Thread 24717512

>over the past year, a bookstore opened up in my town
>their hours were weird at first, and were announced on a week to week basis
>weird, but I guess they were sorting out the kinks
>finally get regular hours
>it's when most people are at work (and opened no later than 4pm
>the owner posts a story on Instagram
>she basically says "I'm having difficulty juggling being a wife, mom, pet owner and business owner. Sometimes I'll lock the door and take care of personal stuff while I'm in the shop, if you need me just ring kthxbyeee"

Why start a business if you don't want, well, business?

Sounds like the type of bookstore where you find an enchanted tome that transports you into another world.

>>24717525
So if I visit it, I'll likely be hexxin' demon-rinoed?

rich old boomers do this all the time with restaurants
they don't really want to run a business, it's just a hobby and a place for their friends to hang out
they'll be open 11-3 on Tuesdays because that's when Dave and Joe come over to wear Vietnam War baseball caps and talk about hating their wives

>>24717512 (OP)
>Why start a business if you don't want, well, business?
People think that because they like drinking tea or reading books or whatever that opening a business like a tea shop or bookstore that revolves around that interest is going to be fun. Running a business can be rewarding, but it's rarely fun.

Still, it sounds like OP's bookstore is going better than what happened when a local used bookstore changed hands. I was at the store a few days after it reopened and the article actually understates how badly the people sleeping in the basement fucked up the store.

https://qctimes.com/news/local/business/article_2ed2e6c2-bfcd-11ee-921d-a328f31a4582.html

https://archive.ph/4Lb4I (archived copy if paywalled)

>>24717566
Not sure how rich the person in the OP is, but they're a millennial. It crossed my mind that it was a pet project for them, or some way to get out of the house and pretend they're working

>>24717574
JFC poor guy. He deserved a better retirement than that. If I were in Devonport, I'd frequent the store.

The bookstore in my op just seems a bit better adjusted

>>24717593
He sold the store to some new people (hopefully things work out better this time) and retired earlier this year. I moved out of Davenport earlier this year so I'm not sure how it's doing under the new owners. It's a great used bookstore though.

>>24717578
>but they're a millennial.
Milleninnials are fucking retarded who think life is like a TV show and are just grown up children.
>oh heck man I just brought a bookshop what do you mean I need to hecking work to make money and afford rent and shitt?? Damn man fuck capitalism!!

>>24717512 (OP)
>women owner
Don’t bother going there

>>24717512 (OP)
My local bookstore changed locations twice in a little over a year. I made sure to buy a big 60 dollar box set of Churchill’s Marlborough when they reopened.

The amount of cringe shallow capitalist seething itt, who probably get unpaid in their sad job, is peak American.
>>24717512 (OP)
This sounds great. They dont need to gain the attention of PE groups. A good bookstore like this should make 90% of their sales only to known customers they get to know personally and can recommend works or let them know when something new has arrived they might appreciate or have been looking for. This will create a deeper and unique network that will bring more benefits than what greenbacks can buy.
You should learn to be less American and more European. Everything except for the cringe self-description is peak cultured. Very respectable.

>>24718488
This is completely incoherent

>>24718510
I know. Non exploitative commerce is completely alien and incoherent to you.

>>24718488
>socialist using a mythological Europe to legitmise their infantalised economic beliefs
>refers to Europe as if it's a singluar state
This is peak American behaviour.

>>24718521
Are you under the impression that European bookstores don't have consistent hours or don't care about making money?

>>24718547
second hand bookstores in European countries often do not have Walmart tier opening hours. They'll be open 4 days a week and during your slave wage cuck hours. But my point remains that personal relationships usually mean the bookstore is open 24/7 once you become an acquaintance of the owner. The good ones will not even need to pay rent because the shop and house has been in the family for generations and therefore don't care to make max profit, but instead focus on quality over quantity. It's good to be European.
>>24718531
I live in Europe and frequent local antiquarian bookshops.
>or don't care about making money?
They don't. Its a formality and often "pay as you please" or "this one is free".

