This past Tuesday night at my Self and Society class, we watched a film called Sidewalk. It was a documentary that went along with a book that was published under the same title. The pretense of it is that many homeless individuals in New York city sell books in order to survive. It was interesting to see how they go about selling the books that they either find, have given to them or they buy from other individuals. One of the men commented that if the cover of the book says "New York Times Bestseller" then it will sell. He also made the comment that "Charlie Brown always sells", which I found hilarious and wrote down in my notebook. I have a habit of writing down funny things that a teacher will say or one of my fellow students in my notebook so that i can remember it in the future.
It was really interesting to compare how the homeless people were selling their used books to how we sell our books here at the bookshop. They were really business savy, determining what they would bother to pick up when they were looking for books by if it would sell or not at their table. It's hard to do that in this business when there are so many books that you want to have on hand, but you have to keep in mind what will sell in your area.