Mundane Mondays: Memos and Dilemmas

Perhaps you didn't get the message, but I own a bookstore. One fact I'm not certain the salesman, who visited the shop Saturday, cared to pay attention to. A nice guy, easy to talk to and once we got to talking I wondered if the conversation was ever going to lull into him leaving . . . so I could get back to my paperwork (not that I was in any hurry for that dosage of fun).

What was he selling? DVDs. He is/was proposing that the bookstore sell DVDs to our customers. Heh . . .

Maybe you had the same reaction I did, but I couldn't help picturing angry Walmart customers. At my day job, the one I work to support my 'habit', I deal with customers and DVD sales. There is no end to the number of odd requests, complaints, and scenarios that most retail workers would scoff at if you asked the same of them. I can't deal with that in my little shop and really I don't want to.

He gave a convincing argument and I even told him that compared to other salesman I've dealt with* he was kind and not pushy. I may have misled him, a little, giving him hopes that we could partner in the future. Meanwhile, he is going to put together a package of the type of DVDs I told him would sell best in a bookstore.

The age old question now arises, "Which is better, the book or the movie?" This led me down another questioning path. When you think about books made into movies, automatically a mental list pops up in your head, the big ones. The books that have “defined a generation” or stirred in people a desire to read who “never thought to pick up a book before.” In pondering this question, I wondered "What were the top selling children's books 50 years ago?" If you can find a good source for this information, let me know. I was not so lucky with my quick Google search or maybe I don't have the patience today to dig.

Instead I found this Wikipedia's List of Best-Selling Books and I started thinking more (me and thinking today, I'm bound to get into some trouble soon). The list features numerous titles and the many millions of copies they have sold since publication. Take a quick glance and see how many of these books have made it to the big screen; leaving me with one last thought and question for today's post.

I see many types of people come into the shop, different readers and enthusiasts and the same goes for people I talk 'book' with outside of bookstore life. Of these people, I hear a lot of "I was never a reader before such and such came out as a movie" or "I only read the book if the movie was good." I notice this more and more as people rely more on the herd concept. They no longer want to try things or risk doing something if their friends haven't or if some celebrity hasn't told them to. It becomes "the thing" to read the book because it is a movie or because someone else says it is a MUST READ. This begs the questions, would we have readers, would publishers sell books . . . if it wasn't for movies?


*My sister and mum both tell these lovely creatures that I'm the owner, rather than a co-owner, thus I have the good fortune to deal with ALL salesman that come to the shop.

Don't forget about my Celebrate Good Times Giveaway!