{"id":2084,"date":"2014-11-24T21:54:46","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T02:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theartofperegrination.wordpress.com\/?p=46"},"modified":"2014-11-24T21:54:46","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T02:54:46","slug":"the-humanness-of-bookselling-an-interview-with-jeff-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/2014\/11\/24\/the-humanness-of-bookselling-an-interview-with-jeff-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"The Humanness of Bookselling: An Interview with Jeff Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Interior\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

“We do not sell product; we sell books and ideas and entertainment and fun.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The bell above the door chimes invitingly as I enter Whistlestop Bookshop and hear the soft swells of classical music playing on the radio. The store has a homey, eclectic vibe that is an English major\u2019s dream; it\u2019s the sort of place you could spend days browsing in before settling down in a corner with a hot cup of tea. I am greeted by shelves upon shelves of books, a green-eyed cat sidling past me, and the friendly face of Jeff Wood.<\/p>\n

Jeff is the owner of the independent bookstore Whistlestop Bookshop<\/a> in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A Carlisle native and professed book-lover, from a young age Jeff seemed destined to open up his own bookshop. Amid taking business calls and ringing out customers, Jeff was kind enough to talk to me about small-town life and the humanness of bookselling.<\/p>\n

Follow Whistlestop on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Book<\/a><\/p>\n

“There is no one perfect book for everybody.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What made you want to open up an independent bookstore in Carlisle, PA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

History and experience. I came here when I was twelve, went through the school system, graduated from Dickinson<\/a>, and for two years while I was at Dickinson, I managed an independent bookstore in the mall that used to exist where Wal-Mart is now. Since I had always been deeply affected by books, it seemed natural to open a store right after I graduated from Dickinson.<\/p>\n

What did you major in in College?<\/strong><\/p>\n

American studies. It was the way my brain was wired before I ever knew about it, so it was a happy meeting of predisposition and a major. It has definitely helped me in my career.<\/p>\n

What does a typical day look like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any retail is a combination of crisis management and strategic planning, but a bookstore has the element of fun to it for me. We do everything from take-in orders, process orders billed orders and then when the shipments arrive from previous orders we process them, set up displays, arrange for advertising, do web maintenance and Facebook maintenance.<\/p>\n

The primary thing above all this and around all this is interacting with customers, whether in person or on the phone. That\u2019s a really short summary of a typical day.<\/p>\n

\"Fireplace<\/a><\/p>\n

If you could describe Carlisle, in one word, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One word? [Pauses.] [Laughs.]<\/em> I can think of a lot of words that it wouldn\u2019t quite fit. Let\u2019s say \u201chistoric\u201d\u2014but that\u2019s in favor of saying things like, \u201cFor a town of its history, it is diverse. For a town of its history, it is interesting and engaging to live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t condemn it by calling it \u201ccharming,\u201d but it\u2019s something close to that. It\u2019s always interesting. There\u2019s always something to learn and ask questions about.<\/p>\n

How do you view your relationship to Dickinson College and the larger Carlisle community?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My relationship with the college has always been very good since I\u2019ve opened. I liked Dickinson most for its faculty and for its resources, and since the students change every semester and every year, they\u2019re always interesting. Dickinson has changed a lot in the time since I\u2019ve graduated to this year. And it\u2019s changed for the better.<\/p>\n

The relationship with the Carlisle community is very good. I\u2019m active on a lot of nonprofit boards. I\u2019m deeply rooted in the community.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the hardest part about being an independent bookstore owner in 2014, especially in light of competition from major booksellers such as Amazon and the birth of the eBook?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Clock\"<\/a>What\u2019s most challenging is the nature of the industry and its pace of change. And it\u2019s not just online selling; the selling aspect of books has actually been somewhat stable after the 1990s, which was a wild rollercoaster.<\/p>\n

The publishing aspect of books is in more turmoil than the selling of books right now. And I\u2019m concerned that a lot of the great things that I\u2019d like to put in the hands of my customers may or may not be available in the ways they want them. This was not a question a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, twenty years ago\u2026 It is now a question as to whether I can get something from a publisher for a customer. There are big factors at work beyond just a simple transaction.<\/p>\n

What makes Whistlestop special?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\""We\u2019re<\/a><\/p>\n

“We\u2019re small, we\u2019re interesting in a quirky sort of way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Three things.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ambiance\u2013we\u2019re small, we\u2019re interesting in a quirky sort of way.<\/li>\n
  2. Selection\u2013everything is very carefully vetted and hand-selected because of space and my attitude and what I perceive to be my customers’ wants.<\/li>\n
  3. And then service\u2014we actually pay attention to the human beings who are our customers. We do not sell product; we sell books and ideas and entertainment and fun.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What has been the most surprising thing about the bookshop business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The fact that anybody can walk through this door at any time and you have to be ready to respond to what they think they want, what they know they want, and what they don\u2019t know they want.<\/p>\n

    Were there any people or pieces of advice that were instrumental in helping you get where you are today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve been selling used books since I was twelve, so mostly it\u2019s been customers who have been most instrumental in the way I sell books. By sharing what\u2019s important about a book\u2014whether it moves them, whether they\u2019re out for facts, whether they considered a meaningful gift to a grandchild\u2014I learn from that and stock accordingly.<\/p>\n

    Do you have any memories of specific customers that have stayed with you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    One of the most discreet places in the world is a bookstore and a bar, so we don\u2019t tell stories about our customers, but we do live vicariously through our customers sometimes. We ship books around the world, we deliver books to nursing homes, we have seen pregnant women come in, we\u2019ve seen the child, we\u2019ve seen the child grow up and go to law school and get married. There\u2019s one specific person I can think of whose whole life arc I\u2019ve seen so far.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s the one book you think everyone should have a copy of in his or her personal library?\"young+men+and+fire\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    This sounds kind of cranky and unhelpful, but I don\u2019t believe in that, because I believe as every human being is different, so the perfect book for them would be different. There will be some overlap, but I\u2019m not prescriptive. I\u2019d rather get to know the person better. We have a way of just finding out about people\u2014which is one of the great things about retail\u2014and then we try to select something or recommend something that they would like.<\/p>\n

    Now if you asked\u00a0me what I think is one of the most moving and important books I\u2019ve read in the last thirty years of doing this, that would be Young Men and Fire <\/em>by Norman Maclean<\/a>, which sounds like a tough testosterone-laden Western book, but it\u2019s actually a very complex love story, history, adventure-story.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I\u2019ve ever encountered. Since I\u2019ve encountered so much, saying that really means something. It\u2019s something that still has the ability to blow me away, so I would often recommend that book to all sorts of different people from different backgrounds. But there is no one perfect book for everybody.<\/p>\n

    I have to ask…What\u2019s the story behind the cat?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"Mulan\"Mulan hung around the back of my property in 2011. She was a stray cat, and after having shopped around she began to move closer and closer to the property and finally walked in the back door on a summer\u2019s day and said, \u201cOkay, this is the one I\u2019ve chosen. I\u2019m staying.\u201d So she\u2019s been here since 2011, and she lives here all the time. As with any cat, it\u2019s her store now.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “We do not sell product; we sell books and ideas and entertainment and fun.” The bell above the door chimes invitingly as I enter Whistlestop Bookshop and hear the soft swells of classical… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>\"\" Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2385,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"carlisle","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[109702],"tags":[109703],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-carlisle","hentry","category-student-blog-project-2014","tag-syndicated","post_format-carlisle","post_format-independent-bookstore","post_format-interview-2","post_format-jeff-wood","post_format-whistlestop-bookshop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}