It's almost sad how incredulous you are at such an existence being possible.

>>24717512 (OP)
Most people have no idea how difficult it is to run a successful small business.

Also, in my area, there are few weird hobby shop businesses ran by wives. The husbands essentially fund the business and cover the monthly loses. Its weird but thats just how life is sometimes.

>>24718136
This is true. I was raised in a family where both my parents were self-employed. Their golden rule for having a shop is this: you can never be closed. Harsh but true.

>>24718648
>there are few weird hobby shop businesses ran by wives. The husbands essentially fund the business and cover the monthly loses
God, I wish I were a girl. You get to live life constantly with numbers in the red because others want to subsidize your existence in every way. Why do they get everything handed to them? Why don't they have to stand up to the free market scrutiny in the same way it ended up on everyone else's plate? They're not even having kids, so why bother? I am so incredibly jealous.

>>24718648
>The husbands essentially fund the business and cover the monthly loses.
I see so many shops like these in my local town where, when you look in, you can see it is just a little playroom with all her favorite, pretty things for a little girl who never actually had to grow up out of her childhood bedroom. There is no way they break even simply based on the number of customers I see and how they come and go every couple years jej

>>24718659
>>24718667
Yah, they are essentially hobby businesses. Either the kids are a school, or they have no kids, so the wives want to fill their days with something. And, for some reason, getting an actual paying job that increases the wealth of the family is too degrading or something.

>>24718673
Bet that relationship makes for better sex.

>>24718667
> I see so many shops like these in my local town where, when you look in, you can see it is just a little playroom with all her favorite, pretty things for a little girl who never actually had to grow up out of her childhood bedroom.

Don’t make this sound hotter than it is

>>24718558
>second hand bookstores in European countries often do not have Walmart tier opening hours.
I said "consistent" hours, not open all the damn time. It's fairly common for antique and vintage stores in the US to only be open for a few days a week, but that usually means 10-4 every Thursday and Friday or something, not hours bouncing around all the time.

>>24718648
>Also, in my area, there are few weird hobby shop businesses ran by wives. The husbands essentially fund the business and cover the monthly loses. Its weird but thats just how life is sometimes.
Being well off is having a wife who doesn't work. Being rich is having a wife with a business that loses $10,000 a month.

>>24718488
The posts responding to this are retarded, this is actually what an obscure bookstore in Europe is like. I once got yelled at by a bookstore owner in Pécs Hungary for trying to enter his bookshop. You had to tell him your interests and then he would provide you what he believed was best.

It’s called Bagolyfészek, the reviews on google are entertaining

>>24718767
>It’s called Bagolyfészek
It's open 10-6 6 days a week

>>24718772
lil bro, why don't you just shoot the owner a message if you are so ruffled by the opening hours. Who knows, maybe youll become friends.

>>24718488
>A good bookstore like this should make 90% of their sales only to known customers they get to know personally and can recommend works or let them know when something new has arrived they might appreciate or have been looking for. This will create a deeper and unique network that will bring more benefits than what greenbacks can buy.

Reasonable, to be honest.Even if I'm not her target demographic, I was looking forward to a small bookstore opening up in my town, as we haven't had a non-Indigo bookstore here since about 2010.

>>24717512 (OP)
how the fuck does anyone make a buck running a bookstore these days. no one reads.

>>24718972
They likely make their money from water bottles, pillows, etc. with "lol I'm a reader"-tier stuff printed on them

>>24717512 (OP)
>Boomer vanity business
>definitely not laundering money or being bankrolled by husband as a tax dodge

Many such brick and mortar cases.

>>24719316
>being bankrolled by husband as a tax dodge
Do you even know how taxes work? Losing $100k on a business doesn't save you more than $100k in taxes

>>24719488
Throwing away 6 figures to keep your wife happy and let her pretend she is an independent business woman is worth the money.

>>24717566
That sounds like the good life.

