Plug: A Different Bookstore Sale

A Different Bookstore is on sale, at least 30% off on selected titles.

A Different Bookstore Website

From Read or Die

Looks like I spoke too soon in yesterday's post (that was only yesterday?) as A Different Bookstore finally has a website up.

One Library Article Every Week (a.k.a. Homework)

Back in the day when broadband Internet was still a thing of the past (in the Philippines), EB's (eyeballs) for me were full of tension. Parents were paranoid and as an individual, the biggest question was what would the rest of the people look like. In a way, modern convenience has mitigated some of those factors. Meeting a stranger isn't as discomforting mainly because we have mobile phones so when we see someone roaming aimlessly in the designated meeting place, we can just give them a miss call or text message to check if they really are who we think they are.

Anyway, the Filipino Librarian decided to hold an EB among fellow librarians. Zarah has an entry and enumerates the names of those who attended (I'm horrible with names!). Of the bunch, Igor was familiar because I knew him back when I was still in high school (in the late 90's). (It's funny how most of my "literary" connections can be traced to my anime and hobby gaming roots.)

Von's planning to set up a project and to help out, I've decided that at least once a week, I'll have a library-related post (never mind the fact that I did not study library science or that I'm not a registered librarian... does writing a library story count?). It helps my blog become more consistent. (Remember, Thursdays are podcast days and I from now on, Mondays are library article days.) Am I setting myself up for failure? Possibly. I didn't finish the other year's NaNoWriMo for example. But this is an endeavor I want to try out.

What I found quaint during the meeting wasn't the fact that most of the attendees were male but rather most of them are involved in IT! Where are the trained librarians manning the libraries? Zarah even mentions how there's a shortage of accredited librarians for PAASCU (basically an independent body that gives accreditation to private schools and gives them a rating... it's like your supervisor dropping by to determine if you should still be in the company or not). Von also mentions at how in order to become a certified librarian in the Philippines, there's a licensing exam to take, much like board exams for doctors and lawyers.

On a side note, I want to plug A Different Bookstore which is where the meeting took place. I really which that they have a website to which I could link to, even a simple blog where they can post their new arrivals (they already provide the same service through their private mailing list and via text messages--one of the assets of an independent bookstore). Zarah was talking at how she wishes libraries could have the same set-up as A Different Bookstore and Von tells us that we should visit Singapore.

Anyway, since The Filipino Librarian is overwhelmed by my posts, here's some library-related articles he missed:

• Libraries, Libraries, Libraries -- Basically me plugging Curious Expedition's photo compendium of various libraries (I got the photo above from this site).
  
• Evolving Libraries -- An essay I wrote back in July which is a short history of libraries.

Also, here are the members of the blogging "mafia" as we attempt to monopolize the library niche in the Philippines:

• Filipino Librarian
• School Librarian in Action
• A Feed is Born
• Our Paradise Philippines
• Monkey Wrench 2.1

Book Orders and Shipments

Are you the type of person who visits their bookstore every single day, hoping to find something new on the shelves? Similarly, are you tired of seeing the same old books on the shelves and tempted to order books via Amazon.com? I used to be that person but I'm not. I discovered a secret that comes in handy and addresses my bibliophile needs. And the two topics might seem separate but in truth, they're related.

To answer the first question, I stopped dropping by bookstores every single day. Why? Because the books on shelf won't change. In fact, the variety will decrease as people pick up books, misplace them, or simply outright buy them. The question you should be asking is when should you visit your favorite bookstore. And the answer is the day after they ship their new stocks. It makes sense, right? But the answer to that question isn't obvious as most bookstores don't advertise. A Different Bookstore, for example, states in their book ordering information that their shipments arrives twice a month, on the 15th and the 30th (the same day as payday!). For the other bookstores, you're left in the dark. Well, here's some facts I discovered after stalking the bookstores (of course I can't guarantee this is 100% true but this is what I've observed):

Bookstores that ship twice every month:

• Fully Booked
• A Different Bookstore

Bookstores that ship once a month:

• Booktopia (transitioning from twice-a-month schedule, or so I heard from Banzai Cat)
• Powerbooks
• National Bookstore

Now what does that mean? In the case of bookstores that ship twice every month, you just have to visit your favorite bookstore twice every month--don't bother visiting every single day, the book selections won't change. And in the case of bookstores that get their stocks every month, it just pays to visit them once. Sounds so simple right? And unbibliophile-like? Well, the way I see it, the less trips you make to your favorite bookstore, the more trips you can make to other bookstores, or the more time you can spend to actually reading your books. So think of this as a time management device. (Or if you want, just visit a section of the bookstore every day rather than tour the entire place in one go.)

