9 ms·

Lessons from Owning a Bookstore

123 points by jseliger 5y ago

fumeux_fume 5y ago
I came for some stories about starting a bookstore and all I got was a bunch of platitudes about adveristy.
- runevault 5y ago
  Adversity and Stoicism is sort of his shtick. If you aren't aware of who he is its understandable how you'd be like "well this isn't what I wanted," and part of where HN/Reddit links can get weird for me. People who frequent a particular site know what they are in for from the title because they have the context of the person. Link sites are just places with a lot of information with some flavor but not to the same degree.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    For people who need to hear these kinds of words, these messages, I'm sure this content is valuable, but for folks who don't need to hear, "Confidence is earned" it tends to come across as trite and uninspiring. I have no idea where HN lands on that spectrum, but for me it evokes substantial eye rolling. "Yes, yes -- take risks, start small, do experiments, be the eternal student. Got it." Not that I'm acing any of those tests, but I'm probably at a point where hearing it a thousandth time isn't realistically likely to change my perspective on those topics. Not everyone is where I'm at! But if you are, I don't imagine these kinds of words/messages are going to excite you.
    - runevault 5y ago
      Yup you aren't wrong. But there is a HUGE cottage industry around this sort of thing, be it self help books or other forms. I don't have exact figures but I'm under the impression Ryan has made a LOT of money off using the angle of stoicism/The Obstacle is the Way (he even has a book titled this) to offer the idea of inspiration for those who want it but can't seem to find it. Does it actually work for people? Hell if I know, and the industry that has any hope of gathering that data doesn't want to know because if the answer is no and it gets out their entire money engine dies.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Reading his about page should give you a clear indication why. Almost the first sentence is "I dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power." I've always been extremely wary of people who pursue power for its own sake, before they're even fully formed humans. A common technique they choose to acquire power is hucking drivel to other people who view the world the same way - commonly writing in those platitudes about overcoming adversity. I've literally never heard of this guy, but just from reading this hn post, I can almost guarantee you he has published a book that can be summed up in about 2 sentences but is inexplicably 125 pages.
  - browningstreet 5y ago
    You're completely wrong about who Ryan Holiday is. You can start by searching for his name on his own bookshop website: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=ryan+holiday https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=ryan+h...*
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      Seeing titles like "Courage is Calling", "Stillness is the Key", and "Trust Me, I'm Lying" only make me more confident in my point, not less. But, I'm not going to buy these books just to see if my hunch developed over 15 seconds is correct.
      - Kaibeezy 5y ago
        I found “The Obstacle Is The Way” useful and accessible, and I went on to read Marcus, Seneca and others. I appreciate the introduction Holiday provided. Any combination of factors that allows the opening of something like an independent bookshop is A-OK by me. Maybe Tim Ferriss will open a wood-fired pizzeria.
      - phnofive 5y ago
        > Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave I think I will judge that book by the words on its cover.
      - 5y ago
kevinwang 5y ago
I'd be interested in quantifying "doing great" -- does this person have revenue numbers or anything like that elsewhere?
- cfeduke 5y ago
  Google Ryan Holiday net worth, estimates are between 6.5 and 8 million. Of that, the book store likely [just a guess] accounts for... likely next to none of that. :) But it may employ people and serve as an office and sometimes distribution point for Holiday's own books. And that could be "doing great." My wife and I owned a brick and mortar hobby store for a decade that was "doing great." It never made any money, but it employed a dozen people and fostered a wargaming community which is still vibrant to this day even after the store sold its assets to another hobby retailer.
teddyh 5y ago
Not much there actually relevant to books. Here’s something for those who wanted that: http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/dealers-dilemma http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/dealers-dilemma
- Nzen 5y ago
