of books and hopefully the number of customers. I found it very interesting that all the research I did about expanding the business talked about figuring sales by square foot. No one was relating sales to traffic counts, local population or number of customers. It has me baffeled.

So I'm nearing my last year on the lease and I've got to make some decisions before my time runs out. My blogging experience will contain my bookselling experience and hopefully it will help me to decide the direction I'm going to go with the business.

The options: keep it, sell it, close it!