Village Squire, 1978-09, Page 16children's book catalogues and pick out what they feel are the
best books. She gets the antique dealers in town to recommend
the best books on antiques. Her science fiction fans will help
order the science fiction books. And if a regular customer asks
her to make a special order of a certain book, she'll often order
an extra copy for the book shop.
"Ordering is fascinating," she says. "Ordering for Christmas
is like playing Russian roulette. I'm inexperienced and it
probably would have helped if I'd worked in a book shop before
hand but I think you still have to be in the community and know it
and you have to take the chances. I always order
with the thought
that I won't return."
Returning books is really a nuisance and is expensive because
of shipping costs, she says. She tries to order with the thought
that she can sell so many of this kind of book and so many of that
but that can get crossed up. A book expected to be popular, for
instance, can get a bad review and another will get a lot of
coverage in the local press or on radio and television and sales
will take off. An example of the latter is the book In Toucb by the
Chernicks of London. She expected it to sell about three copies
because of the nature of the subject, a case history of a marriage
in trouble. But the book got a lot of publicity and it sold perhaps
30 copies in The Book Shop.
Another such book was Betty Jane Wiley of Stratford,
Beginnings, about starting over again after being widowed. It
was an excellent book but she felt that coming as it did at
Christmas, it was something that would be a strange gift for
Christmas. The book was an enormously popular Christmas gift
however, possibly because Mrs. Wylie was local, but also
because many people were giving it as gifts to women who had
been widowed.
Hard cover fiction is a thing she wants to have in the store but
is a very poor seller in the book store. But, she says, you've got
to have a fiction section.
Ordering books for a small book shop is a problem. It can take
up to three weeks for an order of books to arrixe. If there were
two persons involved in the shop she'd probably go to Toronto
and pick up the books, she says, because there would be
someone behind to mind the shop. As it is she picks up the books
as often as possible. When her husband retires. she thinks she
will go down to pick up all her books.
In the U.S., she says, the ordering system is much easier.
There is one distribution point for all books so it's a case of
making one order, writing one cheque. Here. a book seller deals
with each publisher individually and that can mean dealing with
60 or 70 publishers meaning 60-70 invoices and 60-70 cheques
she has to write.
Discussing the growing controversy about books in the schools
and what should and shouldn't be allowed for students to read
and the concern that the next move ;may be against public
libraries. Mrs. Johnston says she does get some of the same kind
of flack. Sometimes people will say things such as "I'm
surprised you'd have that on your shelf, meaning Catcher in the
Rye or something else. I say there was nothing offensive to me in
that book."
Her clientele, she says, covers the whole spectrum of ages in
the community. She tries hard to encourage young people to read
good books, having a special selection of books by authors like
Paul Zindel to encourage them to read more. She gets delight
with a trend of farm children to come to town on Saturday with
their allowance to pick out a book to buy. The Amish children
come in and buy many horse stories. It's such a delight. she
says. to see children spending an hour going through books.
Running ,a book shop is hard work, she says but she really
enjoys it. It's a very satisfying thing, she says to help customers
choose good books that they'll like for themselves or as gifts.
Margaret Johnston proves again that success in a bookstore is
measured by more than the balance sheet.
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1978. PG. 15.