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Any chance you'd consider making book sales a smaller part of what your store does in favor of other sources of revenue? One of the few things brick-and-mortar
by fratis 14y ago
Any chance you'd consider making book sales a smaller part of what your store does in favor of other sources of revenue? One of the few things brick-and-mortar shops can do that Amazon still can't is bring people together, to Be A Place. You can.
A few ideas to consider along those lines, either individually or as smaller pieces of a larger concept:
- Become a hacker/student-centric coffee shop that enables freelancers, et al, to work in a less frenetic environment than Starbucks
- (Not sure how big your space is, but) Build a small stage (or not) and host local singers and poets as well as professor and/or student talks
- Become a resource for finding hard-to-get books and charge a premium for it
- Host book sales, etc., for the local universities where students can buy/sell from each other, then give a small discount on books students are searching for but can't find at the sale
Not sure how intent you are on maintaining the store's identity as a Place That Sells Books, but you have a lot of options, I think, if you want to go in another direction altogether – or even partly.
- weisser 14y agoI think there is always a need for more hacker/startup community spaces in Boston/Cambridge; especially ones that are not coworking spaces/offices. There can always be more events too. How about hosting an in-person brand/biz hack of the store?
- fratis 14y agoYour comment reminds me of a segment of Urbanized, the documentary [1], in which a young woman, Candy Chang [2], creates a simple system for enabling citizens to voice their opinions on what should be done with vacant buildings in varying states of disrepair. She created vinyl stickers that read "I Wish This Was", under which is a blank white space (resembling the My Name Is stickers common to networking events, etc.). She affixes a grid of the stickers to the building/scaffolding/whatever along with a Sharpie, and folks passing by write their suggestions on the stickers. For me, what makes her idea so incredible is that the suggestions are made in context; they're not discussed at a town hall meeting miles away from the location, they're not submitted online in a fancy web app, and they're not handed down by local government among suggestions for hundreds of other plots. It's great that OP is asking on HN, because I think (s)he'll get some great responses here, but the best place to ask might be in the space itself, in the company of the folks that make it more than Some Bookstore In Massachusetts Ripe For a Pivot. Why not host an event to discuss the future of the store? Send invitations to professors and post flyers for students at local universities and see what happens. It can't hurt, right? 1. http://urbanizedfilm.com http://urbanizedfilm.com 2. http://candychang.com/i-wish-this-was/ http://candychang.com/i-wish-this-was/
- weisser 14y agoAgreed.
- antidoh 14y agoI think you're in the right part of the Venn diagram. Selling physical books in a physical store as the business is probably disappearing. Doing "something else" (exercise for the reader, sorry) that offers something book-related as one of many services is probably where the future of non-Amazon book business will be. A work-space with services ...