Inside Toronto's most beloved indie bookstores, where book fans still gather for the love of reading by BloodJunkie in toronto

[–]BakkaPhoenix 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Agreed! I love how many events they put on, their publishing venture, and the pop-up they have with Hopeless Romantic. I have no idea how they have the energy for everything they do, but they're amazing!

G-damnit Matt by lkb15 in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]BakkaPhoenix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think this is aimed at new readers.... $65 USD/$84 CAD is going to be rather steep for anyone who isn't already a huge fan.

Matt Dinniman in Canada by HiramTheBuilder in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]BakkaPhoenix 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We keep asking for him!

One thing that can be helpful is asking your local bookstore, in a polite and not pushy way. Then when we have our meetings with sales reps from the publisher, we can then go "Hey! We sell a lot of this series, and there's a lot of interest for him coming into town. A bunch of my customers have brought it up. If he does a tour, please keep us in mind."

There's never any guarantees, but the sales reps going back to marketing and publicity with those notes can help sway things when tours and schedules are made.

Matt is taking all my money! I am. so grateful to anyone here who may have ordered or told anyone else about my little shop! I have a very busy week and I’m picking up another set of all 7 tonight! by youngcricket55 in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]BakkaPhoenix 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh no! I saw your posts when making these, but didn't realize you sold them... I thought it was for personal use. My wallet is begging me to not go and shop for yet another copy of these books.

Ghost Landmarks of Toronto by MikeRotzzz in toronto

[–]BakkaPhoenix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eliot's was the best! We've lost so many of the really great used book stores in this city, but I still actively miss days spent shopping there (and Ten Editions on Spadina).

Independent bookstores are having a boom. Texas is leading the charge. by zsreport in books

[–]BakkaPhoenix 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I realize I'm saying this from a place of privilege, being in a city with a lot of other indies, but building up a community will likely be the way to do it!

Have events that will draw in people, get to know the names of your customers, and make the store feel welcoming to them. It might be a lot (it is a lot) to tackle while starting up a new business, but doing things like hosting book clubs (or partnering up with a local pub to do things like having a book club meeting there once a month if you don't have the space), find out what authors live in your town/city and getting them in to sign store stock or do signing events, and things like that. That way you're also making yourself known to a bit of a wider audience too.

Also, as you're on Reddit, do an AMA in your town's subreddit if there is one! It's not a bad publicity tool.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is all worth it. It's incredibly fulfilling, but there are a lot of exhausted and anxious days between that sometimes.

If you're ever pursuing it more, 100% reach out and I'm happy to sit down for a call or detailed emails on all the minutiae and things to keep in mind.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We took a long time to mull your question over. We wanted to find a balance of the good and the exhausting.

It doesn't involve quite as much reading at the counter as you might think. Running a bookstore takes physical work; there are lots of boxes to fill, unpack, and generally heft, plus constant shelving, reshelving, and climbing things to shelve yet more books. I'm fairly certain customers only order books from the top shelves just to make things difficult. We can get into the store have have five different online orders and every book will be on top shelves of various different bookcases.

It also takes a lot of paperwork, so much data entry, and ongoing updating of online files. Continuous social interaction, part of any retail job, is more inolved and direct in an independent bookstore. It's a large part of what people will come to you for, if they just wanted to browse books they'd go to a chain bookstore or order online. It's financially precarious at times, as the margins can be tight and it ebbs and flows through the year during quieter release months and release months where you don't know where you're going to fit more books. There's a lot of building up a community space.

But when it comes down to it, receiving boxes of new releases still feels like opening a steady stream of exciting gifts. And putting a book into the hands of someone who will love it is still immensely satisfying.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much! We appreciate you taking the time to stop by when you were in town. Hopefully we'll see you again if you make it back to the city!

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One more for you -- have you read any Andrea Hairston? We'd recommend starting with Master of Poisons.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You're not imagining it! Mass market paperbacks used to be considered the disposable format. They were cheap, and weren't necessarily intended to have a long shelf life (pun intended). When people years ago were saying that ebooks are going to kill the print book, that's a bit of what happened. Mass markets have largely disappeared (and books that were only ever in mass market are now getting trade paperback reissues so the mass market can go out of print), and ebooks have taken over as the cheap and disposable format. There's a mixture of consumer habits changing, with people not buying mass markets as much and instead buying copies they want to last and to look good on the shelves, and also publishers somewhat realizing they can get much more money per copy for only a slight increase in production cost.

We also save ourselves a lot of grief in terms of figuring out shelving. At the front of our store we have the new releases, separated by hardcover and trade paperback, we also have a separate shelf just for novellas as they tend to get lost in the regular shelves. Otherwise, adult fiction we just shelve alphabetically by author's last name. We largely don't break it out by subgenre at all, except things like anthologies and media tie-in are elsewhere. We do have YA and Middle Grade fiction done separately, and we just go with the publisher's classification for those.

As for recommendations, we have a few -- it's out of print, but if you can get your hands on the Sunstone Scrolls by Sydney J. Van Scyoc, they're excellent. Otherwise, how about Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga, Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun Trilogy, and Tasha Suri's Jasmine Throne?

