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There is a right way to go about doing this, once you have decided to do it.The single thing you most need to keep in mind is that you need a unique strategy to get people to come into your store. And in fact, several different overlapping strategies. It is not about competing with the internet—not any more. It is about competing for your customer’s time—competing with all the other things going on in life. Your goal is to make coming to your store a highly captivating experience.I would start by studying up on educational programs for people planning to open an independent bookstore. You and your partners and maybe your key startup staff.Opening a BookstoreThere are sometimes intensives offered by the American Booksellers Association during the big annual trade show BookExpo. A pretty good idea is to join the association, get what they have as materials well in advance of the show (which I believe is still in May each year), and then send two or three people to the show: one or two to go through the intensive course, someone else to go through the trade show and talk to publishers and other exhibitors—a team for full coverage of the possibilities.Give each of your team a card on which you have printed something like “How can we make the experience of visiting our store the experience of a lifetime?” Task everyone to bring back resources and ideas and pointers toward that goal.Some big publishers have special programs to help new booksellers. And you can sign up for certain kinds of accounts and programs if you bring your financial details with you to the show. Start the ball rolling for accounts with distributors and wholesalers and get on the list for author tours and even talk to the people who will be your sales reps right at the show.Sometimes there are exceptional deals at the show that you can't get anywhere else. So if you have a couple of people there you won't miss anything.Many smart new booksellers open their stores in the summer after ABA. One area in which education is essential is in managing publishers COOP money and incentives. If you do this right you can get enough money (in the form of discounts on books you were going to stock anyway) to pay for a lot of marketing. Things like publishing newsletters in your community—local ads, having events, in-store displays, etc. Many new booksellers have found that managing COOP money intelligently was the factor that put their store in the black.Actually you also want to be getting advance copies of books and galley proofs and that kind of stuff actually on the floor of the show.So you might want to have one attendee in the new store intensive, someone else attending other useful seminars, going to the Special Interest Group meetings for specialties if you are going to focus on something. Travel books. University Press books. Science fiction. Mysteries, etc. And a third person to work the trade show floor.A team of three maybe, with a rental vehicle parked near enough to the show to go deposit freebies and giveaway books, etc. then go back to your hotel to debrief in the evening.Be aware however that there are many parties. You have to find out about them, and sometime get tickets for them from exhibitors.Your purpose is networking and every member of your team should have hundreds of business cards to drop and hand out. But if you actually own a bookstore—or work at one—you will have the right color of badge to get lots of love from exhibitors. The show will be full of reviewers and authors and publishers, but it’s really FOR the booksellers. So that's kind of fun.I believe BookExpo has settled now in New York permanently instead of moving around the country.Then you should definitely look into CIROBE—the annual Chicago based remainder book show. Customers don't know or care whether a book is remaindered, but it's a hell of a lot less expensive to stock a new retail bookstore with books that cost you $1 than books that cost you $10 to get into your inventory.The home page of the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book ExpositionCIROBE is in the fall of the year.But if you get your initial ordering coordinated and rent some cheap warehouse space, you can probably start accumulating books and warehousing them after CIROBE and store them, then actually open your bookstore in the summer after BookExpo. Some strategy like that. Maybe get prelaunch publicity and COOP money going before you open the expensive retail location by opening your warehouse as a kind of bookstore in advance of the actual store and start making sales a few months earlier. That is just off the top of my head. Something to think about.CIROBE may also have some education for new stores. Worth exploring.The next very important organization is the regional indie booksellers association for your region. There are strong organizations in Colorado and in San Francisco that I have direct experience with, but there are similar organizations all over the country. Each has its own trade show and you definitely want to send someone to the appropriate show for your area. And to do some of the same things you would do at Book Expo. Here is the Colorado regional organization.Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers AssociationIf you google “independent booksellers association” I think you will find most of the others.Here is an interesting idea that you might consider. Also sell used books.If you have not already done so—I would get out on the road and actually visit and maybe talk to indie bookstores around the country. See some of the innovative things they are doing. One is to sell new and used books under the same roof or in the same complex. Visit really big stores like Powell's, Kepler's, Tattered Cover, Strand. I think Kepler's sells used and new. Strand sells many remainders.Tattered has sometimes had a kind of mobile bookselling team that goes to scientific meetings and conferences. There are lots of them in Denver and Boulder. In advance of the conference they get a scientist to help them develop a list of titles that are likely to sell. Then they order books to sell at the conference. They get special discounts for events from the scientific publishers (any who will not be selling their own stuff at the conference) and fill in with books from their own inventory and returnable books from publishers and wholesalers. Then they set up a mobile bookstore at the conference. Conferences love to have a bookseller. They may love you enough in fact to offer you a free selling space instead of paying the exhibitor fees. It is marketing so you collect COOP money. Sometimes the conference wants a cut of sales. All negotiable of course.Some indies have bought library bookmobiles and turned them into rolling bookstores.If anyone in your team is interested in books for collectors, I highly recommend attending a Rare Book Seminar. The one I am most familiar with is at Colorado College in Colorado Springs every summer. But there may be others that are also good.The Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar at Colorado College, Colorado SpringsBut events are the mainstay of bookstores. Having an event space and filling your schedule with events that will draw people is critical. Some bookstores of course have cafes or restaurants, or partner with a restaurant. Tattered had a three star restaurant on their top floor in the 1990s. Called The Fourth Storey. Sadly that area of the city has been redeveloped and Tattered is now in different parts of Denver.Think about the things that draw people to visit a physical location.Movies. Maybe you show old movies in an annex of your store. A small theater. You show your receipt to prove you made any purchase, and that gets you into the movie for free. You show any movies you can get the rights to exhibit cheaply. Silent films?Kids play places. Always popular with families.A prominent and well-staffed reference desk like the ones libraries offer.A restaurant.A book repair station. People bring their beloved old books and get them repaired right on the spot. More expensive services like rebinding are available too.A system of bookselling buses that drive around the city. brightly colored.You get the idea. Why would people come to your place when they could be relaxing at home or making money at work? Make the ideas flow like water . . . then do the number crunching to see what can be made to work.You certainly need a formal business plan for your financing or the bank. I’m pretty sure ABA will have some resources for business plans too.Here is an outline of a possible 2 year calendar, an ambitious one, for opening a well-funded independent new bookstore.April of Year 1. Have legal work done, incorporation, identity, business address, business cards.May. Send founder team to BookExpo. Don’t actually order books. Focus on education and relationships. Don’t quit your day jobs.Summer. Send someone to Rare Book Seminar. Exploit general local business support, like chamber of commerce, sales tax education, start pricing things like point of sale and book ordering systems (those companies all exhibit at book expo). Rent a really cheap warehouse space. Start getting some inventory together. Get financing lined up. Start looking at retail locations. If you are building something, get that going (resources for that are also at book expo). Go on a tour of independent bookstores in your RV. Meet lots of people. Start a notebook of ideas. REALLY BIG PROBLEM #1. How will you distinguish yourself? Think of novel strategies. Don’t quit your day jobs.Fall. Send someone to CIROBE and this time order books and put them in your cheap warehouse. Send someone to your regional independent book trade shows. Learn about all the book-related stuff in your area. Explore the local antiquarian book events. Book festivals. Everything. Don’t quit your day jobs.November. Maybe open up your warehouse and do some bookselling there. Start using your point of sale and bar code and special ordering software so you get good at it. Start building your mailing list and email list. Facebook advertise and become an expert at it. Do all that kind of stuff now while you have the really cheap warehouse space and your only staff is the founders. The founders learn now how to do the things their staff will be doing in 6 months. Now, someone has to quit their day job.November. REALLY BIG PROBLEM #2. LOCATION. Get your retail space nailed down. Build interiors. Decide on an opening date. I would say something like July.Continue having events and sales by invitation only at your warehouse. Keep filling your warehouse. Maybe buy the inventory of a store that is closing somewhere in the country. Sell the living hell out of your warehouse location!May of year 2. Go again to Book Expo. This time take your newly hired store manager along. This time, order books for the store launch.May/June. Hire and train staff.July. Launch.All this assumes you have already solved REALLY BIG PROBLEM #0. ASSEMBLE A LARGE WAR CHEST OF MONEY. All retail businesses are open pit mines that will strip your resources faster than you can imagine. Someone who has previously started and succeeded at a retail business is much more likely to succeed at this too. If you are not highly confident, keep your money in your pocket and walk away. Read a book instead.A strip mine . . .

