Playing the percentages

In line with my “Crickets” post from a while back – where I lamented the slow traffic into the bookstore – I have been realizing that most of the people coming to buy books are Muslims looking for traditional Islamic literature, which makes up probably less than half of my merchandise.  Because of that, I feel like I’m constantly saying “no” when people ask if I have a particular title.  So how do I address that?  I have to let people know what kind of inventory I carry, and I have to market more to non-Muslims.  One important part of that will be regular book reviews and regularly letting people know what’s on the shelves.  That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far in thinking about this issue.  For one thing I know I need to hurry up and get my new glasses because I tend to get headaches when I sit and read for too long!

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at www.light-of-islam.org/.

 

WOW ICNA WOW WOW

Yesterday’s ICNA conference was awesome, alhamdulillah.  I made twice my goal for the day – a goal which I thought was ambitious.  I think the major factor for success was that they gave me a table in front of a little alcove in the room where the bazaar was.  Although I only had one folding table from the conference organizers, my husband pulled out a coffee table and moved it up front, and set up another table behind me, so it was like a miniature replica of the bookstore, with benches to sit on and room to browse.  I’m so relieved LOI made good money because I’ve been anxious about what I’ve spent on merchandise recently.

Two things I planned but didn’t do much of: sign people up for the customer rewards plan, and promote other upcoming events.  I simply didn’t have the space for flyers or the time to talk because it was busy and the tables were crowded with books.  Nevertheless, I think the conference gave the bookstore good exposure.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at www.light-of-islam.org/.

 

Visit Light of Islam in the ICNA-MAS Houston bazaar!

Yes, after all my debate Light of Islam will indeed be at the ICNA conference tomorrow.  If you haven’t registered yet, go for it!

This is going to be an important day for LOI, as it will be a chance to introduce/re-introduce the bookstore to the public.  It will be a long day but hopefully worth it.  I have been steadily getting all kinds of flyers and coupons ready, including a 10% off coupon for ICNA conference attendees.

 

New hours

Starting July 7, Light of Islam will close at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Full store hours are here.

The bookstore will be closed Saturday, July 4 – look for us at the MAS/ICNA convention!

 

Sidelines at last

Those who have been following Light of Islam know my strong hesitation to sell items that are not clearly identifiable as educational – i.e., books, CDs, DVDs, educational software, magazines, maps.  My concern is primarily over the 501c3 guidelines, based on the research I did in responding to the IRS’ request for my info in my 501c3 application, during the course of which I came across examples of tax-exempt retails who lost their 501c3 status because the IRS felt the businesses were outside the scope of their charitable purpose and functioning as a business for the sake of doing business under the guise of being a charitable organization.

Last week I finally called the IRS and talked to someone about these issues.  I got some good clarification on what to concern myself with, although for a lot of my questions she advised me to read Publication 598, which I have.  Bottom line is that I am going to finally start selling a limited number and type of sidelines, starting with these oriental carpet items – which after I ordered them realized are as educational as many other things I sell, since they are based on real carpets.  In addition to the charitable purpose issue there is the issue of having to pay unrelated business income tax on sales that aren’t directly related to my mission other than making money to support it.  There are no hard guidelines, but I think I get the idea, and I have a call in to someone at ESCH about it, and will talk to my accountant about it.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at www.light-of-islam.org/.

 

SCORE one for some marketing ideas

Yesterday afternoon, with a burst of energy that I attribute to the steroid shot (since my heart was racing too), I came up with several ideas for promoting/marketing LOI.  I went to SCORE’s web site and took their online workshop on promoting your business, which helped me think of a few things.

Cross-promotion: There is a new Islamic clothing and gift shop in Webster called AJ.  I went over there last night and talked to the owner, and we agreed to do a cross-promotion – if a customer in her shop buys a certain amount or certain product, they earn a discount certificate at LOI, and vice versa.  We should have that going in the next week or so.  I think it will be valuable because customers often ask for clothes at the bookstore, and she carries no books, so between us we offer both items, we’re not far from each other, and now we will offer a discount.

Conferences and shows:  As much as I have been grumbling about doing the ICNA show on July 4, I think I will have to, because I need the exposure.  I also have to pay more attention to the other events around town as opportunities for LOI to have a table or booth, as I did before the bookstore opened.

More free media exposure: I have a story idea I am going to pitch to the Chronicle’s religion writer.  I’m at this point a little over-exposed on the Chronicle, but this story will focus on someone else.

