Books, Glorious Books...

When Kevin and I went to Elko over New Year's, I spent an hour or so in the local book store. It was like a little bite of heaven. I can't tell you how much I miss bookstores. This one had a sort of funky feel that I loved. I loved it so much that now I want to open one myself.

The store in Elko is three storefronts in a strip mall (strip malls in rural Nevada are different than strip malls in, say, Las Vegas. They're older, more interesting.) The first section has a huge selection of magazines, as large of a selection as a Barnes and Nobel. part of that and the next section has new books: paperback novels and also some non-fiction and hardback books. The last section is used books. They sell used books for half the cover price and take them in trade for a quarter the cover price (so a $7.95 paperback would sell for $4.00 and be taken in trade for $2.00.) Some of the non-fiction books had prices on them with stickers (I got a cool 1970s crochet pattern book for $2.00, for instance.)

So I've been thinking for the past two weeks about how cool it would be to own a bookstore. There is space for rent right between this neat 50s-style diner (a real 50s diner, not a modern restaurant made to look like a 50s diner. Way cool.) and a laundromat. In my vision, I see it having the same new/used books and magazines as the store in Elko, but also maybe selling some vintage clothes. Just because I really adore vintage clothes. And maybe showcasing some local art, selling locally-made crafts, etc.

I talked to my dad yesterday. He's the only person on the planet who has more books than I do. He's willing to ship a lot of them to me as seed for my store. And he's a business consultant, so he knows how to go about contracting for the new stuff. I figure if I only sold $100 in books a day, I'd earn at least as much as I do substitute teaching. Plus I can bring Ruby to work with me, and Nick can learn a lot working in our own store, AND I can do my homework while I work.

Now I just need a name for the place. The Elko store is just called The Book Store. Any ideas for mine? My Amazon store is called White Pine Books. (I live in White Pine County.) But I think that's sort of boring.