It is rather difficult to answer. Jehangir is like mecca of art exhibitors in Mumbai n India. Nothing compares if footfall is the main target. It doesnt mean though, that anything exhibited there gets thumbs up from people and buyers.If you are good, then only tge places will be good. Because unlike jehangir otger places need real real top notch artwork to attract people. So here is listNehru center in Worli. By far best space in terms of space, light and ambience. Footfall is getting less n less day by day. That said, if works are good, it is easy for people to reach there. I have exhibited solo there 4 times and few more in groups. It is a big space, so group of 3 is a good option. Gallery doesnt differentiate in solo n group in rent charges.Artist center. Once a happening place. Proximity to Jehangir is a great asset. After a long peroid of decline , slowly rising again in terms of public memory.BAJAJ ART GALLERY. Bang in tge center of financial capital of the financial capital of the country, i.e. Nariman point. Once a second option to Jehangir, list its place but now after change of placing within Bajaj bhavan and facelift it is gaining a revived intrest at least from artists. New ambience is as good as nehru center, with more natural light.Art enterance . Opp Jehangir, kala ghoda. Okay in terms of lication but it is just a foyer of a building.Coomarswamy hall inside Museum. Museum had once a great place called Museum art gallery beside Jehangir. It shut down due to many reasons. Now museum rents out a huge space inside museum complex itself and it has good foitfall too. But it is too huge for a solo n expensive too. So if you can form o group of around 10 people, then it is a good option.P L Deshpande art academi gallery. Owned by state govt trust, and on prime location of Prabhadevi, is good for advanced hobby artist in groups. Space is too huge for a solo.( i call hobby artists to anyone, though trained in art school, is not fulltime pro. So it is not that bad term in my sense!)There are many more spaces in Mumbai, like art plaza , open air gallery outside jehangir ( i started my journey there) , art gate ( dont have any idea), Prabhodankar gallery in BoriVili ( only gallery in suburbs) which is not very much booked on all days yet as its new.I have talked about only public galleries given on rent ,after selection not privately owned galleries as its a different ball game and cannot be explained.Bangalore has Chitrakala Parishath, which is the main venue there. Crimson art resource is another old gallery which re ts out space if you are real good and in tgeir gallery connections.Delhi is now some say bigger than Mumbai in ammount terms. I have not yet exhibited in a public space there. But Lalit kala, Triveni kala Sangam. Alliance francis, india Habitat are goid places. All have different options within their complexes.Pune has Darpan art gallery and Balgandharva art gallery which are only good for viewership. No sales are expected.Kolkata has many spaces but i have no idea. But it is not a great place for sales i have heard.Chennai has virtually no public place save the Lalit kala.All have varied waiting periods ranging ftom a year to 6/7 years like in Jehangir.

There's a big difference between the two. Advertising is paid; meaning when you place an ad in a magazine/tv/radio for, say a bank, you pay for the media space you book. (A double-spread ad causes more than a half page ad in a magazine, a 30-second-spot on radio costs more than a 15-sec-spot....) Advertising is part of Marketing for a product or service, people get aware of such or such a product and then buy or engage in the given product or service.Advertising practitioners usually work at agencies as Account Executives (middle men between the client and the Creative Department: Graphic Designers, Creative Directors, Producers, Animators, Photographers....) If they have a background and experience in design and film, they might work in the Creative Department. A lot of Advertising and Marketing students work in other diverse fields like radio, fashion, film distribution, and sales jobs because marketing and advertising is a way of thinking just like business and is not limited to one sector.PR is non-paid. When a bank has an event: it sends a Press Release to all media after its done and alerts them that an event is going to take place. Media check all press releases and alerts and decide to either share the information or hide it and share other "valuable information" with the general public. PR also aims at getting awareness of the events and collaborations happening. Usually PR events get their money form donations and sponsors.PR Officers usually help in the formation of events (handling media, operations, exhibitors, and inviting the right people to the event). Recently it makes most sense to invite digital influencers, media representatives and celerbrities to such events to gain more awareness.