Aibu to do this in bookshops?

[Twinning1]

I love browsing bookshops and could spend hours looking at the shelves thinking about all the books i need to read.

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, In book shops, I make books I love more prominent. I’ve been known to make mini displays of them. Or move a copy to the bestseller display to fill a gap. If there’s a pile of them on a table, I separate the piles so it fills a greater area of the table. Don’t get me wrong... I don’t mess up my local bookshop but I might “accidentally” put the book back in a different place.

I feel somehow like I might make a tiny difference to sales (even if it’s just a few copies). My dh thinks I’m crazy but it really does give me great satisfaction that I might have helped a shopper find a hidden gem of a book that they otherwise might have missed.

Does anyone else do this? Aibu to give my favourite authors a little help every so often?

no, can't say I have, the staff probably think you're slightly crazy though

Oh I never get caught doing it!

Ex Waterstones employee here.

The only thing I will say is that we are tasked with constantly keeping an eye on the bestseller display, and if we spot a book that’s not meant to be there we move it. However, if it’s on the table, go ahead and make it prominent!

The best thing you can do to make a book prominent is to ‘face out’. this is when it is the book facing forwards on a bookshelf of spines. I used to always face out my faves.

I also once had a customer ask if he could take some of our review cards and write some personalised reviews to then display on the little plastic signage we put under the books. We loved that and he reviewed for us for quite some time. If you’re feeling brave you could ask if they would allow that at your local bookshop!

To sum up- no, not being unreasonable. We booksellers all loved passionate readers.

I occasionally like to mess up displays of Marie Kondo books. Not actual vandalism, just putting them the wrong way up or stacked incorrectly.

I haven't done it for ages.

A friend of mine is a YA author, and whenever I see her books in a shop, I turn them face out in the display so they're nice and visible.

I do sometimes cover up/hide books I thought were rubbish with great books! I like the idea of “facing out” books. Will try that next time. And I’d imagine messing up the kondo books is satisfying too

... Books should be ordered alphabetical and size! I Don't like face out or display tables....
Love browsing shelf after shelf running my fingers across the spine till one catches my attention. That's the one I honour with a closer look.

I do sometimes cover up/hide books I thought were rubbish with great books!

And you’re an expert are you?

Just because you don’t think something is good, that doesn’t actually mean it’s rubbish.

But if you think potentially taking away a sale from an author is good thing to do then fine.

YABU to hide books. That'd really piss me off if I was trying to look for a certain book and couldn't find them because someone had covered it up. It isn't fair on the author either.

YABU to not tell us who your favourite authors are so that we can decide just how unreasonable you are being.

What a scream ! ...

I do the promoting books I like too. Never hidden a book though.

What does 'face-out' mean, I'm finding that hard to picture and therefore difficult to tell if yabu.

I once organised a whole table in a Garden centre.
It was full of gifts, and I was bored, and it was terribly displayed, it gave me a sad sense of joy ! 😀 and looked so much better when I’d finished.

No one took any notice, I doubt there were cameras around, it was a huge place, masses of stock, but they were going bust, and the staff and owners had lost interest

So feel free, reorganise the books nicely 😀

Face out means like on a book shelf where they are all lined up with the spines showing and then one book is positions cover showing.

Face out means so that the front cover, not the spine of the book is facing the browser.

Or move a copy to the bestseller display to fill a gap.

Do you mean fill a gap with a book that doesn't belong there so the staff have to move it back to where it should be?

You hide books and the shop gets less sales/the staff have to tidy up after you?

YABU to not tell us who your favourite authors are so that we can decide just how unreasonable you are being.

This.

Ahh. Yanbu.

I once saw a book I really wanted, just one copy, and then I realised that my card was out of date the previous day and I hadn't picked up the new one. The book disappeared behind some dull looking tomes and was still there when I went back the following day.

YABslightlyU. I work in small indie bookshop, we would like to know what our customers like rather than a covert rearranging of the shelves!

Tell us your much loved books & why & then we can tell someone else! Write us a review!

Bookshops are such an important part of our culture & high street, particularly when getting reluctant kids to read. A child can't look through a book on amazon, they can in our shop..

I love watching a child, any age, leaving the shop already on p2 because they can't wait to start reading!

I'm not daft, we can never compete with amazon, we have overheads, electricity bills. I am paid minimum wage. Most people in the bookselling trade do it because they love it.

However, if everyone always buys the cheapest online we will be gone in a few years, and only then will people realise the difference a good bookshop makes.

The difference in price in normally around £1. Next time you buy your holiday reading books maybe get one from a small bookseller, it will make a huge difference.

Sorry to derail the thread, I'll get off my soapbox now! :)

My husband has had quite a few books published, so I always face out his books and make them more prominent !

Another ex-Waterstones employee... YANBU. This was my favourite part of the job and might occasionally put together a sneaky display in my local shop.

We also used to hide books and then challenge each other to find them... I used to get family and friends to come in and give long-winded descriptions of a hidden book and watch the panic on a fellow employee's face as they realised the book they were being asked to find.

If it was my book shop I’d either employ you or ban you 🤔🤣

If it was a bookshop where I was employed, I’d think you were batshit and fucking annoying. It’s not on to create more work for the staff, just to indulge your own bonkers behaviour.

I also used to work in a bookshop and it's pretty infuriating when people move books to the wrong place. The number of times a customer asked if we had a book in stock, computer says, yes a couple, but can we find them? No. So that customer doesn't get their book. Moving them is unreasonable. Pulling one out a bit further is just a bit weird, but ultimately harmless.

I used to work in publishing. This was absolutely normal for our authors. I may just have done the same thing in Waterstones the other day for one of 'my' books, which was a particular favourite, which is still in print after about fifteen years.

I do this with a magazine I buy because the shop nearly always hides it (Fortean Times)

I also tidy up the bookshelves in the charity shops (just because Roald Dahl is best known for his children’s books doesn’t mean they are all suitable for children - and some of them definitely are not!)