I'd also want to clarify that the day a bookstore's stocks arrive to their warehouse isn't the day that the books are stocked on shelf. If A Different Bookstore gets its new stocks on the 15th, you can expect it on their shelves on the 16th or 17th for example. From what I've observed at Fully Booked, back when the flagship store was in Rockwell (it's now the one in Serendra), new books would arrive on the weekend (a Saturday afternoon visit is good). Nonetheless, knowing when books ship is useful to know (so ask the bookstores when they expect their next shipment to arrive... the smaller bookstores are open about it while the bigger bookstore chains usually cryptically answer whether it's soon or not-so-soon.

Knowing the shipment of books helps you make an informed decision on the second part of the question. You don't need to order books via Amazon.com. Most bookstores accept book orders. So why funnel your income towards a big, online conglomerate when your money can instead go to local bookstores that provide you with the same services? Here's a quick summary Amazon's shipping rates to the Philippines, assuming we take the cheapest service:

• Amazon is charging $6.99 for any book shipment. That means whether we're getting one book or a dozen, there's the flat $6.99 fee to pay. It's a good thing to do bulk orders in this case, because the cost is more spread out among the various titles. If you're just ordering one book, an initial fee of $6.99 is easily the cost of the paperback book itself.
• Amazon is charging $4.99 for each item in the shipment. That means in addition to the $6.99 shipping charge, there's an additional $4.99 for each item. Buying in bulk doesn't help as this cost applies to each and every item. So the next time you think you're getting a book "cheap" at Amazon, remember to add $4.99 to the cost.
• 11 to 40 business days. Keep in mind, they're counting by business days. That usually excludes holidays and weekends.

Now Amazon has other shipping rates but that's the cheapest. If you want to receive the book sooner, you might want to avail of those other shipping options but remember, the shipping rates will be higher. That's also not to say you should never order from Amazon if price is a concern (availability and rarity is one reason why you should consider ordering from Amazon). But as far as paperbacks go, the discounts (anywhere from none to 20%) isn't enough to offset the shipping costs. Hardcovers, on the other hand, are a different matter, mainly because Amazon gives huge discounts on them. Take for example Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Amazon is giving buyers a 49% discount, reducing the actual cost to $17.99. Factor in all the other shipping costs and you end up with $29.97. Multiply that with today's exchange rate and it's costing you P1343.26 to order the book. Not bad, considering the book is going for P1400+ in most local bookstores. But you have to bear in mind, that's because the book is quite expensive (at $34.99) and Amazon is giving a huge discount (49%). The per-book cost can go down if you order more books (spreading $6.99 among the number of books you ordered). But remember, think twice when buying paperbacks. Fahrenheit 451, with a retail price of $6.99, can end up costing you P850.24, even when you can get the same book for half the price locally.

I've talked enough about Amazon, let's talk about the local bookstores and why you should order from them. They may not be able to give you the huge discounts but at least shipping won't be such a huge burden on you as it's factored in to their daily shipment of books. I discussed in a previous blog entry about the various conversion rate of various bookstores. You can end up as cheaply as paying P40.00 against the dollar depending on which bookstore you shop. Those big discounts don't apply to ordered books. You'll most likely be paying more against the dollar, around P60.00 = $1.00 back when the local exchange rate was P55.00 = $1.00. And depending on which bookstore you shop, your discount card might not apply. Nonetheless, that's a great deal when you're ordering paperback books. Even assuming that it's costing you P60.00 = $1.00, Fahrenheit 451 will cost you roughly P420.00 (again, half the price it would have cost you to order from Amazon).

