Bookish Lists | Frustrating Things Bookstores Do

Kimsiang @ Stories & Paintbrushes

Friends, I’m so ashamedddd! I have only finished one book so far this month. Please tell me I’m not the only one, but I know that’s so unlikely. Ughhh. And also I apologize for the lack of posts. I’m just back from my trip to Bangkok, Thailand.

To nobody’s surprise, I went to a bookstore there, which was Kinokuniya Bookstore (Central World branch), I was so excited because obviously they have a bigger selection of books and also new releases than my local bookstore. Sadly, I’m a bit disappointed and also frustrated (hence, the title of this post) because it was not what I expected and hoped for. Therefore, I decided to make this post by combining a few frustrating things that I’ve encountered at bookstores.

 

The sequels but not the first book

QHXI4F0

Like whyyyy? Why would I pick up the second or the last book in a series when I haven’t read the first book?

 

Where are the books I want?

images (1)

This one is a major issue at my local bookstore, new releases usually take years before they make their way to my local bookstores. Except on that one rare occasion, a book (Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs) was displayed in my local bookstores before the release date. But mostly, the books that I want, my. local bookstores don’t have. Don’t they know the book’s market?

7_1442569241.gif

And custom orders too, whenever I order books from them, it takes almost 2 billion years to arrive, will I even get to read it? This usually results in me losing interest in the book that I anticipated. 😦

 

Hardbacks, please.

aqd63uo

When they have the paperbacks but you want the hardback (so you have to order and- see the previous issue). When I start a new series in hardbacks, they only have the sequels in paperbacks and when my collections are paperbacks, they only have hardbacks!

Not to mention, the editions! When the first book has different cover or height or edition from the its sequels? Why are you doing this to me???

 

How they organize the books.

giphy (2)

I prefer it a lot when they organize books by authors and/or series, because it’s easy to browse through and navigate, and the sub category would preferably be by genres. In Bangkok, the books were so badly arranged that even though there were only a wall of shelves with YA books, it took me hours to process all the books they have and find the ones that I want. Moreover, as I am a very indecisive person, I spent almost 2 hours just standing there until my mom called me because the mall was closing.

That’s all I have at the moment. Comment down your worst experiences at bookstores! 😀 Feel free to rant 😀

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

Books and more books,

Kimsiang @ Stories and Brushes

 

21 thoughts on “Bookish Lists | Frustrating Things Bookstores Do”

  2. I totally understand the editions thing! If I buy a book in one style all the ones for that series need to match and it sucks when a store doesn’t have them and you gave to hunt them down or order them.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I don’t mean to make this seem like an argument or anything, but I’m going to defend bookstores here:

    Please consider the fact that they’ve probably just sold out of the first book, if they have the rest of the series, and not the first. Bookstores can’t have a certain book in stock at every one moment. You can’t anticipate booksales. Bookstores don’t keep double (or more) of every book out the back. In fact, the back room often has very little excess stock in it. Also, one thing we often get is that someone orders in a book, and they never end up coming in to pick it up, and so it gets put back on the shelf.

    It costs bookstores to actually stock books. They have to purchase books from the publishers, for them to even have it on the shelf. A lot of the time, it’s not worth it (literally) for a bookstore to have a certain title/s in stock, if they know it’s something that’s unlikely to sell. Bookstores base their stock around the demographic they cater for. If they know a certain thing hasn’t sold well in the past, then they are less likely to bother with something similar in the future.

    In regards to new releases taking ages to arrive in a store, it’s very possible the store doesn’t stock trade copies. Trades are the really large paperbacks that new releases are often released as. They’re more expensive than B format (the small, standard book format), and don’t often sell as well. So I’d say they – for the most part – would wait for the cheaper editions.

    Where you’re talking about orders, I’m assuming you’re referring to the waiting period for it to arrive in store after ordering? The standard wait time (for where I work, anyway) is 7-10 working days (2 weeks). The reason it takes so long, is that we have to build up a minimum purchase order, before we send it to the publisher. This means we need a certain number/cost of books built up before the order can be fulfilled. Sending the order beforehand costs the bookstore a LOT of money. After an order is sent (generally only takes 1-2 days to send), it’s out of the bookstores hands, how long it takes. It’s got to go through the publishers, be picked, and packed, and sent to the store. So really, you’re complaining about the people who print the books, and the couriers, rather than the bookstores themselves. Please note that sometimes the publishers don’t have certain books on hand, so they need to wait for it to be reprinted and sent to them before they can send it on to the bookstores.

    When the editions in store don’t match through an entire series, literally has nothing to do with the bookstore at all. Hardcovers generally stop being printed when the paperback version is released, so of course they aren’t going to have it on the shelf. This also brings me back to the point of it being too expensive for a bookshop to keep certain things on the shelf if they aren’t going to sell. Believe it or not, but there are more people out there interested in buying paperbacks, rather than hardcovers.

    Okay, I think that’s all for now. I just sort of want to help clear stuff up, and get people to understand why they need to stop complaining about bookstores for things that isn’t actually their problem. They don’t do it to purposefully do these things to annoy you. Bookstores and booksellers are there to HELP and their customers best interests are their #1 top priority.

    If you have anything else you want to know, please ask me. I’m actually in the middle of a big rant about bookshops at the moment for my blog, and I might cover this too.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much for reading! I don’t mind the rant at all, I really didn’t think of some of the problems that you mentioned! Thank you for opening my mind 😀 Tho I have this point, I went to mylobo every week (you know to just stare at the books sometimes XD) and I see that most of the books that are sold out are Young Adult fictions (tho they don’t have a wide selection of it) and the non-fiction and other genres like such stay on the shelves for months to months! That’s why I’m abit confused as to why they don’t bring more YA books. Another point is that the bookstore promised that ordered books might take from two weeks to a month to arrive and through my experience my orders have never arrived earlier than two months. My friend had to wait for about 5 months even! I totally understand the reasons behind all the inconvenience and that it wasn’t their purpose, and they also try to help as best as they can, and I still support them and buy books from there tho it really annoys me sometimes 😀 I can’t wait to see your post! (Btw, you work in a bookstore? That’s so cool, I’ve always thought about being one or open a bookstore, it’s always been my dream as a reader :D)

      Like

      Reply

  5. I heart you! There are rarely any books available that I want in the bookstores here, it’s really depressing! 😦 That’s why I have to totally depend on the online stores, I have no other option and unfortunately no libraries as well!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  7. Pingback: Monthly Recap | January 2016 WRAP-UP

  8. ERMAHGER! THIS! All of this! It’s so frustrating going to a big chain book store *cough* Barnes and Noble *cough* because they have the TINIEST section of books ever! It’s like they have TONS of open space in the store, but no books. And you call yourself a bookstore?! o.O *angry face* No! I will not accept this! *orders books online… again* *Sigh*

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment