From the EVG inbox...
St. Mark's Bookshop is presently immersed in this change. We seek to relocate to a new space and while we're at it, reinvigorate the shop's identity. Our vision includes the kind of curated, progressive selection of titles in literature, poetry, politics, critical theory, small press publications and hard-to-find journals and magazines our customers have come to expect to find on our shelves.
We also envision a hybrid organization that would present nonprofit arts programming, including a comprehensive roster of author events, lectures and literary gatherings housed by a community-supported bookstore, a physical brick-and-mortar space where people meet, discuss ideas, browse, discover and enjoy non-electronic books and publications and listen to great writers present their work.
We're passionate about this future and hope you will help us get there. Here's how you can get involved in launching the new St. Mark's Bookshop.
VOLUNTEER:
We need individuals
• people with expertise in marketing and in the following sub-specialties: social media, public relations and communication campaign strategy. Two to eight hours per month, September-December.
• educators/academics, readers and writers to be our advocates. Get on our growing mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and share news about St. Mark's Bookshop with your personal and professional networks. Help to get out the word about upcoming events and key dates announced in our newsletter, September 2013 forward.
• community networkers — who do you know? Help St. Mark's Bookshop connect with advocates throughout the city, the rest of the country and across the globe. September 2013 on.
Look for updates in mid September and throughout the rest of 2013. We will announce our new location soon!
And please drop by the bookshop. We remain committed to the East Village community and local writers.
Find more details about all this, including contact info, right here.
Maybe they should just sell textbooks.
ReplyDeleteRather than ask people to donate their unpaid labor time, St. Mark's Books would do better to look at the bookstores that are doing well, like Strand, or Labyrinth Books, or Book Culture, to name a few. I don't know if St. Mark's has ever been managed well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they could tell their employees to try being friendly and smile once in a while. Being deep, cool and aloof is not the formula for staff at a small neighborhood business. Sometimes businesses close not because of competition from big box stores or online mega-sites, sometimes its just because they don't understand how to treat customers.
ReplyDeleteKfbeau, perhaps you would feel better if they had a greeter at the door, like Walmart?
ReplyDeleteIts a bookstore. Its about books, not making customers feel important.
They need a better selection and could stock some obscurities. Costs money to leave stuff on the shelf. NYC heroin economy won't allow that - all booze all the time.
@nygrump
ReplyDeletefinally! someone to stand up against basic customer service skills and human decency!
keep fighting the grumpy fight!
@nygrump
ReplyDeletedon't ever open a business that deals with the public it will fail.
Businesses that succeed do not have to train employees to by robots like the big box stores do. A smile and "are you finding everything" is not asking too much. Ringing up a sale, putting a book in a bag and then just staring at a customer and expecting them to know how much they owe without telling them is a typical experience at this store. The last two purchases I made were like this, and those will be my last two purchases.
Volunteers? Are they a not-for-profit bookstore?
ReplyDeletekfbeau - have to agree with you on this one. some of the employees st mark's books are really unfriendly.
ReplyDeleteone time, i was forced to buy this book i was checking out because one of the employees insinuated that i shouldn't be doing that. i mean, that's what customers usually do in a bookstore, right? it's not like i was reading the whole book. i ended up buying the book out of annoyance.
Kfbeau, you are totally right. I've been trying to support them by doing some of my bookshopping there because I like having a small bookshop in the neighborhood, but if they would just meet minimal standards for friendliness, I would shop there a lot more! I've been going there for years and years and no one is EVER nice. Especially with all their problems, it's weird that they don't do some employee retraining.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kramers.com/index.html
ReplyDeleteHere is one suggestion. Great bookstore, friendly people, good food in their cafe. And. They. Sell. Drinks...
(Was there recently!)