Part memoir, part reading guide, The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller can also be read as a primer—or cautionary tale—for aspiring booksellers. Making her authorial debut, Betsy Burton, owner of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah, writes of her nearly bookselling 30-year career, which she sees as more about matchmaking than moving product.
"The real pleasure in bookselling comes in pairing the right book with the right person," Burton said in an interview. Still, it hasn't all been fun. In her book, she takes readers through a quarter-decade of challenges, including wayward employees, difficult business partners and opposition from Mormon leaders. She also offers dozens of reading lists, many compiled by other independent booksellers, with such headings as "Favorite Books to Hand Sell in the '80s and early '90s" and "25 Books on Reading Books."
Gibbs Smith will publish the book at the end of this month. In the meantime, in keeping with Burton's love of lists, here are six lessons for booksellers gleaned from The King's English.
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Finding "the one" is as hard in business as it is in love
In search of a compatible business partner, Burton goes through a number of painful breakups. In one passage from the book, "Sally" calls it quits, telling Burton, "It's not working. Our visions don't coincide. I've decided to open my own store." When her former partner sets up shop less than two miles away, the jilted Burton observes, "She was all the rage... Sally wooed reps, had them to dinner, met publicists, started to attract authors, while TKE floundered." Burton loses some business to her new competitor, but manages to recover. Soon after, she meets her bookselling soulmate, Barbara Hoagland. -
Employees steal—and you can't do much about it
While the overwhelming majority of her employees are honest, Burton, on occasion, discovers she has a thief on the payroll. But theft turns out to be hard to prove and even harder to stop. And forget about restitution. Over the years she hires amateur spies, installs electronic security and fires dishonest employees. She even tries to "scare the piss out of" one thieving employee: " 'Picture yourself, young attractive, slight of build, in jail,' I said to him. 'You've got a good imagination. What do you think would happen to you?' " -
If you must talk with a reporter, keep it simple
In a fit of righteous anger after Rohinton Mistry stops his book tour because of alleged harassment by airport security, Burton is quoted in a Canadian newspaper, accurately but without context, saying she is "ashamed" of her country's actions. She comes away from it convinced it's best to avoid talking with reporters. But if you must talk to them, "speak only in sound bites, since that's all that will find their way into print anyway." -
Book reps are your best friend
Buyers for most stores are like junkies, desperate for a big box of the next Ondaatje, Allende or Rushdie, and all too eager to believe the buzz that surrounds new authors. Burton counts on publishers reps—ironically, the ones whose job it is to sell her books—to stop her from ordering too much of the wrong title. -
Ticking people off is great for sales
When Burton invites Jon Krakauer to come to Salt Lake City to read his damning book about Mormon Fundamentalism, Under the Banner of Heaven, church leaders launch a campaign to publicly discredit the author and his book. A flurry of regional and national media ensues. Under tight security, Krakauer appears to a packed (book-buying) crowd. Enjoying her biggest author event ever, Burton offers up a silent prayer to the book gods, thanking them "for encouraging the church authorities in the public expression of their outrage. May they continue to do so, world without end. Amen." -
It's all worth it
At the risk of spoiling the ending, Burton concludes by summing up why—despite all the problems (including superstores descending on her turf like "a plague of corporate locusts") she and other independent booksellers keep opening their doors every day: "Pick good books, pass them on. That's all that counts in the end.... That's what makes the book business such a glorious occupation—the best one I know or can imagine."
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