With apologies to Proust (as I imagine myself nibbling turkey-shaped madeleines), I'm in a retrospective mood as Black Friday approaches this year. I guess I'm still not used to the idea that I won't be immersed in the BF handselling hustle after working 15 crazy busy Black Fridays (beginning in 1992) at the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, Vt. For such a long time, it was part of my holiday DNA.
I was already contemplating this fact when I read a Facebook message posted by author Connie May Fowler yesterday: "Want to avoid Black Friday? Easy! Pre-order How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly for everyone on your holiday list. Send me names and addresses and I'll write them a lovely holiday note, notifying them of Clarissa's April arrival. I'll also send a signed bookplate. And I'll send you, via e-mail, my knock your socks off recipe for baked Parmesan cheese grits. Even my most hardcore beloved Yankee friends ask for seconds."
I liked that, and asked Connie if I could share her offer with my readers. She said yes, adding, "If anyone pre-orders through Northshire, I'll be very happy to send the recipient a note, signed bookplate, and recipe." And your bookstore's customers are invited, too, I'm sure.
Her offer is a small indicator of how social networking is changing the rules, but we already knew that. I mention it because Connie's novels were among my handselling staples through many Black Fridays going back to the mid-1990s, so she is part of my Proustian recollection here.
Adrenaline is the word that comes to mind when I recall those Black Friday experiences--bookseller adrenaline in the preparation and execution of a perfect retail battle plan; and customer adrenaline in the instinctive human drive to shop on the one day of the year when everybody else is in stores. "I can't believe I'm shopping today" is a familiar refrain from the Black Friday choral ensemble.
I wrote my first Black Friday blog post at Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller's Journal in 2004, asking: "Is anybody ever ready for Black Friday. Ready is not the word. It's more a kind of constructive paranoia--generously mixed with terror--that propels us to take every precaution we can think of to insure success. The bean counters upstairs will hold their breath because so much is riding on this day and so many things can go wrong. They can't prepare. They can only add up the damage afterward."
The adrenaline rush began in the weeks leading to BF. We built up key inventory. Work schedules were meticulously gridded to make sure there was adequate floor coverage for every minute of the day. Sections and displays were given the "dress right dress" treatment. A "soup kitchen" was organized so staff wouldn't have to brave the crowded cafes and sandwich shops downtown.
In Vermont, even weather patterns were closely tracked because a bad storm could wipe out everything. The perfect retail weather pattern here was a nice snowstorm on Monday, roads cleared by Tuesday and cold, sunny weather from Wednesday (travel day) through Sunday. This combo drew both the relatives (who have to come) and the more elusive ski/snowboard contingent to Vermont's mountains.
And while that tense half-hour before a Black Friday opening might not have the anticipatory terror of a Wal-Mart door-bashing stampede, it was still a time to take a deep breath and put on your bookish game face.
Dennis Johnson's MobyLives Radio interviewed me on Black Friday, 2005, while I was working the sales floor. "Every now and then you'll see someone who actually has a sane expression on their face," I said, "who has found a quiet corner in fiction and is just thumbing through a book, but for the most part it's engulf and devour. . . . It doesn't feel like the image of a bookshop where the bell rings over the door and the cat wakes up. That's just not happening today."
I wrote my first Black Friday column for Shelf Awareness in 2006, and noted: "Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this post-holiday retail holy day is that a bricks-and-mortar bookstore can be part of the action, too, and that books can be quietly handsold in the swarm of bodies and cacophony of voices."
Because again and again, in the midst of that controlled chaos that was and is Black Friday, someone would say: "Excuse me, I know you're busy, but I was wondering if you'd recommend a book. I just need a great read for the weekend." And that sparked adrenaline of another kind.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)