  You could also try playing the community translation of 本屋物語 [0], a bookstore simulation game. I wasn't able to, given the hex edit hacking used to insert the translated text without recompiling, but maybe your copy of windows will match that of the repository owner. [0] discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27323748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27323748 [1] https://github.com/xraymemory/bookstory-en/issues/8 https://github.com/xraymemory/bookstory-en/issues/8
robotsteve2 5y ago
> I’m happy enough to be putting books out in the world, making this community better, having a physical space, challenging myself, etc…as long as I don’t lose lots of money, that’s a win. The author defines book store success as "not losing lots of money." I think readers should be cautious to interpret this as a traditional business success story, since the author clearly views the book store as a hobby project more than a business.
krelian 5y ago
It's a dream of mine to own a Bookstore. Something similar to what's described in the article. Not a ton of books only books I know are good and interesting. Have the a store with a personal touch. I just can't see how it's going to work financially. I don't plan to get rich from it but I sure would like it to sustain itself and be able to provide for my family. I guess if you already have a business that's bringing in the cash and you open the store as a hobby that makes things easier, this seems to be the case for the writer of that article.
- browningstreet 5y ago
  But there are bookstores that have launched recently and have grown. The one in Truckee, CA is an obvious example. It's definitely not a hobby operation. https://www.yelp.com/biz/word-after-word-books-truckee https://www.yelp.com/biz/word-after-word-books-truckee
  - ddoran 5y ago
    Rough Draft in Kingston, NY is another one. It's definitely my favorite bookshop right now. It helps to have a great coffee bar and booze bar and a cool historical building, but most of all it helps to be in a city to which hipsters have been migrating in droves in recent years. To be fair Rough Draft are as much a driver of that recent migration (along with other new similar businesses) as it is a beneficiary. They do a great job in curating their book selection, unfortunately the crowds and morning coffee queues keep me away more than I would like. https://www.roughdraftny.com https://www.roughdraftny.com
- jaimebuelta 5y ago
  Carrying only a pre selection of books can be extremely tricky, unless you find a particular niche that’s in demand. That could be easier to do in big cities, but the problem there is that the costs are higher, which pressures the amount of monthly sales to pay rent, etc. For experience running a comic book shop, I was selling a lot of stuff that I wasn’t particularly interested, but my customers liked. Now, it’s true that I had to close it after two years, but the interesting part is that it was really difficult to foresee what would be the best selling articles beforehand… Of course, alongside, I was selling a lot of stuff that quite interested me. But I had to work on with the business hat on, more than with the fan hat on, if that makes sense
thenerdhead 5y ago
It helps when you're a famous author/influencer and owner of said bookstore and have famous author/influencer friends who help promote your bookstore. This sadly isn't the case for the many gems/rare book stores in the various cities around the US. My favorite bookstores that have been opened for 30+ years are recently going out of business. Not to discredit his success, but if anyone else followed these tips and did not have such a large following online, they would probably go under too. The one thing I think his bookstore does better than others? A personal curated collection. Also, Holiday is just simply a better marketer than your average bookstore owner. So just remember: - Start small. ... - Be famous.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jkaptur 5y ago
  He notes that, though it is a little buried: > Permission assets are everything. All my success as a writer, right down to this bookstore, has been rooted in the email lists and social media accounts I have built.
- bombcar 5y ago
  A lot of those bookstores that are closing are because the owner is retiring and it's not financially capable of standing on its own. The owner often owns the building which lets them run at very low levels of income, which a replacement wouldn't be able to. If a community wants a bookstore to remain they'll probably need to set it up as a non-profit of some sort.
  - anamax 5y ago
    > If a community wants a bookstore to remain they'll probably need to set it up as a non-profit of some sort. That doesn't solve the problem. Space costs. So does someone working in the store. The latter is true for both owners and employees.
    - meristohm 5y ago
smm11 5y ago
A parent started a used bookstore when I was kid in the 70s. I have no idea where the initial bunch of books came from, but we'd buy books and magazines, too. I spent the summer with a ton of MAD, Cracked, Cartoons, and when nobody was looking Playboy magazines, a lot from the 50s and 60s. A lot of WWII stuff was around as well, Sad Sack stuff.
