"Was Black Friday a Bookselling Myth?" I asked last week. Everyone has said yes. On reflection, I suspect my haunted memories are linked to the fact that the bookstore where I worked was located in a tourist town full of upscale shopping outlets. What I imagined as Black Friday throngs may well have been shoppers who wandered in either by mistake or seeking retail refuge. 
"Black Friday was never our biggest sales day of the year," said Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books stores in southern Florida, the Cayman Islands and New York. "It's always been like a very busy Saturday. Having a more urban store, I've found the real busy places were the malls, the suburban malls. Traditionally, going all the way back 30 years, our biggest days were always the few days right before Christmas. Small Business Saturday has changed the dynamic somewhat. We get a very big bump on that day and it outsells Black Friday for us." 
Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis., agreed, noting that he did not recall Black Friday "being as important at the bookstore as it was elsewhere. For my first floor experiences, I was at a downtown bookstore when most of the shopping had migrated to the suburbs, and most of our customers weren't working. So it was a steady but not particularly crazy day. It's a price-driven day and even when we tried to compete in that arena, we simply weren't price-driven enough for the folks that make a sport of it." 
At Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kans., COO Roger Doeren observed: "Every day is just as important as any other day. The week after Christmas is normal because we are conscientious about our accurate reading recommendations for gift giving. So, the week after Christmas we have many more gift card redemptions and very few exchanges or returns. No horror stories to tell. Like Halloween, it's all treats and no tricks at Rainy Day Books! If a business is so dependent on seasonal sales to 'make it or break it,' then they might want to rethink their business model."
Just when my Black Friday myth seemed utterly demystified, Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., offered a ray of hope, noting that "it has seemed harder over the years to ignore Black Friday, as the media has made a bigger and bigger story of it and apparently convinced folks of its importance. I sometimes fear the expectation is set that folks should shop on Black Friday and they consequently spend a large portion of their allocated holiday budget on that day, leaving less for the rest of the season. Now, with the addition of Cyber Monday and stores opening on Thanksgiving Day, the rush for the retail dollars has escalated."
To counter this trend, about three years ago the bookstore launched a pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday special deal: "We began offering a $5 gift certificate with each $25 a person spent in the store that day--exclusive to our e-newsletter recipients," Robinson said. "While, at first glance, that may seem like a 20% discount, it's not. The store receives the full $25 for the retail sale and gives the customer a $5 gift certificate, the cost of which is the cost of goods for which the customer redeems the certificate--usually no more than $3 at cost, which they will spend on another purchase. If that purchase is for $25 retail, they pay $20 and surrender the certificate. They have now purchased $50 worth of books or other items and have tendered $45 in cash for a total of a 10% on a larger sale."
Although the concept has worked well, he added: "What will happen with Thanksgiving Day opening of stores is hard to predict, but whatever it is I doubt that Black Friday will take on any greater significance for bookstore owners."
Recalling that "in days of yore before the chains, Black Friday was indeed a good day but never close to the Saturday before Christmas or the Saturday before that," Anne Holman, co-owner of the King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah, said when indie booksellers "started to talk about Local First issues and launched a huge education initiative about these issues, our community responded well. Our sales began to rise again and it's continued to be above average.
"Adding Small Business Saturday seemed to electrify the buying public. The first SBS was great and the second was as big a sales day as any in December. This year the combo of Indies First and SBS will, we're convinced, take us to new levels in terms of the importance of locally-owned indies for authors and the public, as well as sales numbers (in Salt Lake anyway)."
And nationwide as well, I suspect. My Black Friday bookselling myth now stands corrected. But just in case it does get a little crazy out there next week, I'll leave you with this backup plan: "Katniss Everdeen’s guide to Black Friday shopping." --Robert Gray, contributing editor
