The Bookseller's Patter

Robin Agnew

The other day, because my son needed a book for a class right away, I went to another bookstore in town to get him a copy of A Raisin in the Sun.  (They only have enough copies for the kids to share in the classroom, and what that says about education budget cuts is another story).  Anyway, the bookseller on duty, a pretty cool verging on middle aged man, kept up a patter the whole time he waited on me.

We talked about the author's name (I only knew it started with an "H") and then for some reason he told me that one of his friends had been the voice of one of the California Raisins.  It was a pleasant and interesting encounter, one of those things that makes shopping in a bookstore such a pleasure.

I started thinking about the three of us who work at Aunt Agatha's and whether we, too, have a patter - a running commentary that keeps us in touch with our customers.  Some customers, of course, prefer to be left alone, but many more of them want to talk.

I think the key is being able to talk about books you either haven't read yourself (rumors to the contrary, none of the three of us have read all of the 25,000 books we have on our shelves and in our basement) or that you feel no personal affinity for.  The bookseller I mentioned above may or may not have read A Raisin in the Sun, and in that case it didn't matter as I wanted that specific title. Sometimes it does matter.

Lots of customers want to feel they have the "same taste" as you do, and of course that can't always be true.  All three of us like different things - my husband likes hard boiled stuff, vintage and new, as well as anything vaguely supernatural (he likes ghost stories); our employee Marty likes anything that takes him on a trip - he likes international fiction and he also likes historical fiction, as that's a different kind of trip. I personally like British and American police stuff, vintage British stuff and newer women writers who don't write cozies but who write something kind of in between.  And of course all of us have our quirks.

Anyway, selling a book to a James Patterson fan, for example, requires a different kind of skill - a patter, if you will.  I've read exactly one James Patterson book because I thought I should and I really didn't like it too much, but I got the idea.  I sometimes try to gently steer a customer a "better" way - towards Michael Connelly, for example.  As you talk with someone and lead them to the right shelf you can usually get a feel for what they like and adjust your talk accordingly.

My husband is very good at this and I think there's quite a few of our customers who would be surprised to discover that he hasn't read some of the books he enthusiastically recommends.  Marty is very conscientious; he keeps a list and index cards, some of which I made up for him so he can refer to them if someone likes, say, Victorian historicals. 

Best of all of course is the customer who does have your taste.  They're the most fun to sell to and the most fun to talk books with, but they are few and far between.  Even better is the customer who shares your taste and because they travel abroad frequently and buy books there, they expand your taste and sometimes bring you books.  We've discovered a few authors this way.

Now I don't know if this is true of all of us, but I'll take a book out of someone's hand if they haven't read a series and aren't starting with the first one.  I remember selling someone a copy of Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie and I told him I was improving his life.  His companion laughed, but I meant it, and I could see he was hoping to agree.

There's a few authors that if people don't like we tend to throw up our hands - there's no talking to them.  It might vary among the three of us but I would say someone who doesn't enjoy Michael Connelly would probably throw all of us off our patter.  I think in 18 years of bookselling I may have met two or three people who don't like his books!  

We have a few "store favorites" that all of us handsell - we hardly ever have used Steve Hamilton or Kent Krueger or Louise Penny books, for example - and so shopping in our store means you are not only the victim of our patter, but of our personal tastes.   And that's the joy of a bookseller's patter.

Comments

[Marti Rulli]

Robin, a reader told me when he bought my book at a small book store, the owner talked with him for over an hour about how he once met the subject of my book, the legendary film actress Natalie Wood. Smaller stores don't carry my book, but this particular seller/owner who had once met Natalie, claims to have a recurring stock going for it, and I sure appreciate it as an author. It's nice when bookstores ARE small enough to be able to offer up classic literary information, and also able to stay current with new, topical books like mine. I enjoyed your blog post (came here from Twitter).
Thanks, Marti Rulli

[Robin Agnew]

What a great story! I can't match Natalie Wood, though!