Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:25:49 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Re: I am overpaid but unsatisfied, hear me whine...


"Shawn P. Wilbur" wrote:
> 
> Hi. Should have responded to this sooner, but i've been burning it at all
> possible ends, trying to keep the wolf from the door of my radical
> bookstore.

Do you need us to send some money to help slay those wolves?

> The answer to this depends a great deal on what you think you want or need
> to carry and where you intend to set up shop. I doubt that i have much
> more than $2000 in explicitly anarchist books in stock at any given time,
> and a great deal of that is obscure stuff that turns over very slowly, but
> which i keep around for the handful of folks who come in looking for the
> stuff they can't find anywhere else. If you sent $1000 off to Northern
> sun, for example, you could probably get enough shirts, cards, posters,
> coffee mugs, etc to at least get the non-book side of things rolling.
> Depending on how far from the anarchist core you want to stray, there gets
> to be more and more stuff you can spend money on. Some of the political
> stuff is realy cheap - a couple of hundred bucks would probably get you
> most of what you would want to stock from leftist sources like
> International and NY Labor News.

We're trying to open up an infoshop and possible bookstore in D.C. I
have experience working at Rainbow Bookstore in Madison (a cooperative).
Yes, anarchist stuff turns over really slowly, which is something all of
you propagandists should consider. Anarchists like to whine about how
leftists push dreadfully boring books, but ignore the fact that
anarchists push dreadfully boring, or hopelessly outdated anarchist
tomes. If you want your anarchist bookstore to remain open, you HAVE to
have a diverse selection. You can't replicate the stock of say,
Pathfinder Bookstore, which just sells books on Marx, Che, and Nelson
Mandela. They stay open because they get donations from wealthy commies
(they used to get money from the Soviet Union).

> I would actually suggest not trying to live off an "anarchist bookstore"
> organized along specialty shop lines. I know very few radical booksellers
> who are making much money off their radical books. I sell a lot of science
> fiction and romance novels, plus a lot of classic literature. Stephen King
> and JD Salinger keep the doors open, so i can continue to have Kropotkin
> (or Freddie's book, or Practical Anarchy) featured in the front room. If
> you're serious about a store, and want some general stock, to broaden your
> appeal, then talk to me about a wholesale deal - when i bought Pauper's i
> bought something like 135,000 used books in inventory. I'm sure i could
> help someone put together an inexpensive base stock.

Thanks for the plug Shawn. I'll be sending new issues in several weeks,
after we put some more together (Black Planet gets a shipment tomorrow).
Shawn is correct about having diversity in your book stock. You should
have books on all kinds of topics, by a range of academic, left,
anarchist, and even mainstream publishers. Rainbow stayed in business
because it had a diverse stock, PLUS the fact that it sold textbooks
during two months of the year. Selling textbooks paid the rent.

Selling a diverse range of materials is essential to allow you to stock
a range of  anarchist stuff. Everybody loves to bitch about how AK Press
sells all kinds of stuff that isn't anarchist, but they don't understand
the correct observation that Ramsey told me once: "If I have to sell 4
conspiracy titles in order to print one new anarchist book, it's worth
it." This is a paraphrase, but you should get the drift. I have no time
for people who complain about publishers, bookstores, or magazine
publishers, who have never tried to do any of these things.

It's hard fucking work. But it is rewarding.

Good luck!

-- 
Chuck0

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
http://www.infoshop.org/

Spunk Press
http://www.spunk.org/
"All the anarchy you'll ever need, organized neatly 
and with reassuring authority."
  -- 1998 Rough Guide to the Internet
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+