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bhbhbhhh t1_ja02h24 wrote

Reply to comment by RobertoBologna in What Is It That Makes Used Bookstores So Wonderful? by zsreport

A regular bookstore's selection of books published more than a few years ago will range from okay to abysmal.

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RobertoBologna t1_ja03r5w wrote

Ehh I feel it’s the opposite. I think it’s the newest books that are the most hit or miss, the ones that have been through a few printings have survived for a reason.

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bhbhbhhh t1_ja0dwtw wrote

I'm not talking about the quality of individual books. I'm talking about the selection. Your Barnes and Noble will only have a sliver of the books that have "been through a few printings," while carrying a much higher percentage of the books that have recently been released.

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RobertoBologna t1_ja0l9ga wrote

I don’t think it’s true that B&N has only a sliver of books that have been through a few printings. I’d guess only 20 or 30% of the store is new releases. What’s boring about a B&N is that each time you go is mostly the same experience because that other 70-80% of books gets reordered from the publisher when a copy is bought, whereas a used bookstore could have entirely new books from one visit to the next.

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bhbhbhhh t1_ja0ob2m wrote

> I’d guess only 20 or 30% of the store is new releases.

80% of a regular-sized store is maybe a small percentage of the size of the building you'd need to gather up every book in the language that's been through multiple print runs. You need a warehouse.

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bhbhbhhh t1_ja91cij wrote

I said “only have a sliver of the,” not “only have a small portion of the shelves be dedicated to the”

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