[alternate title: Are you sure you want to do this?]
[also, while I refer to our visitors and guests as ‘customers’ by default, as will become obvious, not everyone is a paying customer. In fact, most aren’t.]
The Seven Types of Bookstore Customer.
(an incomplete but also mostly comprehensive list)
Seekers
The most straightforward of any of our customer types, the seekers want a book. A specific book: only this book will do. Prominent sub-types:
• High School Students: It was assigned by the teacher. They don’t have a choice.
• College Students: They mistakenly believe that 1. we’re actually stocking their textbooks, and 2. we’re going to be cheaper than the college bookstore. HA!
• Oprahites: according to reliable contemporary reports, by the 23rd Century Oprah is a religion. If the book was written by a guest on her show, fans want it. If The One True Host actually recommends the book, then booksellers must be prepared to defend themselves (against force) because some folks will be prepared to kill for it. “What do you mean you don’t have it? How can you be sold out? It was just on Oprah…” (logic doesn’t work on Oprahites)
• NPR listeners: Heard it on NPR. (it’s usually a good book, but we’re also not stocking it yet — and on top of that, I’ve been stuck at work while you’re listening to the radio; if you can’t remember the title I won’t be able to come up with it.)
• CNN/FOX/MSNBC/CSPAN BookTV/Daily Show/Colbert/Larry King/Today/Tonight/CBS Sunday Morning/et al. — same story here as NPR above: throw me a bone, give me a title or an author. It’s great you can relate to me your TV watching habits, but that doesn’t mean I can find your book.
• Trufans. “I want the new book by Author X.” And sure, I’ll try to help you with that. The Trufan ignores three salient points: 1. the author may not have a new book; 2. despite ads or reviews or internet rumors, the author’s new book may not be coming out for another 3 months, or 6 months, or a year (or ever); & 3. the author may in fact be dead.
[unrelated to the book business: While I was working as the manager for the music department for my store I had to entertain weekly calls from a customer looking for the new Bob Marley album. I tried to explain, in as many different variations that I could manage, that there wouldn’t be a new Bob Marley album, and that maybe he was thinking of Ziggy or Stephen Marley, or even some other artist, and maybe certain recreational hobbies might be clouding his recollection, and occasionally I felt the message got though — but in a week to ten days he’d call again and we’d have the same conversation] [which is a nice segue to…]
Idiots
Technically a subclass of Seeker, these ‘customers’ deserve their own listing:
Yeah, I get it, the cover of the book is red. Can you recall even one word in the title? Or the author’s first name? Or if it’s fiction or non-fiction? Color, while vivid in your own memory, is in fact the least helpful detail you can give us about any book. Prominent sub-type:
• Saw it in the New York Times. Granted, we have the NYT Book Review; I can walk the three feet from the info desk to the display where we stock it, I can open up the paper and read it, to find the title that you can’t remember; I can even do this right in front of you, to give the illusion that you’ve provided the information that I need to find the book you’re looking for. This exercise, repeated with different customers at least twice a week, is routine — but it doesn’t make you less of an idiot.