stock-a-doodle-doo

Simon;
Here's an insight into how i'm ordering the stock for the shop.


Remember, we're ordering from scratch, and I don't have anyone from Head Office to phone up and ask to send a spreadsheet of the top 500 on each category (although, I might give it a go a bit later today).
As you can see i'm using a mixture of order and chaos.
OK some things to spot.It's like a where's wally book,(or where's Waldo for our American visitors).
* A bunch of bananas for energy
* An Ipod on which I have 'The eye of the Tiger', 'Gold' by Spandau ballet and 'You're the Best Around' by Joe Esposito from the Karate Kid soundtrack on a constant loop.
* A never ending cup of coffee
* A selection of Spongebob Squarepants DVDs to keep me sane
* Some bestseller reports possibly from Waterstone's
* A Bertram's core stock list, which probably has too many Art titles in BTW.
* Anadin Extra, because i've done my back in doing some gardening (i'm not on gardening leave).
* Catalogues from many wonderful publishers.
* Gardners and Bertrams new title catalogues
* lists of 13 digit numbers
* a brilliant picture flat called 'That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown' (isbn 9781843624530), to break the monotony. (Thanks Darren)
* 3 pens, because I keep losing them under paper.
* if you look really closely you might see a single teardrop from when i'd just finished loading around 450 isbns onto a spreadsheet and then forgot to save it.

I also have a computer (duh!), and will today be tackling Mind Body and Spirit and self help, which we have allocated 21 shelves (672 books approx).
Right, starting with A. Angels, Alchemy, Astrology, Another coffee I think.....

Tim:

I was going to put a comment along the lines of "This is the tidyest I've ever seen Simon's flat..." but then I looked at the state of my own front room, and realised that there would be a certain amount of kettle abusing pots involved.

Quiz!!!!

Simon;

No, this isn't a waxwork model of the legendary poker player, Gary 'the hat' McCardshark, it is in fact Tim 'the bookshop' West.


Now, for no prize whatsoever, here's the big quiz question.

What do you think he's been doing today?

It has something to do with the shop, so it's not completely random.

GOOD LUCK!!!

(Tim;

You will notice that my left hand is poised for the quick draw of which I am legendary. Except for the fact that I am right-handed. Oh, and I haven't got a gun. The two facts that I'm right-handed, and I haven't got a gun... And I'm not a real cowboy. The three facts... I'll come in again)

Merchandising

Simon

In a previous life, as well as bookselling I used to sell badges. I did OK from it, so well in fact that it was through this that I got my accountant, Damian, to sort out my accounts. He's great, and if anyone out there wants an accountant he's superb.
Anyway, back to the badges. We've been mucking around with fonts and styles and i've stuck a couple on badges. They could be all the rage soon......

Let us know what you think, although this is probably far from the final outcome.

By the way, if anyone out there wants some badges done at competitive prices, you know where to come.....

Wood Green is Lovely

Simon;
less than 10 minutes walk from the site of our shop is Alexandra Park. Prety much every Sunday, Katie and I go up there for a walk and also to visit the Farmer's Market. Blowing cobwebs and all that...
During the summer we picked loads of nettles, and Katie made a wonderful soup and a nettle flan. We've picked blackberries in September and made some fantastic jam and muffins and cakes and crumbles(what a bunch of hippies). More recently we almost risked picking mushrooms, but decided to wait until we were sure of survival before trying this.
We're going to pick some holly and similar stuff to make chrimbo decorations.
Wood Green is lovely

Look, it's lovely.


see, lovely

Lovely lovely Wood Green...mmmm

(wood)Stock update

Simon,




I'm tired....but there's so much more to do. I've gone through a load of speadsheets and picked and picked and repicked titles for the shop.
Here's the score so far.
We will be stocking Dan Brown, but not Roy Chubby Brown
We will be stocking MBS, IBS, BNF, EFL, NVQ and CGP but not GBH, WWF or CSI
We will be stocking Roald Dahl, but no books on Salvador Dali
We wlll be stocking Clarice Bean but not Mister Bean
We will be stocking Miriam Stoppard but not Tom Stoppard
We will be stocking 'misery memoirs', but not 'Grumpy Old' nonsense
We will be stocking Harry Potter, Harry and the Dinosaurs, Harry the Dirty Dog and Harry Turtledove, but not Gary Barlow, Gary Larson, Barry Trotter or something else with 'arry' in it.
I'm going to get in touch with Usborne, Scholastic and CGP tomorrow to get complete catalogues, but things are moving along as smooth as a dolphin.

Dickens, Trollope, Peltzer and Rainbow Fairies

Simon;

how the bloomin' blink do you decide what to stock?

We've got lists...oh yeah, we've got lists alright. They're all full of 'bestsellers', and all worthy of shelf space in any good bookshop. So, we've got around 40-45 bays (bookcases) to fill with all these lovely titles. Sounds like loads of space doesn't it? Pah! I say.
Right, we've got 12 bays for kids, 6 bays for fiction (is that enough?) and 3 bays each for crime and sci fi. So that's 24 bays already. There's travel, biography, lifestyle, academic stuff, art stuff, 3 bays at least for multicultural, mind body and spirit and loads of other sections that we've got to fit in there.

'stop being such a drama queen'
oh yeah, Drama...

Anyway, we've sorted out pretty much how much space we're going to allocate for each section (Tim and his amazing dancing spreadsheets), so now it's all about the books.
Do we stock all the classics?...we can't afford the space.
what travel guides do we stock?... Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Eyewitness, but which ones?
3 bays of crime, so that's half a bay of Agatha Christie?... NO!
3 bays of Sci Fi, so that's half a bay of Terry Pratchett?...NO!
foreign language guides, which ones?
dictionaries, which ones?
Oh nuts, we forgot about phrasebooks
I haven't even started on Kid's yet!