The second question when ordering from bookstores is how long it takes before they actually acquire the book. In Powerbooks, it took them anywhere from one to two months (personal experience, although their website has a new delivery date). A Different Bookstore gives me a better timetable, two weeks was the fastest (a fluke!) while four weeks is the norm. The key here is to place your order just after their shipment arrives. If you place your order in between shipments, the book order might only be processed once their next shipment arrives (or rather they might order it but it won't be in time for the next shipment). That means a longer wait for you.

The third question is availability. Thankfully, most bookstores can order whatever titles that Amazon can carry, barring used books. I'll give a summary of the various bookstores and their book ordering services:

National Bookstore/Powerbooks
Delivery Time: 3 - 5 weeks.
Selection: Books available at Amazon
Downpayment: 50% of the cost of the book
Discount: No
More Info: Powerbooks and National Bookstore

A Different Bookstore
Delivery Time: 2 - 8 weeks
Selection: Books available at Amazon
Downpayment: full downpayment of the cost of the book, and refund/change/additional charges on the books when they finally arrive, depending on the current exchange rate.
Discount: Yes

Booktopia
Delivery Time: 2 - 8 weeks.
Selection: No limit, but no guarantees on hard-to-find books. Also searches secondhand bookstore market. (They buy used books so if you don't mind secondhand books, especially for rare titles, they can try to acquire it.)
Downpayment: 50% of the cost of the book
Discount: If you ask nicely
More Info: Booktopia

Aeon Books
Delivery Time: Unknown (but I assume anywhere from 2 - 8 weeks)
Selection: Books available at Amazon
Downpayment: Just ask nicely and they'll try to get the book.
Discount: No

Fully Booked
Delivery Time: Unknown (but I assume anywhere from 2 - 8 weeks) 2 - 6 weeks
Selection: Books available at Amazon (their stocks would suggest they can acquire European books and I tried ordering one but they never got back to me)
Downpayment: Fill out a form and they'll check if the book is available. Haven't progressed any further than that (they never got back to me, which I assume they weren't able to get the book) but I also assume there's a similar 50% downpayment once they can confirm they can get the book. 50% of the cost of the book.
Discount: Unknown Yes

This is all based on my experiences two years ago so any information presented may not be as accurate as I want it to be. If you want to add a bookstore or update any information, feel free to comment with the appropriate corrections and I'll edit the post.

Ink & Stone Sale

"Hi! Our SALE ongoing til end of July. Come and get 15% - 20% discount off selected items. Browse our new arrivals, Legacy of Ashes, Peeling the Onion, Motherland, Sea of Thunder, Royal Babylon, People's Princess, Language of God, Secret of Servant, Vivaldi's Virgin, Russian Concubine."

Serendra Bookstores

So yesterday was the first time I managed to set foot on Serendra, which was opposite Market! Market! It was raining but that fact didn't take away the urban beauty of the place.

It's been years since I last visited the US. Going to Serendra reminded me of my US experiences. It's the same architecture, the same wide spaces, even the same feel. Many Filipinos don't realize it but in many ways, Metro Manila is "more America than America" with our tall corporate buildings and ever-expanding malls (the only difference with our malls is that it's designed vertically rather than horizontally, simply because we're lacking in space). I mean Makati is easily "America Town". Serendra more so.

Anyway, the first bookstore I managed to visit was Fully Booked. What can I say? When I saw it, I thought I never needed to go to the US to pillage their bookstores. It's simply orgasmic. Repeat after me, orgasmic.

The building has four floors plus a basement. I'll work from the bottom up. The basement is smaller than the rest of the floors, around half its size. When I visited, I think I saw Jaime Daez putting manga on the shelves (I could be wrong as I've never met the guy). So the basement is where most of the comics/manga items are located (including the statues and the like), as well as a shelf for science-fiction/fantasy.

Next we move on to the ground floor. Now this is really an awe-inspiring sight. It's huge and has this cosmopolitan feel. There's a huge section on science-fiction and fantasy (yes, the basement doesn't have enough space to contain them!) as well as on comics (ditto). Then there's also the fiction section in alphabetical order. It would take me hours to go through all of them. (Unfortunately I only had half an hour for my visit so sorry, no elaborate guided tour). Things to note is that it has a customer service desk as well as the cashier.

