How I Almost Bought a Book Store During My Christmas Vacation

Over the vacation, I almost bought a book store.

There's a little book shack about 5 miles north of us (in the opposite
direction of every other book store in the area). I'd been frequenting
it the past two years and had been able to pull some nice material out
of there. Almost like clockwork, I would bring the dregs of my books
for trade (those books that had been refused by 2 or 3 other book
stores) and I would get $20-$25 in trade credit. And for $3-$5 in
trade credit, I could almost always pull a $20-$30 book out of the
stacks (literal stacks--this place was one of those Oscar Madison-style
book stores). One great find was Brian Victoria's ZEN AT WAR, which is
a $50-$100 book. The last such book I did that for was a copy of Dom
Gregory Dix's THE SHAPE OF THE LITURGY, an early reprint in dust
jacket, easily a $30 book.

In any event, in late November I went in and the owner told me that,
after 15 years, she was calling it quits and closing shop at the end of
the year. (Her decision was no doubt in part influenced by the highway
construction right outside her door that was cutting her street off
from the main flow of traffic.) So I spent all my trade credit and a
bit of cash on some bargain stuff she was willing to let go cheap. I
figured I would come back towards the end of December and dig through
the remains, but I could never find the time or the desire. Until, one
day last week I got thinking, hey, if she is really going out of
business I bet she would sell the business cheap. She never used the
Internet, so I bet a concentrated effort to sell her stock on the
Internet would easily repay whatever price she would charge for the
whole biz. I mulled this over and decided to go over and check it out.

When I got there I discovered that the store was not going out of
business after all. In fact, she had sold it to an Internet-only
dealer who had come in to buy stock during the going-out-of-business
sale, had gotten talking to her, had struck a very good deal, and was
going to do almost exactly what I had just thought of!

The new owner, who has cleaned the place up like you wouldn't believe,
is even honoring the old trade credit, but of course I'd already used
mine up in November. Her new trade system will be based on "Internet
prices," so I'm doubtful in future of making much in the way of trade
or finding much gold amongst the dross.

Ah, it might have been.
William M. Klimon
http://www.catholicbookcollector.com

William M. Klimon wrote:
Over the vacation, I almost bought a book store.

There's a little book shack about 5 miles north of us (in the
opposite
direction of every other book store in the area). I'd been
frequenting
it the past two years and had been able to pull some nice material
out
of there. Almost like clockwork, I would bring the dregs of my books
for trade (those books that had been refused by 2 or 3 other book
stores) and I would get $20-$25 in trade credit. And for $3-$5 in
trade credit, I could almost always pull a $20-$30 book out of the
stacks (literal stacks--this place was one of those Oscar
Madison-style
book stores). One great find was Brian Victoria's ZEN AT WAR, which
is
a $50-$100 book. The last such book I did that for was a copy of Dom
Gregory Dix's THE SHAPE OF THE LITURGY, an early reprint in dust
jacket, easily a $30 book.

In any event, in late November I went in and the owner told me that,
after 15 years, she was calling it quits and closing shop at the end
of
the year. (Her decision was no doubt in part influenced by the
highway
construction right outside her door that was cutting her street off
from the main flow of traffic.) So I spent all my trade credit and a
bit of cash on some bargain stuff she was willing to let go cheap. I
figured I would come back towards the end of December and dig through
the remains, but I could never find the time or the desire. Until,
one
day last week I got thinking, hey, if she is really going out of
business I bet she would sell the business cheap. She never used the
Internet, so I bet a concentrated effort to sell her stock on the
Internet would easily repay whatever price she would charge for the
whole biz. I mulled this over and decided to go over and check it
out.

When I got there I discovered that the store was not going out of
business after all. In fact, she had sold it to an Internet-only
dealer who had come in to buy stock during the going-out-of-business
sale, had gotten talking to her, had struck a very good deal, and was
going to do almost exactly what I had just thought of!

The new owner, who has cleaned the place up like you wouldn't
believe,
is even honoring the old trade credit, but of course I'd already used
mine up in November. Her new trade system will be based on "Internet
prices," so I'm doubtful in future of making much in the way of trade
or finding much gold amongst the dross.

Ah, it might have been.
William M. Klimon
http://www.catholicbookcollector.com


I think that I know the store you are referring to. I used to find an
occasional gem there myself, but it is out of the way as you point out
so I haven't been in a long time. I don't think that putting the type
of books she gathered on the net would produce much in the way of
sales, do you? (I'm speaking of the majority of her mass market
paperback books).

In any case, I'm ALMOST through with the dream of owning an open shop
bookstore.... I'd hate to have to spend my time buying used auto
manuals and such.

Hope you had a fine Christmas and that the New Year brings you peace
and prosperity.

David

Hey, David.

My thought was that her asking price was so low that there was just
enough good stuff in there to make back that money, and then there
would be a general, if somewhat mediocre, stock to work with. The
store is out of the way from one point of view, but from another it is
the only used book store I know of in what the U.S. Census Bureau
recently proclaimed the fastest growing county in the U.S. I think
there is a lot of potential there.

Or, perhaps I was just hoping that there would be some gem buried
beneath it all that would make the whole deal worthwhile. But it
doesn't matter now. It will be interesting, though, to see what the
new owner does with it.
William M. Klimon
http://www.catholicbookcollector.com

On 4 Jan 2005 16:13:46 -0800, "William M. Klimon"
wrote:

One great find was Brian Victoria's ZEN AT WAR, which is
a $50-$100 book

Ooh, thanks for the heads-up. I think I paid $5 at the MIT bookstore
8-)

I just love the cover of "the monks (chanting) before they went into
battle". Very Fish-called-Wanda 8-)