Bookselling is harder than you think

View from behind the counter at Grass Roots.

I know many people who fantasize about working in a bookstore.  They dream of sitting behind a counter, reading books all day while they occasionally smile at a customer.  I hate to burst your bubble, but it is actually a lot of work if you're doing it right.  I have been working in bookstores for about 12 years now, and I am still exhausted at the end of the day.  There is still always something to learn.  There are still books being published that I want to read.

What does it take to be a bookseller, you ask?  It is far more than a love of reading.  Liking people helps, or at least the ability to act like you like people when you're having a bad day.  So important.  Enthusiasm and good cheer helps, too.

As for the job description, I stumbled upon this quote on the Huffington Post blog today, in an article by Anis Shiva highlighting Twig Book Shop in San Antonio, TX, in which he interviewed bookstore manager Claudia Maceo Sharp:

When I first began to work at Viva and found the tasks to be so complicated, my colleagues would chide me, albeit lovingly, by saying, "And you thought we were just a bookstore." It is a fantasy to think that you can sit behind a counter and read until a customer comes up to pay for a book. Bookselling requires physical and mental stamina. Ordering books requires poring over catalogs with publishing representatives, vendors, and authors. These days a bookseller must have a comfort level with various computer programs from point of sale programs to search engines and publication designs. Boxes of books come daily that must be unboxed, received, and shelved. Organizational skills go beyond alphabetizing. Marketing books once they are in takes retail and design sense. Shelves must be culled of books that are not selling and returned to the publishers or authors. And there is always dusting and sweeping to be done. Oh yeah, and then read, read, read. I used to feel like all I had time to read was the back of a book. After a year as manager that has improved somewhat.

The glamorous life!

I have found booksellers to share a common ideal about the world. We care deeply about our communities, about the power of the written word throughout the centuries, the importance of sharing the stories of our human condition. We are finding and even creating new ways to connect with each other, between various organizations and businesses, in partnerships and special projects.

We are a great community here, and after all of that, we do need to put our feet up at the end of the day.

See you at the bookstore--
Pamela.