Taking the escalators up, I find myself at the second floor. It's just as big and I think the most notable section is the young adult/children's books section. It's actually divided into sub-sections. I mean how cool is that? They have enough space to divide children's books into fantasy, horror, etc. There are other sections on this floor but majority is really comprised of children's books. Again, there's a customer service desk here too (so you don't have to go all the way down).

The first thing you see when you reach the third floor is the Starbucks. Yes, the place has a Starbucks coffee inside. Because of this, the floor looks smaller than it is and lacks a customer service desk. I don't remember the specifics but this floor houses the other books you didn't find in other floors, such as Filipiniana or language.

The highest floor is what I dub the multimedia section. Upon stepping off the escalator all you see are these CD players stuck to the walls. It has a music vendor shop feel more than a bookstore as you see a wall full of CD players and earphones to which you can tune in to the music. Touring the floor, you find out it's not just music that they're selling. There's VCDs and DVDs available here too. When I dropped by, the customer service desk was vacant/under construction but it's there. There's also a room that seems perfect for presentations, meetings, or small events. There are several chairs facing a wall and I think there's supposed to be a projector behind the chairs. If there's an event or lecture to be held in the place, it's probably going to be there.

An improvement in that Fully Booked branch is that the architecture isn't confusing. It's a rectangle and the books are arranged in an intuitive manner. And there's lot of space too. The other thing worthy to note is that this is the most complete branch I've seen. Forget Rockwell, go to Serendra. My only doubts is how long Fully Booked can sustain the place. The closest example of such a mammoth bookstore in the country is the main branch of Power Books in Arnaiz St. before. It had three floors and and stocked the most complete collection of books of all their branches. (Of course I think the space is wasted on Power Books because their books don't have diversity and they're really stocking two dozen copies of the same book on their shelves. Not so with Fully Booked.) Eventually, that branch closed down and relocated into Glorietta and Greenbelt 3. I couldn't help but try to compute how much books Fully Booked had to sell to pay the rent for five floors (Starbucks probably helps defray the cost).

Then we move on to A Different Bookstore. If Fully Booked feels like this huge bookstore chain, A Different Bookstore is the opposite and takes advantage of that. It has this homebody feel and you're not intimidated. The place is only two floors and has a cafe called Bookworm Cafe. The ground floor contains the cafe as well as the typical shelves of books. Going up is what seems to be the lounge where there's a shelf of books you can publicly read and comfortable chairs and tables (you can also order from the Bookworm Cafe there.). The top floor has the customer service desk and since that's where the LitCritters are having their regular meetings, that's also where they keep stock of books from which Dean gets his readings from. (We ransacked the Amy Bender books yesterday.) It's a refreshing visit after visiting Fully Booked and in my opinion a much more sustainable business model. Although I have to wonder where majority of the revenue will be coming from: from the bookstore or the cafe?

Reading Guides for SF&F

One of the weakness (and strengths) of some of the modern-day science-fiction and fantasy novels is that several books comprise a series and sometimes, it leaves a very tangled web. Sometimes, you simply need reading guides (and not in the Cliff Notes fashion).

For example, the last time I counted, the books in the Dragonlance series number more than a hundred (and there was a time when I had half of those books, but read only half of them). What I find convoluted about Dragonlance is that there are some books that you simply won't understand or appreciate unless you read a certain trilogy. It's not enough to read at the beginning of Book 1 of XX series but you have to read Book 1 of YY series. In the case of Dragonlance, a good core of the books requires you to be familiar with Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends (and even until today, those two trilogies are probably the best in the franchise). Thankfully, this phenomenon wasn't repeated in Dungeon & Dragon's other famous franchise, the Forgotten Realms novels (the books are still interlinked but not as dependent on each other).

Another example I think is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. It's not so much "understand" and "appreciate" as much as that the Discworld series is easily a genre of its own with various sub-genres under its wing. For example, the Rincewind novels is a parody of the fantasy genre while the Witches novels parody non-genre classics like Shakespeare. The City Watch easily makes fun of pop culture while Death is a character so compelling that stories simply revolve around his existence.