EarthLaunch 5y ago
I was turned away from this bookstore yesterday for not masking! What a coincidence to see this here. I always stop for a bookstore. When I step through the door, I pause to take in the atmosphere and decide where to start browsing. Here, the person politely requested I don a mask. There were free masks available. Everyone browsing turned to look at me. I said, “oh…that’s okay, thank you” and politely went back outside. I would mask to browse books or when someone asked me to. But I wasn’t prepared to be put on the spot like that. It’s not what I go to bookstores for. :(
- misiti3780 5y ago
  I like Ryan's book recs and he is clearly a very smart, well read person, but he read one book about the 1918 flu and acts like he is a virologist. Some people are never going to let covid go, based on the content in his newsletter, he is one of them.
  - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    It feels like some people will NEVER let it go, but if you look at with a 3,000 foot perspective it was really only 3 months ago that we had a real relevant wave. Maybe some of the people who got hit harder, or have higher anxiety will be worried for longer than we think they should, but I doubt that worry will extend a year or two past the rest of us.
    - misiti3780 5y ago
      i hope you're right.
- wollsmoth 5y ago
  You say that you'll put on a mask to browse books. But you walked into a bookstore without one. You say you'll put on a mask if asked. But they did ask. Politely, as you noted. How would you have preferred that they handled that situation?
  - 5y ago
petercooper 5y ago
I've noticed a few people here saying they wanted to read about the experience of owning a book store. I can strongly recommend "The Diary of a Bookseller" by Shaun Bythell after ending up at his very eclectic book shop in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and discovering he's actually a fantastic diarist too. A bit more background: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/22/diary-of-bookseller-shaun-bythell-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/22/diary-of-books...
- robocat 5y ago
  George Orwell wrote an essay on his experience working in a book shop: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/bookshop-memories/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... He worked there 1934+ and wrote the essay in 1936[1]. The main character of his novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying worked in a book store - with some scathing character vignettes of the customers! Despressing book and Eric Blair himself disliked it “Orwell refused to allow either Keep the Aspidistra Flying or his first novel, the considerably weaker A Clergyman's Daughter, to be reprinted in his lifetime.”[2] [1] https://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/media/file/BMLetterpressFinal.pdf https://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/media/file/BMLetterpres... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/06/georgeorwell.classics https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/06/georgeorwell.c...
jaimebuelta 5y ago
It’s incredibly obvious that the bookstore is not a real business, more like a hobby where he can do what he likes, without pressure… this obviously gives a different perspective… Disclaimer: I actually run a comic book shop, that’s very similar to a bookshop and have quite different experience and took different lessons from it. (Unfortunately, I had to close it after two years. I talked about it in a blog post, in case someone finds it interesting https://wrongsideofmemphis.com/2013/04/01/i-was-once-a-non-tech-entrepreneur/ https://wrongsideofmemphis.com/2013/04/01/i-was-once-a-non-t... )
ggm 5y ago
Partner ran a second hand book store. Some customers are lovely but I stress some. Old books are dirty. There are insects, mould, dust, fingernails, yes, the first five odd bookmarks are funny but after a while, dead peoples bus tickets aren't amusing. It's hard work. Margins are thin. Paper weighs a tonne and people overpack boxes.
tonguez 5y ago
“As Zeno said, books are a way to have conversations with the dead. You can learn from people who came before you. They can also inspire and reassure you.” wtf am i reading?
satori99 5y ago
There used to be a 2nd hand book store in my neighbourhood that was obviously a labour of love. It was a tiny premises with a single proprietor, who opened at very odd hours. He was often open in the middle of the night and closed during the daytime. I barely ever spoke to him, as I sensed he preferred it that way but he would sometimes unlock the door for me even if he didn't want any other customers. Sadly, his store disappeared when the area became gentrified. It was just gone one day. There seems to be very little space in modern cities for this type of thing anymore, and I miss it.

