Booksellers Blog

I’ve been thrilled to see quite a few new bookstore blogs spring up over the last few months. Congratulations to all of you who’ve taken the plunge. I’ve tried to add everybody to the list of independent bookseller blogs on the side of Booksellers Blog, but if I’ve missed you, please let me know. You [...]

Several months ago, I posted Frequently Asked Questions about Blogging, which ran over the course of 10 days. Since then, I’ve spoken to many booksellers about blogging, and now I have a few inquiries to add to the list of “frequently asked questions.” Question: How often do I have to blog? My response: if it [...]

I’ve been very excited to hear from a few booksellers that they have recently started blogs. Because I’m not sure if they are ready for public dissemination yet, I won’t post the links here now — but if you are a bookseller who has recently started a blog, and you want some visitors, please let [...]

Have you watched the Gary Vaynerchuk BEA video yet? If not, please do. Really. It’s not only motivating, Gary brings up some controversial topics that I would love to see debated and discussed among booksellers. If those things are being talked about somewhere, would you please let me know where? If you have watched the [...]

This morning, an article from The Associated Press crossed my computer monitor: Forget stores, Book fairs are enjoying profits. Book fairs are a lot of work I know that many independent bookstores do book fairs, using various models. And I know that other stores would like to do them, but can’t justify the labor and [...]

We’ve talked a lot here about promoting the store and your community through social networking and blogging. But we haven’t talked much about promoting specific books. Do you remember “Reservation Boards”? Here’s where I admit that I am as old as dirt. When I first started working as a sales rep, Reservation Boards were a [...]

Today’s guest post is by Patrick Brown.  Patrick is the webmaster and blogger for Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, CA.  Before joining the staff at Vroman’s, he worked at Book Soup in West Hollywood, and briefly at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.  He has written book reviews for Publishers Weekly and was a regular contributor to [...]

ROI. “Return on Investment.” It’s a phrase that comes up over and over again when reading about social media and online marketing initiatives. Everyone wants to know how to measure it. The truth is, it’s not always easy to measure. If you were an online-only retailer and your social media efforts were focused solely on [...]

So we know it happens. People shop in your store, write down the information about a book they want, and then go home and order it online. So isn’t putting your Staff Recommendations online for all to see going result in people buying those books elsewhere, too? Should you restrict your Staff Picks to in-store [...]

Of course, it’s the million dollar question: will blogging sell books? As expected, there’s no easy answer. If you feature a particular book on your blog, you may sell a few copies. Or you may not. Does your e-newsletter generate sales of specific books that you feature? Do you track it? I would suggest that [...]