>>24717574
>Ketchmark said a person hired to run the store while she had knee surgery also let a number of vagrants use the basement to live. Blankets were used to partition off the basement into bedrooms.
Why would anyone do that?

>>24718972
The majority of business owners lose money and stay in business via jewish accounting hacks. Bookstores in some New York neighborhood where storefronts cost $20,000 a month are owned by the granddaughter of some real estate agent and they can throw money away until the end of time. Some beer company that prints trannies on the cans and loses all their customers gives their beer away for free, counts it as a sale, and makes money off investors. Business is all fake and gay.

>>24719694
As someone who worked as a tax accountant for years and runs a small antiques/vintage sales business now, I can tell you that you don't have any fucking clue what you're talking about.

>>24718767
>obscure bookshops in Europoor cities are indicative of all bookstores across Europe
Yeah, I'm thinking you're the one who's retarded.

>>24718767
>Bagolyfészek
>shop door has sign stating:
>In Pest it’s about the money, in Pécs it’s about the love (picrel)
>(bottom sign)
>open 10-6 in the day
>larper still tries convincing the board it's run by an grumpy, esoteric bookkeeper who hates the world and keeps his shop locked away unless he really likes you and your tastes
Why are trannies like this?

>>24718488
>You should learn to be less American and more European.
I'M European and I tell you, Europa is not such a nice place. Feel lucky to be American.

>>24719692
Leftism makes people do, well, let's call them "interesting" things.

>>24718488
>only to known customers they get to know personally
How would the owner ever get to known anyone when theyre closed while customers are available after work?

>>24717574
>>24719692
>>24720234
Reminds me of the French opera house that made a big deal out of housing immigrants during lockdown only for them to end up squatting there. The company who owned the opera house tried desperately to evict them this year, kek. When will people learn?

>>24720356
they meet at the cafe next door and the future customer asks "Why are you always closed? I saw a book in your window I always wanted to have." and so they become acquaintances.

This is seriously how this life works.

>>24719692
I'm the guy from Davenport who actually shopped at this bookstore for ~15 years. The guy who bought and owned the bookstore, Carter, was in no way ready to handle running a used bookstore or any other business. He was friends/acquaintances with some lousy people and hired some of them. My understanding is that he was rarely even in the store the last few months he owned it.

The article doesn't really cover just how badly the basement was trashed or the other stuff that happened when he was running the store. There were used needles and drug paraphernalia everywhere. Someone had dropped off a huge collection of books they were interested in selling ("You can just leave them here, I don't have time to go through them now but I'll look through them and call you to let you know what I want and will pay") that partially went missing and partially ended up shelved for sale. The person who dropped the books off never got paid by Carter. There were a couple other cases ("oh hey, it looks like we don't have cash in the register to buy books. Come back tomorrow and we'll pay for these books, you can just leave them here") where people didn't get paid too.

>>24720234
It wasn't a leftist or virtue signalling kind of thing. It was a druggy idiot with scumbag friends and acquaintances letting them live in the store.

lol at the dude in this thread who thinks everything in European bookstores works like the BBC sitcom Black Books. There are plenty of eccentrics and weirdos in the used book business, especially when they're dealing in rare books. They also have to make money if they want to live and stay in business which you can't do if you hang out at cafes all day and run the store like some private clubhouse.

Larry McMurtry's Books: A Memoir has some interesting accounts of the strange book dealers he's come across.

do you know how to get second handed book to open a second handed book store??

use ebay like the rest of us

>>24720593
>BBC sitcom
It's channel 4 you plebeian!

>>24721149
My mistake, lad

>>24718488
>>24718767
I can't imagine being this retarded, but I expect nothing leftists.

>>24720184
Money in Hungarian is LÓVÉ? No way.

>>24718136
That post is a bit anti-semitic eh?

>>24718558
That's a load of crap. I've lived in Europe for over twenty years, in three different countries, and I have never once seen a single bookseller let people pay whatever they want. Some might run a tab (and even then only for their most regulars), but they sure don't let customers set the price. I have been now in Paris for three years and every single bookseller I go to is open six days a week and well past regular working hours. If you've got a friendly local shopkeeper who sometimes slips you something, good for you, but don't claim it's the usual deal in Europe. Worst post I've read today.

