11 Things You Learn Your First Month As A Bookseller

Every new job has a learning curve, but not every job also expects you to instantly absorb the entire scope of the history of literature along with all the hot new releases and hidden gems, but bookselling does. Here are 11 things Heather and Mackenzie learned in their first month at PSB.

11. Every title and author's name sounds like "Ssdflkjx Dkfsldkflkjs" over the phone

And they're usually calling from the road. While driving through a tunnel. Under construction.

10. White boxes are the best thing that happens all month. It's like bookseller Christmas.

White Boxes sent from the American Booksellers Association include some of the best new books coming out that month, and yes, getting them does make booksellers the coolest.

9. The book you spent twenty minutes searching for and failed to locate...

will inevitably be found two minutes after the customer who wanted it leaves the store.

8. Booksellers are expected to know everything.

Including what book you are talking about when all you know is that it has a blue cover and the word everything in the title.

7. . ...but nothing beats the feeling of sheer triumph

that comes from locating the correct book based only on the information it has a blue cover and the word everything in the title.

6. Behind-the-counter bookseller conversations are

exactly as pretentious and literary as you imagine they are. Well, at least when Josh and Gary are working.

5. Every book event is improved by the inclusion of a theremin

4. Nothing sells a book like an NPR spot.

It is the white whale of book publicity.

3. While shelving, you will have to sing the alphabet song.

Constantly.

2. Most questions you get asked will start with "I can't remember the title, but...."

(Except for the questions about the bathroom, of course.)

1. You will never read all the galleys you take home.

But that won't stop you from taking them home.