From Staff Picks to Blogging--The Art of the Segue

Shelf Awareness: Thursday, August 16, 2007

If you sell books for a living, you've learned how to segue--to move your customer from conversation mode to buying mode so seamlessly that they believe the acquisition was as much their idea as yours. And since you already know all that, I won't try to disguise my segue in this piece. You'd probably just see through it anyway.

In response to last week's column about small press staff picks, Mary Alice Gorman, co-owner of Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont, Pa., wrote that she recommends Cancer Vixen (Knopf, $22, 9780307263575/0307263576) on her website and is "already getting congrats on what one caller said was a most unusual pick for a mystery bookstore. However, it did remind her to schedule that mammogram!"

Then Russ Marshalek, marketing and public relations director at Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, Ga., checked in to ask and answer his own question: "What is there to say about Tao Lin's Eeeee Eee Eeee (Melville House, $14.95, 9781933633251/1933633255) that could sufficiently convey exactly what the book is?"

Wrestling with the eternal bookseller's dilemma of how to "summarize the book in two sentences to fit on a shelf-talker that would encourage those totally unfamiliar with Lin's work at his achingly self-aware blog, reader of depressing books, to pick the book up and fall into the weird sort of love that only it could encourage," he opted for the following:

"Tao Lin's first novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, if listed by plot points, would include: Elijah Wood, dolphins, pizza delivery, sadness, more pizza delivery. At times painfully mundane, at times razor-sharp with emotional truth, Linn's novel is the sound of ennui on an iPod being listened to on the morning train to somewhere. Is this the result of the 20-something overeducated hipster putting pen to paper? Yes. Does his voice sound like anyone else's ever could, or would? No."

Marshalek added that independent publishers like Akashic and Soft Skull "have been well represented in our staff picks as well, with Jillan Weise's The Amputee's Guide to Sex (Soft Skull, $14.95, 9781933368528/1933368527) and pretty much everything Joe Meno has ever written making their way through our choices."

Pay attention, now, because here comes segue.

As often happens, something about Marshalek's enthusiasm inspired me to follow a virtual trail to the Wordsmiths Books website, where I found the same energy, wit and passion for reading on display at the bookstore's blog.

I stayed there for a while. I read. I thought about bookstore blogs. Then I contacted Marshalek and we had a conversation, which I will share with you this week and next.

Segue completed.

According to Marshalek, "The blog has always been a vital part of what Wordsmiths Books is." As entertaining evidence, I recommend that you spend some time reading the blog entries dating back to last winter, when the bookstore was still a dream in the making. As you follow the narrative in post after post through the June grand opening, you get caught up in the story.

So this is what birthing a bookstore looks like in real time.

"The Wordsmiths Books blog has actually been around since the very inception of the idea of the store--so since January of '07," said Marshalek. "It wasn't really so much of a debate to invest time and effort into a blog and it's proven to be an invaluable tool."

He had initially introduced Wordsmiths Books owner Zach Steele to the concept of blogging last year, "both as a form of self-expression and as a marketing tool. I come from a new media background and I keep a handful of personal blogs, so I've seen the way this form of communication can be effective, both for the writer and the audience."

Marshalek does not consider himself a writer, but said Steele is and "I didn't see how he could be a writer aspiring to be published and not keep a blog. Then, as Wordsmiths Books came into being, there wasn't even a question of integrating a blog into what our store plan was. When we opened, it was in an online sales and author events capacity, so an online presence was vital."

According to Marshalek, a blog "allows your store to handsell your new, quirky, favorite, beloved book of the moment to a much wider audience, all as though they were each getting one-on-one time."

Next week, he offers a closer look at Wordsmiths's blogging strategy, and why the essence of a great bookstore blog is the delicate art of mixing business with pleasure.