123 points by jseliger 5y ago

fumeux_fume 5y ago

I came for some stories about starting a bookstore and all I got was a bunch of platitudes about adveristy.

runevault 5y ago
Adversity and Stoicism is sort of his shtick. If you aren't aware of who he is its understandable how you'd be like "well this isn't what I wanted," and part of where HN/Reddit links can get weird for me. People who frequent a particular site know what they are in for from the title because they have the context of the person. Link sites are just places with a lot of information with some flavor but not to the same degree.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  For people who need to hear these kinds of words, these messages, I'm sure this content is valuable, but for folks who don't need to hear, "Confidence is earned" it tends to come across as trite and uninspiring. I have no idea where HN lands on that spectrum, but for me it evokes substantial eye rolling. "Yes, yes -- take risks, start small, do experiments, be the eternal student. Got it." Not that I'm acing any of those tests, but I'm probably at a point where hearing it a thousandth time isn't realistically likely to change my perspective on those topics. Not everyone is where I'm at! But if you are, I don't imagine these kinds of words/messages are going to excite you.
  - runevault 5y ago
    Yup you aren't wrong. But there is a HUGE cottage industry around this sort of thing, be it self help books or other forms. I don't have exact figures but I'm under the impression Ryan has made a LOT of money off using the angle of stoicism/The Obstacle is the Way (he even has a book titled this) to offer the idea of inspiration for those who want it but can't seem to find it. Does it actually work for people? Hell if I know, and the industry that has any hope of gathering that data doesn't want to know because if the answer is no and it gets out their entire money engine dies.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Reading his about page should give you a clear indication why. Almost the first sentence is "I dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power." I've always been extremely wary of people who pursue power for its own sake, before they're even fully formed humans. A common technique they choose to acquire power is hucking drivel to other people who view the world the same way - commonly writing in those platitudes about overcoming adversity. I've literally never heard of this guy, but just from reading this hn post, I can almost guarantee you he has published a book that can be summed up in about 2 sentences but is inexplicably 125 pages.
- browningstreet 5y ago
  You're completely wrong about who Ryan Holiday is. You can start by searching for his name on his own bookshop website: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=ryan+holiday https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=ryan+h...*
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    Seeing titles like "Courage is Calling", "Stillness is the Key", and "Trust Me, I'm Lying" only make me more confident in my point, not less. But, I'm not going to buy these books just to see if my hunch developed over 15 seconds is correct.
    - Kaibeezy 5y ago
      I found “The Obstacle Is The Way” useful and accessible, and I went on to read Marcus, Seneca and others. I appreciate the introduction Holiday provided. Any combination of factors that allows the opening of something like an independent bookshop is A-OK by me. Maybe Tim Ferriss will open a wood-fired pizzeria.
    - phnofive 5y ago
      > Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave I think I will judge that book by the words on its cover.
    - 5y ago

kevinwang 5y ago

I'd be interested in quantifying "doing great" -- does this person have revenue numbers or anything like that elsewhere?

cfeduke 5y ago
Google Ryan Holiday net worth, estimates are between 6.5 and 8 million. Of that, the book store likely [just a guess] accounts for... likely next to none of that. :) But it may employ people and serve as an office and sometimes distribution point for Holiday's own books. And that could be "doing great." My wife and I owned a brick and mortar hobby store for a decade that was "doing great." It never made any money, but it employed a dozen people and fostered a wargaming community which is still vibrant to this day even after the store sold its assets to another hobby retailer.

teddyh 5y ago

Not much there actually relevant to books. Here’s something for those who wanted that: http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/dealers-dilemma http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/dealers-dilemma

