The Bookstores of the Future

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Abstract

I left to dive headlong into the very risky world of owning and running a mom and pop bookstore. I got really tired of all the cookie-cutter mall bookstores with their identical design, bad lighting, and airport terminal ambience. I wanted to design and build my own bookstore. The control freak that I am, I wanted everything to be MY WAY.The truth, for me, is that it is far more fun to build a bookstore than to operate one eight to ten hours a day, 365 days a year.I’ve had thousands of bookstore ideas; perhaps tens of thousands. Sometimes I have to slap my hand to my forehead to make it stop.But the idea I recently had is surely the best idea yet. Like I said, I don’t know why I had not thought of it before. It is so obvious.While bookstores have been in decline (especially the cookie cutter bookstores) since more and more people do all

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their book shopping online, many in the book biz see dire times ahead. But we must remember that everything old is new again. The pendulum will eventually swing back the other way. I like to see a flowering bookstore renaissance in the near future.And my idea may very well be something to help usher in that new golden era….<h1 id="d17c">Cover charges!</h1>Bookstores should have a cover charge to get in the door! After all, we don’t just go to a bookstore to buy books. We go for the experience! Call me crazy but I am convinced the bookstore renaissance will commence once bookstores start charging a cover charge.Of course, the cover charge is only one part of a two-part solution. The second part is to make that which is behind the door worthy of that cover charge.Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.</article></body>

Will have a cover charge to get in.

I crack up every time I re-read my title and subtitle. Why have I never thought of this before? It is the perfect solution.

Even though it has been almost fourteen years since I left the book biz, my noggin still often slips into the ‘bookstore thinking’ mode. It is one of those compulsive things. I have weaved in and out of the bookstore business ever since I was twenty-one years old, almost a hundred years ago — or so it seems.

I simply cannot go into a bookstore without mentally re-designing it, re-organizing it and adding plants…. and maybe a dog. After years of working in the corporate book world, I left to dive headlong into the very risky world of owning and running a mom and pop bookstore. I got really tired of all the cookie-cutter mall bookstores with their identical design, bad lighting, and airport terminal ambience. I wanted to design and build my own bookstore. The control freak that I am, I wanted everything to be MY WAY.

The truth, for me, is that it is far more fun to build a bookstore than to operate one eight to ten hours a day, 365 days a year.

I’ve had thousands of bookstore ideas; perhaps tens of thousands. Sometimes I have to slap my hand to my forehead to make it stop.

But the idea I recently had is surely the best idea yet. Like I said, I don’t know why I had not thought of it before. It is so obvious.

While bookstores have been in decline (especially the cookie cutter bookstores) since more and more people do all their book shopping online, many in the book biz see dire times ahead. But we must remember that everything old is new again. The pendulum will eventually swing back the other way. I like to see a flowering bookstore renaissance in the near future.

And my idea may very well be something to help usher in that new golden era….

Cover charges!

Bookstores should have a cover charge to get in the door! After all, we don’t just go to a bookstore to buy books. We go for the experience! Call me crazy but I am convinced the bookstore renaissance will commence once bookstores start charging a cover charge.

Of course, the cover charge is only one part of a two-part solution. The second part is to make that which is behind the door worthy of that cover charge.