I am 99.99% sure anyone that claims they're "European", instead of the actual country they're from, isn't European

>>24721277
Racist. All you imperialists get to form countries with hundreds of millions even billions of people lumped into one. Why arent we Europeans allowed to de-balkanize ourselves?

>>24721277
You don't have to be to see it's bullshit. I just pulled up the first indie bookshops near me, his whole sappy fantasy is made up. Anon out here luxuriates in some age of Enlightenment Europe with a festina lente filter but that's not what the real world is. Besides, having been to the US a few times, there's literally zero difference in the book market. Cut the bullshit.

>>24717512 (OP)
A lot of people who start businesses are retarded. There's some stat about how a majority of businesses close down a year after opening or something like that (it might be about restaurants, idk), which is funny because as a consumer, whenever I've interacted with a failing business its almost immediately obvious why its failing (terrible premise, service etc)

>his favorite antiquarian is listed on google
ngmi broskis

>>24721369
It's not owners who choose to be on Maps, anyone can add a place and all bookstores in major cities are listed. You should have made it clear that by "European" you meant some third-world Eastern country.

>>24721426
Im not the anon youre looking for and I'm American you retard

>>24721149
>>24720593
>>24721154
i need to finish Black Books, lads. i finished the first two seasons before dropping it for reasons I can't remember (though it was likely simply forgetting about it lmao). Bill Bailey is the GOAT, though

>>24721128
ask on normiebook/social media looking for old books. maybe garage/boot sales, library sales, etc.

There's an old autistic guy in my town who feverishly gathers books over a period of several months.
Once he has enough, he puts a sign up on the main road leading out of town which directs you to his house.
If you go there, you'll find his lawn sprawling with boxes of books and his shed full of shelves which have even more.
They're about $1 each and the topics are exceptionally diverse.
I found a collection of Spinoza's Treatises there which is really fucking weird because I'm in a small town in a country where everyone generally hates philosophy.
I asked him why he went to such great lengths and he said he just doesn't like the thought of books going to waste.

>>24717512 (OP)
You see this a lot with groups like transgenders and black women
>declare you'll open some business (bookstore or coffeeshop) with an extremely narrow customer base
>hours are extremely limited
>gets zero business
>eventually breaks down amidst interpersonal drama

>>24717566
I also encountered a lot of shops like this in Argentina. You could never predict when it would be open. So you just had to give up and go to the supermarket.

>>24717578
It could be a money laundering operation.

>>24718659
ywnbaw

>>24718972
There's a used bookstore near my house with awful hours, and prices that make it cheaper to order from eBay and pay shipping. From listening to the old man talking to others as I browse the store, I think he makes most of his money from guns and dope. That's fine with me; I don't judge.

>>24720503
Dan sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't he.

>>24721708
based autist. wish we had somebody like that here. most of the autists in my area (or the ones I'm aware of) are obsessed with counting down the days to the next major holiday.

>>24721866
i wonder why they can't deal with conflict in an adult manner. or, at least, keep it outside of work.

>>24717512 (OP)
I used to have a really nice bookstore around me that was run by two old ladies and they always had good books on geopolitics and religion. Sometimes they'd even get in some good right wing books and the ladies knew me well enough to call me about something that might interest me. I got most of my Encyclopedia Britannicas there. God bless those women, one of them passed away 5 years ago and the older one couldn't run the shop by herself and had to shut it down. The other bookstore around me is some shit like you described OP, millennial women that run a store as a place to have a book club with their friends to read porno novels. They're always rude as fuck, and act like they're annoyed at the fact I dared walk into the store. I wouldn't go at all but they actually has a good used selection Oxford books that are pretty pricey new.

anyone who who was lost in a city and then found a bookstore that was kind of weired, entered the store and had a weird vibe like it was some haunted place? kewl

