Shop Diary: Bookselling Lessons, March Reads and April TBR List

Working on how often to post shop diary updates and coming up with what series’ to post weekly. Trying to keep myself organized and let you all know what to expect from me each week. I’m thinking shop diaries will be monthly and include bookshop and reading goal updates (Monthly TBR List). We’ve got a lot of marketing professionals following the journey (I’m blushing), so I want to keep giving details on the business setup. But I’ll also be reviewing and recommending books for book lovers interested in BIPOC romance, fantasy, personal growth and banned books.

Current Blog Series

Bookselling Lessons

So two weeks ago I started attending the Basic Bookselling Course, run by the Professional Booksellers School. Exciting and scary, as my anxiety started to make me worry about how difficult the class might be. But, as of now, with the third class completed, I’m just excited to learn. Trying to network and make friends, be supportive of other booksellers and just soak up as much as I can.

What I’ve learned so far: how to articulate the bookshop’s mission statement (check it out below). I have the mission in written form…need to work on the verbal elevator pitch. Also, it seems I’ve already joined or researched about 75% of the booksellers resources. CALIBA, Bookshop.org, Libro.fm, Edelweiss, NetGalley, ABA, Ingram and Publisher’s Weekly free emails have all been joined. So I’m feeling pretty great about my progress.

Each week we also practice writing shelf talkers. Shelf talkers are short form book recommendations, for selling a book when you’re not able to sell in person. I’ll sprinkle the shelf talkers I’ve written so far, within this post. They’ll be sneak peaks for the forthcoming long form reviews I written. Basically, I’ve already been practicing them when I’ve been writing captions for my Blind Date with a Book social posts!

I decided to think through my rating system for the books I’m reading. Made a graphic in case anyone is interested in what the stars mean. I came up with this after reading A Game of Retribution by Scarlett St. Clair. I wanted to make sure I was holding myself accountable to what the stars mean to me. Also want to avoid ever reading a 2 star and 1 star book ever again. Just to keep my reviews positive, since books I might dislike have an audience, I’m just not it. The bookselling class put a new twist on how to sell a book that isn’t really your cup of tea. Play a detective game of, if you like this book, you’d love this book. For example: A Game of Retribution is for anyone who wanted to have Edward’s POV for the entire Twilight series.

March Reads

My March reading was pretty successful and fun. Most of my 2024 anticipated book releases were part of March’s TBR list. So happy that I enjoyed all of the books in different ways. There were some surprises, some tried and true favorite authors weren’t the ones prompting reading marathons, and new authors (to me) brought the heat. I can elaborate more about each book in individual posts, but I’ll give a little snippet about each book that I read in March.

• This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan – Reviewed on the site, but I loved EVERY character…except one, but he was meant to be hated.
• Bride by Ali Hazelwood – See shelf talker above or I’ll just repeat myself in a less intelligent way 😂
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – See shelf talker above or I’ll start giving away the plot, it was so good 🧐
• The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang – Reviewed on the site, this idea was great. Soulmates, three timelines, reincarnation in a gay romantasy.
• Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez – An out of the box meet cute, via Reddit; dating pact, family issues and connection to other series’ books.
• The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo – Standalone fantasy book, character study, romance and growing into your power.
• The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton – Love at first sight, fake dating, forced proximity and learning how to communicate better.
• One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole – Multiple POVs with a twist, two mysteries to unravel, LGBTQ+; a truly unique thriller touching on racism and sexism.

April TBR List

Much like my blog schedule I’m still trying to balance out how much reading I can sustain each month and commit to other tasks (or casual rewatches…I’ve got a Felicity buddy watch to start!).

10 books in February was way too many and 8 books in March was also too much for me, especially with a week long vacation thrown in the mix. My girl math of 1 book every 4 days totally blew up in my face with game rooms, tennis, pool trips, puzzles, restaurant stops and tiny towns to visit daily during spring break. So I’m going to test out 6 books in April and see how it goes. I think 6 books might even make it possible for me to throw in some extra books if the mood strikes me. And if I decide to take a little breather to digest and be sure of my ratings and opinions that would be perfect.

So what’s next on the business agenda? Creating free giveaways to help people read more diversely and research marketplaces to start participating as a pop-up. I want to start getting out there and making some actual sales!