Nzen 5y ago
You could also try playing the community translation of 本屋物語 [0], a bookstore simulation game. I wasn't able to, given the hex edit hacking used to insert the translated text without recompiling, but maybe your copy of windows will match that of the repository owner. [0] discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27323748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27323748 [1] https://github.com/xraymemory/bookstory-en/issues/8 https://github.com/xraymemory/bookstory-en/issues/8

robotsteve2 5y ago

> I’m happy enough to be putting books out in the world, making this community better, having a physical space, challenging myself, etc…as long as I don’t lose lots of money, that’s a win. The author defines book store success as "not losing lots of money." I think readers should be cautious to interpret this as a traditional business success story, since the author clearly views the book store as a hobby project more than a business.

krelian 5y ago

It's a dream of mine to own a Bookstore. Something similar to what's described in the article. Not a ton of books only books I know are good and interesting. Have the a store with a personal touch. I just can't see how it's going to work financially. I don't plan to get rich from it but I sure would like it to sustain itself and be able to provide for my family. I guess if you already have a business that's bringing in the cash and you open the store as a hobby that makes things easier, this seems to be the case for the writer of that article.

browningstreet 5y ago
But there are bookstores that have launched recently and have grown. The one in Truckee, CA is an obvious example. It's definitely not a hobby operation. https://www.yelp.com/biz/word-after-word-books-truckee https://www.yelp.com/biz/word-after-word-books-truckee
- ddoran 5y ago
  Rough Draft in Kingston, NY is another one. It's definitely my favorite bookshop right now. It helps to have a great coffee bar and booze bar and a cool historical building, but most of all it helps to be in a city to which hipsters have been migrating in droves in recent years. To be fair Rough Draft are as much a driver of that recent migration (along with other new similar businesses) as it is a beneficiary. They do a great job in curating their book selection, unfortunately the crowds and morning coffee queues keep me away more than I would like. https://www.roughdraftny.com https://www.roughdraftny.com
jaimebuelta 5y ago
Carrying only a pre selection of books can be extremely tricky, unless you find a particular niche that’s in demand. That could be easier to do in big cities, but the problem there is that the costs are higher, which pressures the amount of monthly sales to pay rent, etc. For experience running a comic book shop, I was selling a lot of stuff that I wasn’t particularly interested, but my customers liked. Now, it’s true that I had to close it after two years, but the interesting part is that it was really difficult to foresee what would be the best selling articles beforehand… Of course, alongside, I was selling a lot of stuff that quite interested me. But I had to work on with the business hat on, more than with the fan hat on, if that makes sense

thenerdhead 5y ago

It helps when you're a famous author/influencer and owner of said bookstore and have famous author/influencer friends who help promote your bookstore. This sadly isn't the case for the many gems/rare book stores in the various cities around the US. My favorite bookstores that have been opened for 30+ years are recently going out of business. Not to discredit his success, but if anyone else followed these tips and did not have such a large following online, they would probably go under too. The one thing I think his bookstore does better than others? A personal curated collection. Also, Holiday is just simply a better marketer than your average bookstore owner. So just remember: - Start small. ... - Be famous.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jkaptur 5y ago
He notes that, though it is a little buried: > Permission assets are everything. All my success as a writer, right down to this bookstore, has been rooted in the email lists and social media accounts I have built.
bombcar 5y ago
A lot of those bookstores that are closing are because the owner is retiring and it's not financially capable of standing on its own. The owner often owns the building which lets them run at very low levels of income, which a replacement wouldn't be able to. If a community wants a bookstore to remain they'll probably need to set it up as a non-profit of some sort.
- anamax 5y ago
  > If a community wants a bookstore to remain they'll probably need to set it up as a non-profit of some sort. That doesn't solve the problem. Space costs. So does someone working in the store. The latter is true for both owners and employees.
  - meristohm 5y ago

smm11 5y ago

A parent started a used bookstore when I was kid in the 70s. I have no idea where the initial bunch of books came from, but we'd buy books and magazines, too. I spent the summer with a ton of MAD, Cracked, Cartoons, and when nobody was looking Playboy magazines, a lot from the 50s and 60s. A lot of WWII stuff was around as well, Sad Sack stuff.

