Shop stats and fresh finds

Some nerdy analysis with a sprinkling of upcoming titles

Hi everyone!

We’ve had an exciting couple of weeks since our grand opening. And, we want to sincerely thank everyone for their support and thoughtful feedback!

In today’s update I want to share a behind-the-scenes peek at an inventory analysis I did and also share some upcoming books that caught my eye.

By the numbers

Buckle up friends, I’m about to engage full nerd mode.

This past weekend, I spent a few hours reviewing our inventory inflow and outflow. I thought it might be fun – well, using a particular definition of that word – to share some of the insights from that work.

Roughly speaking, the front-half of the store is adult books and the back half is children’s, middle grade, and young adult books. We track all four of these reader categories separately because that’s how publishers market titles to us, but also because the content can be quite different. Looking at the data, we can see the exact percentage of inventory and percentage of purchases for each reader category.

In general, when the green bar is below the gold bar, that category is outperforming relative to the shelf space assigned to it. Now, a couple things to keep in mind. First, to some extent, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we sold exclusively had sci-fi titles, then science fiction would be 100% of inventory and purchases. Therefore, we need to be careful about introducing survivorship bias into our assessment. Second, the data is slightly skewed because we provide custom orders for titles we don’t stock and those purchases are almost exclusively adult books. Third, the line between adult and young adult is blurry, especially for fantasy and romance titles, which, as you’ll see later, are quite popular. Still, this is a good overview to consider when balancing the next few weeks of inventory.

Taking a closer look at adult books, we see a breakdown between fiction and nonfiction:

The interest in fiction is consistent with what we saw in survey results gathered prior to opening the shop. This chart also reveals that we should expand our adult nonfiction section because those titles out-performing the shelf space we initially set for them. Fortunately, we are adding more books every day and will soon be expanding use of the shelves throughout the shop. Have a suggestion? Let us know!

We can zoom in a bit further by looking at tags. Tags are the little blue links you see at the bottom of a book listing on the website, e.g. Water Moon. These tags are derived from BISAC subject codes, publisher-provided context labels, and our own assessment of each book. The primary purpose is to aid in shelving and website search. For now, we can look at the top 20 tags across all purchased titles:

The horizontal axis is scaled based on items purchased. So, as an example, literary fiction was about twice as popular as fantasy during the last four weeks. I was surprised to see the level of interest in historical fiction, which is a genre I also personally enjoy, but I didn’t expect it to be this high on the chart. We can also see the enduring popularity of romance, thriller, science fiction, and mystery. Onyx Storm is our top selling title thus far which contributes to the interest in fantasy and romance. Humor is also higher than I expected due in no small part to the work of the great Philomena Cunk. There are a couple dozen more tags not shown on the chart but they tend to hover around the same levels. I think this reflects the diverse interest in topics across our local community. Overall, we have some adjustments to make, but I think we’re on the right track. As Jamie says, it’s a small space with room for all. 🙂

Coming soon to the shop

In the mid-90s, I developed a fascination with Ebola. I still don’t know why, exactly. But I was captivated and I still have newspaper clippings about the 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, which happened to coincide with the release of Outbreak (unplanned I presume, as the movie was based on outbreaks decades earlier). But, my interest in understanding infectious disease persists to this day. So, I’m looking forward to the March 18 release of John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis which dives into the history and outlook for a disease that affects millions of people every year.

Within the shop, I feel most comfortable in the science fiction and fantasy sections. And, one of my favorite series of recent years started with Dungeon Crawler Carl. On March 11, we’re being treated to The Gate of The Feral Gods, the fourth installment of the series. For the uninitiated, the series is set in an alien-run, reality show dungeon – think Running Man operated by the Mars Attacks crowd. The books find a way to mix absurd humor with genuine character development – and Carl is a staple of the LitRPG subgenre.

Finally, if you were captivated by Swamplandia, Karen Russell's The Antidote is coming in a few weeks. She applies her signature blend of the paranormal and the unsettling to a historical Western setting. For a raw reality check, check out Tilt – a survival story about a pregnant woman reflecting on modern life as she navigates the destruction of a severe earthquake, which has already landed on numerous “Most Anticipated of 2025” lists. Finally, there’s more Hunger Games with Sunrise on the Reaping. Will you volunteer as tribute?

Cheers!

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!

-Kurt