You Can Also Set Up a Physical Store

Chapter 8 Separating the Bookstore from Your Main Business (3)

The aforementioned "Soma BOOKS" is, so to speak, an irregular mobile bookstore, and its appeal lies in that aspect. On the other hand, there are also people who set up physical stores that open regularly while working their main jobs.

In Morioka, Iwate, there is a bookstore called "Pono books & time." It focuses on used books with a small selection of new books, serves drinks including coffee, and has an attached coworking space. The business hours are 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM on weekends and holidays. In other words, it is only open on three weekday evenings and on weekends and holidays. The owner, Yukari Koyama, runs this shop while working as a company employee during the day. Before opening, she consulted with her supervisor and confirmed that there were no issues with the company's employment regulations. Now, even that supervisor visits as a customer.

In Kuramae, Tokyo, "H.A. Bookstore" is only open from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM on weekends and holidays, and the owner is also a company employee on weekdays. Although it is small-scale, the owner handles not only the shop but also magazine and book publishing, as well as sales agency work similar to a distributor, all by themselves.

In the case of such bookstores, you should first set your minimum goal as sales that can cover rent and utility costs, without considering your own labor costs. Given the short business days and hours, that alone will certainly not be easy, but it is not an impossible goal either. If books alone are difficult, you can use any of the combinations mentioned so far. Conversely, if you think about covering all those expenses from your main business earnings, you don't have to worry about sales at all and can take your time selling only the books you truly want to sell.

If you are anxious about doing it alone, there is also the option of gathering friends and starting with multiple people. Several people who want to open a bookstore can get together, create a shop with the money they can afford to contribute, and take turns minding the shop by day of the week. If each person can bring their own personality to the selection and customer service, it might become an interesting shop with different charms for customers every day.

Also, if you feel that the hurdle of renting a new commercial property is high, you can start by opening up a part of your home or office. For example, you could turn your home into a referral-only, appointment-only used bookstore just once a week. All the books for sale would be personal items you have bought and read until now. In this case, it costs zero yen to start. Preparation is at most cleaning the room and putting price tags on the books you are willing to sell, and then just sending invitation emails to acquaintances or announcing it on social media. If you want to do it, you could do it as early as tomorrow.

If you don't want to sell your collection, you can just make it available for viewing. To start, it might be good to hold a reading circle with friends as an event, or read aloud to the children of acquaintances. Once you get used to opening it to friends and acquaintances, you might eventually want to open it widely to local people in the form of a private library. This is opening a part of the "private" to the "public," and it should create meaningful changes in communication for both the home and the community.

※Reprinted from "A Reader for Future Bookstores" pp. 288-290