>>24717566
That's the life I want

>>24717512 (OP)
Hours are usually dictated by the availability (and fickleness) of very lowly paid and unmotivated staff, if you live in some far out dying peri-urban hellscape like most American 4chan users seem to then it's incredibly hard to even find people who can commit to shit retail work like this, much less some that have the most basic intellectual ability required to work in a bookstore.
There's actually a lot of work that goes into running a bookstore too, if you're trying to keep on top of new releases there's a lot of marketing and publishing information you have to constantly engage with. There's a reason chain bookstores do well, they concentrate that workload in one place that's then spread throughout the stores, small independent bookstores are often pet projects that can't really engage with new literature the way chains do, stock is overly dictated by the whims of a usually overworked owner/ manager and they usually have some niche side interest tacked on like board games to make up for the lameness of their book selection.
Albeit independent second-hand bookstores are generally a bit better because it's a buyer's market, there are always tonnes of people trying to get rid of massive collections for pennies and you can easily focus on getting classic novels, classic crime and boomer non-fic like military history and philosophy.

>>24721244
>lóvé (plural lóvék)
>(slang) money
>Borrowed from Romani love (“money”), plural of lovo (“coin”).

>>24724015
>that can't really engage with new literature the way chains do, stock is overly dictated by the whims of a usually overworked owner/ manager and they usually have some niche side interest tacked on like board games to make up for the lameness of their book selection.
Have you seen a modern Barnes & Noble? Shit like board games and LEGO make up a significant part of their inventory and shelf space, with DEI books and romanceslop taking up a vast majority of the rest.

>>24718488
Incorrect. Profit is the purpose of life.

>>24718488
I literally just order books from publishers websites. Way easier.

>>24717512 (OP)
you sound like a jobless bum, and a virgin to boot
kys

>>24724243
>Have you seen a modern Barnes & Noble?
No as I'm not American

>>24718488
There was a bookstore in amsterdam kinda like this. It also had some books outside in a crate when it was closed with a sign to please put 50 cents into the letterbox per book you took.

I found my first asimov book there (prelude to foundation). I liked it and next time I was there he was open and he asked me what I liked. I told him about the asimov book. Once a month I'd go there and he'd tell me what asimov books he found at auctions/markets, and I'd usually buy them at about 3 guilders per (1.5 euros).

>>24724015
I live in a third-world shithole (Mexico), and from what I've seen here, second-hand bookshops are only good if you want cheap STEMtrannyshit textbooks or old technical writings, or if you just wanna read dusty old self-help/religious-themed books.
The idea of finding anything nice and non-utilitarian at second-hand bookstores baffles me.

>>24724268
Germany has Hugendubel and Thalia. France has the books section at fnac, and Britbongistan has Waterstones. Every country (even shitholes like Peru) has its own bookshop chains where you can buy cringy book-themed memorabilia for book nerds in addition to dead trees with literary slop printed on top.

>>24721874
More likely that she married rich.

>>24717566
A pleasant life.

>>24724612
>I live in a third-world shithole (Mexico)
There's your answer
The difference is that, in English speaking countries especially, you've got decades of strong non-fiction publishing happening and a solid block of educated readers in the country consuming it.
Lots of those people have accumulated a fucking tonne of that stuff, and eventually they have to get rid of it. or they die and their kids are stuck offloading it, and by that point secondhand bookbuyers know they're so desperate they can offer less than a dollar per book easy and onsell it for about 20x the price.
There's also still a market for these kind of books instead of thirdies buying cringe religious texts or translations of Paul Coehlo's "The Alchemist".

>>24724615
uhh ok

>>24720419
Why would the owner be sitting in a cafe when they could open up their store, sit in there, and make their own coffee?

