See, I usually update the site every Friday. However, I've been late coming in the last few Fridays. Not overly so, but late enough that I don't have time to update everything that I need to change. In fact, I will probably have to go straight from summer to autumn without anything in between with the extra time I'll be getting on Labor Day. That way, I can change the theme and graphics without the hassle of the other changes I normally make on Fridays.
What do I update every Friday? Why, I update the upcoming book list for the following week. When I first started, I just highlighted a few books coming out each week, going back tow weeks, for three weeks total. Then I started doing something a little different. First, I went out to four weeks, shifting each week down one spot when I updated the list at the top. I also expanded the title list. Instead of just a few books, it grew to over a dozen per week. The top picks are now highlighted in a special color tied to the current theme. However, the list of new books has grown to a few dozen per week. That takes up all of the allotted time to update the site, making it harder to make other changes.
Now, you might be asking "Where do you get all of those book titles?" Glad you asked.
Years ago, the store's major book distributor provided a list of street dates for major releases, predominantly hardcovers. Their list soon great to include almost every title that was coming out, regardless of being hardcover or not. They even allowed public access to this list for a short time after they left the retail market. Unfortunately, the distributor stopped providing this list years before they went out of business. Fortunately, there is another book distributor.
I can't really say how they do their listing. Instead of an easily printable list, they have an online listing, of all possible new products coming out. Instead of a few months, their list goes out to over year in advance. At least is adaptable. I can shorten the list to just the forthcoming month. That's still thousands of products. For the purpose of my list, I just focus on the hardcovers. I narrow the list down even further, by price, language, and publisher. Even then, the list can get a little long.
I come up with my list the last week or so of the month for the next one. I start by picking the best titles from the monthly catalog, and then making sure of the release dates. (Occasionally, a book is listed late and put in the catalog for the following month, or a title gets delayed after the catalog is made.) I then get even more books by checking the online listings they way a mentioned above. Usually, I can narrow down the list to manageable number between one thousand and fifteen hundred books. I focus on the ones with firm street dates, prominently highlighted, so I can keep my search time down.
This September is abnormal though. Not only are many of the biggest books for fall already coming out, but September has five Tuesdays this year. The biggest titles have street date releases on Tuesdays. This meant an extra week to go through. I had over twenty-two hundred books to go through yesterday. Instead of the normal hour-and-a-half to finish the task, I had to work around two-and-a-half hours to go through every listing. Sure, I skipped dozens of books, like an entire children's book series about dreaming about each letter of the alphabet. However, I had to keep checking other books to make sure they weren't re-releases or on a subject that wasn't appropriate.
The work wasn't torture, but it took a long, long time. It got a little crazy at the end, as I had to skip bunches of self-published works, just to find the major titles. Did I mention that the list is in reverse chronological order? The last listings were for the books coming out on September 1, next Tuesday. The time order just bugs me, almost as much as seeing how commas look after numbers in this font.
Later on today, I make out the final list that I will be putting both online and on a dry erase board in the store. See, I don't just look at street dates. I also look at the covers of the book, and use them as inspiration for the in-store board. I've written about how I make up that board somewhere in this blogcast, I think. I would go over that as well, but I don't have the time.
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