EarthLaunch 5y ago

I was turned away from this bookstore yesterday for not masking! What a coincidence to see this here. I always stop for a bookstore. When I step through the door, I pause to take in the atmosphere and decide where to start browsing. Here, the person politely requested I don a mask. There were free masks available. Everyone browsing turned to look at me. I said, “oh…that’s okay, thank you” and politely went back outside. I would mask to browse books or when someone asked me to. But I wasn’t prepared to be put on the spot like that. It’s not what I go to bookstores for. :(

misiti3780 5y ago
I like Ryan's book recs and he is clearly a very smart, well read person, but he read one book about the 1918 flu and acts like he is a virologist. Some people are never going to let covid go, based on the content in his newsletter, he is one of them.
- ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  It feels like some people will NEVER let it go, but if you look at with a 3,000 foot perspective it was really only 3 months ago that we had a real relevant wave. Maybe some of the people who got hit harder, or have higher anxiety will be worried for longer than we think they should, but I doubt that worry will extend a year or two past the rest of us.
  - misiti3780 5y ago
    i hope you're right.
wollsmoth 5y ago
You say that you'll put on a mask to browse books. But you walked into a bookstore without one. You say you'll put on a mask if asked. But they did ask. Politely, as you noted. How would you have preferred that they handled that situation?
- 5y ago

petercooper 5y ago

I've noticed a few people here saying they wanted to read about the experience of owning a book store. I can strongly recommend "The Diary of a Bookseller" by Shaun Bythell after ending up at his very eclectic book shop in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and discovering he's actually a fantastic diarist too. A bit more background: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/22/diary-of-bookseller-shaun-bythell-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/22/diary-of-books...

robocat 5y ago
George Orwell wrote an essay on his experience working in a book shop: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/bookshop-memories/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... He worked there 1934+ and wrote the essay in 1936[1]. The main character of his novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying worked in a book store - with some scathing character vignettes of the customers! Despressing book and Eric Blair himself disliked it “Orwell refused to allow either Keep the Aspidistra Flying or his first novel, the considerably weaker A Clergyman's Daughter, to be reprinted in his lifetime.”[2] [1] https://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/media/file/BMLetterpressFinal.pdf https://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/media/file/BMLetterpres... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/06/georgeorwell.classics https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/06/georgeorwell.c...

jaimebuelta 5y ago

It’s incredibly obvious that the bookstore is not a real business, more like a hobby where he can do what he likes, without pressure… this obviously gives a different perspective… Disclaimer: I actually run a comic book shop, that’s very similar to a bookshop and have quite different experience and took different lessons from it. (Unfortunately, I had to close it after two years. I talked about it in a blog post, in case someone finds it interesting https://wrongsideofmemphis.com/2013/04/01/i-was-once-a-non-tech-entrepreneur/ https://wrongsideofmemphis.com/2013/04/01/i-was-once-a-non-t... )

ggm 5y ago

Partner ran a second hand book store. Some customers are lovely but I stress some. Old books are dirty. There are insects, mould, dust, fingernails, yes, the first five odd bookmarks are funny but after a while, dead peoples bus tickets aren't amusing. It's hard work. Margins are thin. Paper weighs a tonne and people overpack boxes.

tonguez 5y ago

“As Zeno said, books are a way to have conversations with the dead. You can learn from people who came before you. They can also inspire and reassure you.” wtf am i reading?

satori99 5y ago

There used to be a 2nd hand book store in my neighbourhood that was obviously a labour of love. It was a tiny premises with a single proprietor, who opened at very odd hours. He was often open in the middle of the night and closed during the daytime. I barely ever spoke to him, as I sensed he preferred it that way but he would sometimes unlock the door for me even if he didn't want any other customers. Sadly, his store disappeared when the area became gentrified. It was just gone one day. There seems to be very little space in modern cities for this type of thing anymore, and I miss it.