The OP picture reminds me a lot of a tiny bookstore I used to work at, not quite as well decorated but just as intimate and full of books. The back of the store had a near-identical layout.
My girlfriend at the time showed it to me sometime at the beginning of the summer, 7 years ago. I saw a girl working there whom I've immediately fallen in love with. She had a mean, derisive demeanor and I distinctly remember a child asking for whatever book. "You mean the book so and so?" Yes, said the child. "The one where such and such happens?" Yes. "The one from that one series written by whomever?" A nod. "We don't have it". I applied to get a job there and promptly broke up with my girlfriend.
They hired me in October, just as college was beginning. By that time I had broken up with my girlfriend- with whom coincidentally I've just had a wonderful month of childish love and sex, unfortunately abruptly ended a few days ago- and the owner, whom I would eventually come to know more intimately than I would have hoped and indeed figure out was senile, had decided to turn the bookstore into a store where what was sold was bundles of cheap, plastic, hollow, Chinese made toys, alongside calendars with naked women, alongside calendars with naked men, and all other sorts of knick-knacks, all for less than the equivalent of an American dollar.
Only two of the six rooms of the bookstore now had books on shelves. The shelves themselves were disappearing, as the owner had them replaced with cheap orange tables, upon which to display his lowly new merchandise. He had me drive up with him to IKEA to help him purchase more. On the way there, he would tell me about his love for Robert Kiyosaki, in his pathetic old man voice- he had all of his teeth, still, I think, but his words were still slurred as if his tongue was looking for a solid surface to rest against, finding none. He told me how he saw him in an airport once, and his knees were weak, and he looked at him like at God Himself, his words, not mine, and made his wife run up to him and ask for an autograph. At IKEA, where he insisted we had lunch, he went on to say that he's turning his business into a "fast-food style operation"- he used those words about 20 times, as opposed to a "select location"- these just as well. He told me how his wife was a stupid peasant, economically illiterate- how it's not her fault, for her parents were so, too. The first time we've talked, mind you. The description was accurate.

>>24725297
After the purchase of the tables, he mentioned he wanted to take a picture of the receipt, just in case. As he was getting out his phone, I thought about the humor and absurdity of the possibility of a picture of his penis popping up. I swear to you all, the picture of the penis was there. He later mentioned something about a urologist or dermatologist appointment that he never kept. That night, I thought, I understood feminism, for I reasoned, were I a girl, I'd feel endangered. Later I realized, I was in no danger, even if it was felt, so feminism eludes me still.
His wife, the manager, would have her employees wash her car- not me, but some disgusting ogre of a social case, for whom I'd feel bad to this day, if not for her disgusting demeanor. She threatened to fire me for not attending work on my day off, so the next business day I presented her with my resignation. This was in mid-December. I thought to be a good sport and keep working there til the end of the month, though I didn't have to. The store was now always full, unending lines of people buying cheap, shiny looking, categorically tacky Gustave Klimt notebooks. My last day working there, the 31st, I brought home made eggnog for everybody, no one had even a sip, and confessed my love for the girl whose beauty tricked me into applying for the job and working there in spite of the incompetence of the managers. She appreciated the gesture and politely refused.
The bookstore went on to go through an odd number of other instances of diversification, rebrandings, restructuring, and this year it finally closes down. I started reading by discovering it. The wares were always cheap, even the books. I've assembled a neat collection of GOLLANCZ science fiction masterworks ($1.25 per book), Woodsworth Complete Novels of James Joyce and Lovecraft and Sherlock stories and the like- $5 each. I've learned the importance of translators by purchasing English translations of Dostoevsky's short stories. All of those books are now at an apartment I no longer live in and I'm unsure if I'll ever get them back.

>>24724711
>or translations of Paul Coehlo's "The Alchemist".
why?

>>24725299
This was a really compelling read. You've vindicated my useless meandering endless scrolling of this site for today.

>>24725491
what a great compliment, thanks anon

>>24724756
Because thats what he was doing before proper home coffee machines existed and he refuses to change his daily life based on consumerist inventions of course.

>>24725970
Yet all you need for a coffee is a kettle, water and coffee. Though I suppose they wouldn't have a source of heat in their store... Touché, anon, your wit prevails.