Then there's some esoteric material that you don't need so much a guide as a warning or better labeling. A friend once bought Peter Hamilton's Night Dawn series, purchasing Book One, Book Two, and Book Three, not realizing that there were six books in the series and the latter half was labeled as Book One Part 2, Book Two Part 2, and Book Three Part 3.

Of course for the same reasons, some experimental and interesting series of books have similarly arisen. I mean Orson Scott Card's Ender series begins with Ender's Game but after that, it branches into two parallel storylines. One could follow Ender's story in Speaker for the Dead and travel the universe, or follow the arc of Bean and what happened on Earth in Ender's Shadow.

Shaping A Different Bookstore's Book Buying Habits

I had this "wonderful" essay about book buying, but I'm still waiting for Tin to publish it, so right now, all you need to know is that book buyers determine what books bookstores order and in what quantities, and isn't far off from what a comic book retailer does when he or she isn't manning the counter.

For big bookstore chains like National Bookstore or Fully Booked, it was highly unlikely that regular customers could influence what books they stocked. Sure, you could place orders on specific books, but when that book actually arrives, you're the only one who receives a copy of that book.

My experience with A Different Bookstore was different. At the time, I was making good use of their book ordering system. Ordering books from A Different Bookstore isn't any more expensive than ordering books from, say, Powerbooks, but what I liked about it is that the books arrived faster. It averages out to waiting for a month for regular books to arrive (more if it's a "rare" or hard-to-find book) but there was a time when a book order arrived in just two weeks. (Of course knowing when their new stocks arrived also helped me "place my order" at the optimum time frame.)

Because I had similar tastes when it came to the kind of books they ordered (i.e. the fantasy/sci-fi genre), it shouldn't be surprising that they were learning from me as I was benefiting from them. Some of the books I ordered made it to their shelves instead of simply the lone copy of the book I ordered. An example I think was Jeffrey Ford's The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories. Now I'm a big Jeffrey Ford fan but his books aren't exactly mainstream. In the five years since I last read about him, there are only two other bookstores that stocked his books in at least one point in time, and they're both independent bookstores (Aeon Books and Booktopia). So when I ordered two copies of the book, A Different Bookstore didn't just order two copies. I saw around three other copies at their Glorietta branch and at least one more in their Podium branch. (And thankfully, all those copies sold out.) It's always possible that they ordered it out of their own volition, but I find it coincidental for them to stock a non-mainstream title (especially when their fantasy selection comprised of authors like Margaret Weis, Raymond E. Feist, Robert Jordan) at the same time my order arrived.

This was all possible, however, because A Different Bookstore back then was operating as an independent bookstore (albeit one with bookstore chain book-buying habits--what you see in one bookstore, you'll see in another branch).

Of course being an independent bookstore similarly allows you to take a risk and learn. When it comes to D&D RPG booksfor example, I don't think anyone (not even the gaming shops) really mastered the optimum way to place orders until it was too late. Simply put, bookstore book buyers don't know which RPG books to order and in what quantities. Of course of all the bookstores, I think A Different Bookstore fared best (especially when they stuck to the formula of ordering The Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster's Manual instead of the other supplements or -gasp- adventures). It's only when they drifted from this formula that things started to fall apart and books like Shining South, a $30 hardcover, ended up selling for $2 at the book fair.

Fully Booked Serendra

There was a time when I'd tour each and every bookstore every month, including the new stores that open (assuming it's within Metro Manila) with the hope of finding new books but I feel my trekking ways has past me (actually, it's just the disappointment of seeing new and better architecture but the same shelves of books).

Anyway, The Soapbox Barbie Collection visited the Fully Booked Branch at Serendra last Saturday on its soft opening, and has pictures! Amaze yourself at the lovely interior design and the hordes of unsold Moleskine notebooks!

My only real problem with Serendra is that it's out of the way unless you have a car. Which I don't. Of course Tin has also been talking about how it also houses the best A Different Bookstore branch and with the Lit Critters meeting there twice every month, it could easily be the literati hangout in a few month's time. So anyone I can hitch with? Banzai?