Who's that Book Chick?

That scream you heard from somewhere on the West Coast Tuesday around 1:20 pm? The one that sounded like a cross between a squeal and an "Ohmigawd" gasp?

That was me.

We got in the ARC for the new Christopher Moore novel and I may have also wept (I was alone in the backroom so this went undocumented and cannot be fact-checked). I would like to claim that my absence over the last few days is Chris's doing (because dear sweet lord I have the new Christopher Moore book!), but the truth is I've barely gotten past page one. Not Chris's fault at all. My own hectic life getting ready for a visit from the inhabitants of the Mother Ship at the store. Making everything perfect, and submitting to the Planogram (shudder) as much as we could make ourselves, which admittedly was only on a very surface level.

Luckily, our minor rebellious points were viewed as brilliant, and I may be in love with the new inhabitant of the Mother Ship because the new inhabitant (from now on known as NI) gets it. My bookstore does not have the same clientele as the bookstore five miles from me, even if we share part of the same customer base. My people come into my store looking for A and they might go into the other store to look for B (for example, I know that there are a lot of customers who only buy their "fun" novels on the weekends, hence the higher sales of Romance, Mystery and SciFi/Fantasy in most suburban vs. urban stores). I accept that, even if I occasionally try to get them to change their mind.

NI (heee, Ni! Sorry, sleep deprived) realizes that providing good customer service is not just the interaction between bookseller and customer, but also the interaction between customer and book (an interaction that is usually longer than the time spent with the bookseller). Customers don't always ask for help or want to be stalked, but they do want to pick up books, read the back, look at the cover, etc. So part of good customer service in this area is providing the product--up front and accessible--that your busy customer expects to find. In other words, goodbye planograms, nit-picky details, and the same freakin' book in five different places, and hello to official condoning of the behavior we've already been practicing: give the customer what they want. Order it in from an outside source if necessary. Get it on those front tables. Make up your own endcaps.

Freedom.

Finally, official word that we can run our bookstore as the best of both worlds, book selection of an independent with the customer service standards and branding of a corporation. Oh, the possibilities.

Of course, I've apparently "value beauty and pleasure but recognize their dangers, as well."

Oscar Wilde: The Portrait of Dorian Gray. You are a horror novel from the world of dandies, rich pretty boys, art and aesthetics, and intellectual debates between ethical people and decadent pleasure-seekers. You value beauty and pleasure but realize their dangers, as well.


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Snagged from BookGirl's Nightstand.