I've spent about 5 hours today going through a Penguin Complete Stocklist, to choose which titles we'd stock. The adult list is over 5,500 titles of which a large percentage are worthy of shelf space. However, for example, if we took 1 copy of each title that would fill more than half the shop. I don't think that the other publishers would be too pleased if we did that (and neither would our customers). This is an example of the painful pleasure i'm going through at the moment. I'd been warned that this would be a real nightmare, but I have to say that it's the most enjoyable bookshop related activity i've done for ages.
I can't tell you how much fun it is to choose every book in your own shop.
The feeling of power is almost palpable. I don't think we'll stock Lewis (2nd) Hamilton, and we'll definitely leave Sharon (Daddy's girl) Osbourne to 'Survive' in another shop. However, we might stock lots of Katie (the devil's dumplings) Price.....but that's the joy of having your own choice!

Thanks to everyone who've sent lists/suggestions/catalogues. They're all really helpful, and we'll take every piece of information we get into account. As we wait for things to move forward, it's a great chance for us to get the opening stock right. Or as right as we can, anyway.....

Big Broth... Er, Big Bookshop

Tim:

The following email arrived a couple of days ago. Only the names and numbers have been concealed to protect the innocent.

"Hello

I was just wondering if your bookshop had opened yet as BBC London TV would be interested in doing a feature on it.
Please do get in contact on 0207 *** **** or 07*** ******.

Thank you

S........"

A long time ago, in a far away post, we said that we quite fancied a reality-type TV program to follow our progress. Maybe this email is the start?

I could be as famous as that bloke from Airplane. Or is it Airport? You know the one... That chap.... um James? Or Jerry.... Anyway, him. Or as famous as the girl who married the bloke in the band. You must remember her, she had a book and everything.

Or maybe, Simon and I could be the bookselling world's equivalent of Ant and Dec? (For a long time I thought it was one person called Anton)

Ah yes. Fame awaits. All we need now is a Bookshop.

As for the actual progress. Well, we decided not to do too many posts saying "We're waiting for this or that to happen" as they get quite repetitive. So you can probably guess that we're waiting for something to happen. I'll try to heighten the tension by not telling you what it is...........

....... Is is working?

What's in a Name?

Tim;

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a Director (Cue manic laughter - thanks, Chris) and that Simon was also Director and Company Secretary. My manic laughter subsides to a mere manic snigger when I realise that it's...

2 - 1 to Simon.

Well, we sat down to fill in the Bertrams account form and the first box to complete was "Name of Manager". The big fella comes in from the left and it's....

2 all.

There's a little scuffle in the "Buyer" box, and my cowboy hat covers my eyes momentarily. When the referee sorts it all out it's....

3 - 2 to Simon.

I am distraught. There's advice begin shouted from the touchline. There's mocking songs floating over the breeze from the grandstand (Who's the b*st*rd in the hat?.) They think it's all over... But what's this? from out of nowhere comes "Account Manager" Whilst Simon is still mouthing "What the hell is tha...." I slip passed his defence and make it....

3 all.

The final whistle blows. We shake hands and exchange shirts and it's off to the baths. At this point Simon throws me out of his flat. Apparently I took the metaphor too far......

Making Plans for Simon

Simon;


Hello everybody peeps. Not too much to report. Yesterday we headed off to the shop premises with Tim's electronic tape measure, to get an accurate floorplan.
Tim then nicked off home and within 3 hours he'd pulled together something glorious on an excel spreadsheet and cycled over to my place to show me how it worked. We now have this amazing program which can tell us on average how many books we can stock if we have x amount of paperbacks, y amount of kids books and z amount of lifestyle titles. It changes as we change the shop layout, and it does other clever things too. He's a clever fella that Tim fella.
I filled in a few credit account forms in the evening in a desperate attempt to avoid watching a bunch of scrotums from 'The Bill' singing for Charity. Good old Pudsey....

Oh yeah, we also got the company chequebook!

Here comes the Rumour Mill

Simon:



So, what a lot of stuff's going on up London way. First, it seems that my old branch of Waterstone's/Dillons/Claude Gill/Athena is to 'close temporarily in early 2009' due to the new Crossrail trainline being built.
Rumour has it that they are looking for new sites on Oxford Street to accommodate the staff , so the idea that they're to close temporarily seems strange. I had a look at the Crossrail plans for where the shop is, and the latest proposal is that there will be a ground level station there. Apparently nobody's too worried in the branch, but it's also rumoured that the work on the rail link will start in Summer 2008....apparently

In more sad news, the Pan Bookshop, in Fulham has announced that it's going to close in January next year!
I have copied the next bit from the article in the Bookseller (the organ of the booktrade)
David Macmillan, who was responsible for the shop, said: "It is a very sad day for us all after so many years trading (32), and serving the local community, but I'm afraid the difficult trading conditions we are all experiencing, have made it impossible for the shop to continue. We just haven't had the margins to enable us to compete in our high street location."
I say Bollocks to that. There's a market there, and despite the rents being high, surely the business could have continued. Relocate to a smaller, cheaper premises. Investors, check out the shops P and L, and take the plunge. Start a petition (as an anonymous reader suggested!). The shop has a turnover of millions, so it seems crazy that no-one will realise the gap in the market.
Blaming high rents, tough trading conditions, and wishing the members of staff 'well for the future'.
It seems that Wood Green isn't too different from West London after all....apparently.