We’ve installed 2 more bookcases of manga at The Beguiling in the past week or two, bumping our total to 14 (and 6 spinner racks). Last time my fellow employee Parrish checked our instock list, there were more than 5000 line items on it, and that’s not including stuff that we don’t have codes for and have to order “manually” (adult titles and yaoi, international manga, etc.). After finishing the monumental task of re-stocking and re-organising these shelves, he said “I want a picture of this with the caption ‘this is what 5000 manga looks like’.”
Parrish, your wish is my command. Check the (craptacular) panoramic below.
…and if you’re just dropping in from BoingBoing, hello! Check out my Japan photos, they’re pretty great.
– Christopher
That…that is fucking beautiful, man!
Damn…
That second floor is gonna, like, collapse.
Incredible!!
Wow. Just wow… the Beguiling must be huuuuge! I need to get to Toronto ASAP.
Dammit! Where is Barefoot Gen Vol 5!
Sorry, just had to be that ONE customer…
The amount of money I would spend in one visit to your store is downright sickening. Sickening.
Oh god, when can I go?
Since you asked…
“Monday-Thursday, 11am-7pm, Friday 11am-9pm, Saturday 11am-7pm, and Sunday 12pm-6pm”
A beautiful display, Chris.
But from the point of view of an ex-bookstore buyer and a current employee of a book publisher, may I ask: what’s the average turnaround on these 5,000 titles? What percentage manage a turn of once or twice a year? I’m just curious if the sheer massive space you’ve devoted to your display is playing off the physical cost per square inch that you’ve devoted to it, and if it’s across the board or if it’s a more typical “20% of stock is 80% of income” that contributes to your finances.
John- Thanks
Jason- That’s why we build the heaviest stuff along the walls, where’s it’s most structurally sound…
Santiago- Actually, we’re not that big a store, probably medium sized. We just have an exceptionally high density. Come by any time!
Jamie- If it isn’t on the shelf under B, you can still find copies on the new manga rack…
Danielle- You’re our favourite type of customer. heh.
Matt- Cheers!
John- Hah, actually it’s not exactly beautiful except in a “that’s a lot of books and that’s awesome” kind of a way, it’s really frankenstein-y up close. Nevertheless, we’re quite happy to have all of those books available.
As to turnover, in the store itself, I’m always kind of amazed at what we have to reorder. There are obviously books and series that are ‘dead’ and I don’t think we’ve sold a copy of them in years, if ever. This is probably the last few months where we’re going to commit to a ‘one of everything’ stocking method–just too many books. But while the obvious sellers like Naruto, Fruits Basket, and Kingdom Hearts, all sell really well, we actually turn a lot of our stock. We also do exceptionally well with mature manga that end up being shelf-warmers at other stores. And because we’re known for diversity we attract customers that are looking for hard-to-find stuff.
Building a store for every kind of manga customer kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and we have a much wider turnover than we might otherwise enjoy…
– Chris
Manga heaven and there’s even a section for yaoi XD!
Unless my eyes deceive me you still have Akira volume 3. That baby goes for a nice chunk of change nowadays.
I am currently imagining the massive amount of debt that I might have incurred had I ever been anywhere in close proximity of your store.
Thanks, Chris.
The photo spread is exactly as I imagined it.
0.o Why can’t I live in Canada?
That photo is totally cool. The scary thing for me is that if I put all my manga on shelves, I’d have that many in my house. Not to mention another several thousand volumes of other graphic novels plus I don’t know how many long boxes of comics. I’ve been reading and collecting for several decades …