Paid media exposure (well this is not a new idea, but worth mentioning): I’ve been meaning to place an ad in the Muslim Observer, and I have to finally make a decision about doing that.

Reader rewards plan: I’m combining this idea with another idea, which was promoting the business on clothing or mugs or some such.  There are a couple companies that offer special Islamic products that I may purchase as rewards for frequent customers.  I actually came up with that idea backwards – I’ve been working on a postcard encouraging people to come to the bookstore (tag line being “do you know July is anti-boredom month”?) and in trying to think of how to make it more enticing came up with the rewards plan idea.

Yesterday I got in iMuslims by Gary Bunt, which came out last month and is right up my alley.  I have chosen it as the next book discussion group subject, to start by the fall, and will do a build-up with a lot of dedicated and targeted promotion, hopefully with assistance from the publisher.  I haven’t yet reached out to publishers for promotional material, other than posters from the University of California Press back when I first opened – and I just asked for them so I could decorate the store for free.  This discussion group will also have an online component (appropriately enough).

There may have been something else, but my notebook isn’t handy and I don’t remember.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

 

Holy inflammation, Batman!

Well, the PA looked in my mouth and was like wow your throat is REALLY inflamed.  She seemed astonished in fact.  She was like have you looked at it?  Which I haven’t.  She told me she wants me to because she wants me to monitor it.  I got another steroid shot and an rx for a new steroid dose pack.  I’m following up with the doctor in three weeks. 

So it’s back to work for me.

 

Keeping me up at night

It’s 4:48 a.m. and I’m wide awake – and have been awake since about 1:30.  I started thinking about the bookstore and the lack of traffic and that was it – no more sleep for me.  I went downstairs, prayed and settled down to watch some TV.  Eventually I got sleepy, turned it off and almost started snoozing till the thinking started again.  Finally I came upstairs and got on the internet.  Hopefully I can make up the sleep tomorrow during the 1-3 break when the bookstore is closed (on Fridays).

It doesn’t help that my throat/palate is hurting again, worse over the last week or two and especially worse over the last few days.  For whatever reason I woke up at 10:00 this morning (!) with a horrible headache and sore throat.  I took my temp and it was normal, so I don’t think I’m actually sick.  I’m seeing my ENT’s PA tomorrow morning – oh wait, at this point it will be in a few hours.  The pain seems to be localizing to a pretty specific place on the left side of my throat, so hopefully we can identify a concrete problem with a concrete solution.

As for the decreased customer traffic…what’s bothering me is that I had to keep saying “no” when people asked if I had this or that book and it was driving me crazy, so now I’ve ordered a ton of new books and CDs and no one is coming in to buy them.  I guess that’s the challenge of retail.  I just wish I knew what to do about it.  I’m especially disheartened because the “mainstream” titles are just sitting on the shelves, even though they were the most popular items – and the most distinctive in terms of LOI being one of a kind.  Even my newsletter read stats have been steadily going down.  I wish there was a conference coming up where I could move some of the merchandise.  The ICNA South conference is July 4, but it’s a one-day affair and last year it was a real pain in the rear because it was so disorganized.

Anyway, I’m having great success with the bookstore’s activities but I dont know what to do about the lack of day-to-day customers.  I have no problem with LOI being more of an educational center than a bookstore, but I guess more Muslims have been hearing about it and they expect religious books.

 

Crickets

Well, I guess since it’s summer I should expect to hear crickets – but I didn’t expect figurative ones!  Since I got back from the book expo, it’s been soooo quiet around here.  Only a handful of people have come in, other than my usual crowd for Arabic and Islam 101.  It looks like the barber next door is slow, too, based on the number of cars parked outside.  What’s everyone doing when they should be at Light of Islam?

 

Encourage your kids to read Islamic books this summer!

LIGHT OF ISLAM’S SUMMER KIDS READING CLUB
Program Rules
1.    The program runs from June 15 to August 15, 2009.
2.    Prizes and eligible books are those listed below.  Books must be purchased from Light of Islam or read in the bookstore.  If a child reads all books on the list before August 15 an additional list will be provided.
3.    To be eligible for prizes listed below, children must read the book and provide a one-page review either in the form of an original essay of approximately 200 words, or by completing the form below.
4.    Reviews will be posted on Light of Islam’s web site, with a link provided through The Spotlight, the bookstore’s electronic newsletter.