Lending a Hand...

I’ve been given a wide remit with this new column. I can talk about publishing trends, bookselling, reviewing, all the things that suck up my personal life and overwhelm me as they do many booksellers.

It’s a tougher trade than some people might give it credit for.

But some things really make it worthwhile. Especially when you love books.

And there are few joys in the bookselling world that compare to that of handselling.

I’m talking real handselling here. I’m talking about when you convince a reader to take a chance on an author you know needs to be more widely appreciated. Or when you pass on a single book just because... goddamn, it has to be read.

Some days, when you read the news and the trade papers you start to think: the book trade is screwed. Seriously: the papers say things, no one is reading any more, only a handful of books are ever being bought, the midlist writers are being shoved out by an ever more powerful elite of … for want of a better term… superwriters… whose books sell daft amounts and whose readers only want more of the same.

This stuff – and you read and hear about it daily – can be a killer to those of us who sell books because we love to read. We think: God, the industry’s screwed and maybe even start to consider the job as a kind of battlefield – one where it looks increasingly like we’re on the losing side.

But then you get it; the customer in looking for a book who just knows they want to read… something. Who asks for advice or casually picks up a book in a moment of curiosity. And you talk to them.

And suddenly you understand what bookselling’s really all about.

Spreading the fever about things you love.

(and earning cash while doing it!)

I love to sell books to people. Seriously, I’ll even recommend books that don’t set me alight if I think they’re right for the reader.

I’ll try and gently convince people to move out of their comfort zones and expand their reading pool.

I’ll push the independent publishers who put real work into their books (and the mainstream ones, too, of course - any publisher who impresses me, in fact)

I’ll push authors who just thrill me, I don’t give a damn about the size of their backlist.

I’ll push the books I love, the books I want people to read.

And, believe me, there’s no better thrill than to have someone come back saying, “Dammit, I loved that.”

That’s what it’s all about.

Right there.

The last three words being the best you can hear in this line of work (so let’s hear ‘em again):

“I loved that.”



Even better, when these people become regulars. When they come in and look for you. When they start reccomending books back. When a bookshop becomes...



a community.

It’s the heart of bookselling. Like record stores, we’re not selling a commodity in the same way as fashion outlets or grocery stores. Books (and music) are intensely personal items. You can’t pick up any book and expect to love it. It’s got to connect with you on some emotional level. Have that click. It doesn’t have to be a click you can quantify, either. Just one you can feel.

And a good bookseller has to try and – like a matchmaker, I suppose – get the right books to the right people. They have to understand the click on some level. Know their own reading habits, what makes them love books and be able to identify something like that in other people.

I believe – somewhat fervently – that booksellers are the ones on the front line in the bookselling world, that without their interaction and enthusiasm, the booktrade couldn’t thrive. Internet selling is genius in many ways, but nothing matches the genuine click of having a book reccomended in person.



Handselling and genuine enthusiasm can and should make all the difference in a book’s fortunes.


Without handselling, without that genuinely human enthusiasm – removed from marketing and promotional hype and driven by a genuine love of books – I think we will lose readers. Through handselling, you get to interact and understand other readers. You get to encourage and influence their reading choices. You get to pass along that fire of enthusiasm that you feel when reading certain books.

And along the line - the bottom one for any business - you get people to buy the product.

Which in the end, is what the job is all about.

Getting people to buy books. But dammit, we can do that and feel good about it, too.



Russel D McLean, February 27, 2008



Russel D McLean is a Scottish bookseller who works at the local branch of a national chain. The opinions expressed in this column are entirely his own and as such subject to fallability, stupidity and occasional insanity. His personal blog is at http://www.theseayemeanstreet.blogspot.com/, and you can find his reviews at http://www.crimescenescotlandreviews.blogspot.com/
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