In Waterstones today we were browsing the Stephen King section to find there were only around five books on display.
Now Stephen King is a pretty prolific author so this is not a good selection. However there was a notice:
So I wandered over to the front desk, intrigued, and asked the lady where the rest of the Stephen King books were. She explained to me that more popular authors’ books were kept secure so they didn’t get stolen. If I knew which book I wanted I could ask her for it, but I couldn’t browse them.
So this is a book shop that doesn’t put popular books on display. It removes one of the major advantages of a physical book shop, that of being able to actually browse the books. There wasn’t even a list of books they had available. An empty shop with a computer terminal connected to Amazon would have been a step up! I think the right word is flabbergasted.
I checked which other authors shared the esteemed position of “most theft worthy” so that their works were no longer on display.
Congratulations Terry Pratchett! You get a notice too, and a few books (which must be the unpopular ones).
David Gemmel should be very proud though. His shelf consisted of a sign, a small gap, and no books what so ever. Well done!
3 Comments
hah I noticed that as well when killing some time in town looking at Pratchett books. As you say it kind of kills off the whole point of going into a book store!
It’s got to translate into lost sales.
Surely it’s among one of the first things you work out a retail book business. How do you stop people stealing your books without taking them off the shelves. I mean, I don’t expect to go to the supermaket and see a sign saying:
“A further selection of Heinz shoups are currently available at the front counter”.
:D
Funnily enough, WH Smiths just up the road has a good selection of Stephen King, Pratchett and Gemmell.
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