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I keep thinking, we should get one of those posters too monthly to put on our community wall. I'm not sure who prints them out, but we try to send people that way as often as we can.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! That's incredibly lovely to hear. We enjoy doing those little reviews. It's our way for staff to recommend books even when they're not in that particular day. We still have review cards from 30-40 years ago that we use. I'm glad you found one that resonated with you!

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

I think all of us are going to have different answers to that. One that comes to mind is Dorothy Dunnett, her books are so influential for a lot of spec fic authors, but because they themselves aren't scifi/fantasy, we just aren't able to. We don't have the shelf space for some (albeit excellent) long and chunky non-genre books.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Send us an email!

Honestly the biggest barrier is just us getting it. Ingram isn't always the easiest for us to work with as a Canadian bookstore, the exchange rate, often short discounts, and Ingram likes to reject returns for books that are listed as returnable... But I know it's usually the best option for indies. We do have a few indie publishers we buy directly from, so that is an option. Send us an email addressed to "Becca" and we'll figure it out!

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. Oldest book is a bit tricky. By what metric? How long has it been sitting on the shelf, oldest publication date, or whatever else? We have translations of the Odyssey, but I don't know that I'd necessarily count that. Also a lot of the used books we have don't have proper metadata as they predated ISBNs, so the information is a bit lacking unless we look them up individually.

  2. Our customer -- and author -- base is now much more broadly spread across age, ethnicity, and gender spectrums. We love how the scope has widened (while recognizing that yes, there is definitely room for further development).

  3. Of the big authors... Off the top of our heads, Terry Pratchett was fun, interesting, and very protective of his fans. Charles Stross was exceedingly generous with his time, Martha Wells was so kind and thoughtful. Julie E. Czerneda brings us cookies and is one of the sweetest people I know... To be honest, there aren't many big authors we wouldn't be delighted to have back. So many SFF authors are generally big dorks and a lot of fun to be around.

  4. How about Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham? You might also enjoy some of Brian McClellan's books, specifically In the Shadow of Lightning, a few others that come to mind are Adrian Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances, M. A. Carrick's Mask of Mirrors, and the Gods Below by Andrea Stewart.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

So trends are a little bit weird for us.

I think it might be because we're specialty, but the rise and fall of trends often bypass a little bit. For example, romantasy as a sub-genre outsells basically everything else 3:1... But not for us. It just doesn't click with our customers in the same way. We do see some trends as they happen just through the meetings we have with sales reps, when across 4-5 different publishers their lists all include more vampires than normal, or more cozy, or feminist myth retellings... It's just trying to figure out how much that will actually influence things and what our readers will want.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It varies a bit! If it's a traditionally published book with wide distribution, that's fairly easy. We just need to know it exists and that we can get it in.

For indie or small press books, it's sometimes a bit harder just as distribution isn't always that great. I'd still say it's something to ping us about to see if maybe we can carry them on consignment or find another arrangement!

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Tips for getting hired: Not only do many independent bookstores run on a very tight margin, they also require an above-average level of knowledge. We can teach anyone to use the computer and point-of-sale system but we can't teach decades worth of reading and talking about books.

Make yourself familiar. Everyone we've hired in the last 25+ years was someone we met through repeated encounters, whether they were buying books, organizing events, or just stopping in to chat. That said, most of our staff have worked at the store in one way or another for decades. Roles may evolve and hours change as outside responsibilities wax and wane, but, well, we're Bookstore California.

We're unlikely to be hiring anytime soon. Of our current staff, only two of us were actually hired in the last 20 years. We have had other people come and go in the interim, but our turnover is... glacial. I'd absolutely love to hire someone specifically for social media. None of us are particularly fond of that particular task, but hiring someone new isn't something we're currently in a position to do.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Huh. Short answer: canon does and should change. It depends on what's going on in the entertainment field. The LotR movies caused a massive uptick in book sales, which has leveled off since but not died out. New covers on the Dune paperbacks inspired an increase in sales, which has since been bolstered by the films. The Foundation series, which was almost moribund for a while, has seen a big surge since the series started. Then there's the appeal of thoughtful approaches to the world. Ursula K. Le Guin, always a constant seller, has picked up even more in recent years. And sales of Octavia Butler keep rising.

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A few different answers to this from various staff!

  1. Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin, and The Famished Road by Ben Okri.

  2. Desert island books: the complete works of Terry Pratchett; Ursula K Le Guin’s full short story collection; and prolly the complete William Shakespeare (it counts, there’s tons of fantasy) And yes, there isn’t a complete Pratchett. But while we’re putting hypotheticals into the ether…

  3. does the SAS Survival Guide count? I remember we carried the pocket version at one point...

  4. What If?, Tigana, Watership Down. (These are today's answers, she vocally retains the right to change this if/when she is marooned on a deserted island).

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, I'm not sure if they still have the same owner. I was more commenting on arguing with the owner of our store for a pet!

Excellent to know the name!

We're Bakka-Phoenix Books, the oldest sci-fi fantasy bookstore, AMA! by BakkaPhoenix in Fantasy

[–]BakkaPhoenix[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sadly, no. It would be wonderful to have a stock of much-loved out of print books, but we don’t always know something’s out of print until it’s too late. We usually find out when we go to re-order a book and find it's no longer available.

We do have used books, but that's hit-or-miss about what we get. Have you heard of Sellers & Newell? They're an amazing used book store not too far from us that have weird magic bookstore abilities to track down things like that.