June 17, 2002

4:09 PM

Ever dream of owning a Bookstore?Essay Contest! $250 and 250 words could win this thriving Used Bookstore in Roseburg, Oregon. A very cool, very busy store with a customer base of well over 10,000 people. Someone is going to win and it might as well be one of us.
posted by Mack Twain (18 comments total)

Sponsor seeks at least 2,000 entries before the Contest shall be considered a success and prizes will be awarded.

Wow. That's $500,000 in entry fees.
posted by girlhacker at 4:20 PM on June 17, 2002

What's the going rate for an eight-year-old used bookstore with 55,000 books that doesn't own its building? I'm thinking half a million is pretty greedy (though good for them if they can get it), and if they pick a winner based entirely on a good essay, they could easily end up with someone who doesn't have the capital to pay seven employees and keep the lease up.
posted by rcade at 4:30 PM on June 17, 2002

Wow, an unregulated lottery.
posted by Wood at 4:46 PM on June 17, 2002

Haven't we seen this kind of thing before? I wonder what becomes of these contests.
posted by msacheson at 4:50 PM on June 17, 2002

as someone who has been to Roseburg on a few occasions, i can tell you that it is one of the most gorgeous towns in all of america.

if you like trees and trees and trees and clean air and white people and trees and one of the coldest rivers in america full of lots of huge fish.

if i won this bookstore i would burn the books turn the place into an arcade.

the kids really dont have much else to do there other than grow mullets and snort chrystal meth.

lord knows they dont wanna read.

which is probably why the owners of this store need to resort to this sort of tom foolery.
posted by tsarfan at 5:10 PM on June 17, 2002

Here's some advice from EssayContests.com, specifically regarding Oregon essay contests.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:11 PM on June 17, 2002

if i won this bookstore i would burn the books turn the place into an arcade.

*wails in agony*

*flails around on the floor in pain*

Also, what rcade said.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:19 PM on June 17, 2002

Hmm...does seem like you’d end up w/ a white elephant. but special orders for new releases should be no problem, as Ingram Book Group has a huge warehouse in Roseburg. Since it seems to be a used book store, I dunno. they can fill a niche. And you could always join up with Abe.

One does get all the books in the store, as well as the space, the name & the lease, right? Or do the current owners cart them off during the “three months of transitional orientation”?
posted by sherman at 5:23 PM on June 17, 2002

What about operating capital?
posted by rushmc at 5:26 PM on June 17, 2002

you know, at least in my area, there seriously needs to be more arcades... it's just ludicrous to have to drive for half an hour to forty five minutes, just so i can get my tekken on... any books i want, i order online or buy at one of the 20 barnes and joseph borders nearby.
posted by lotsofno at 6:30 PM on June 17, 2002

If it's such a good store why are they selling it :) ? Tired of making money ? And why are they using this trick ? I'd be wary of such offers.

Btw..burning books is EVIL. Not as evil as killing or harming a person but it's quite close to that, don't burn books read them. And if you're tired of them, sell them or make a present of them. If just can't get rid of them , you can always donate them to some public/school library, giving them one more chance.

Lotsofno: uh, just use your pc for both. Electronic text AND videogames in the comfort of your home, and if you want to go out then do, but don't close yourself again in a room of some shop.
posted by elpapacito at 7:25 PM on June 17, 2002

i only play two games at the arcade i go to... ms. pacman and tekken 4, the latter of which isn't out on any u.s. video game consoles or pc, yet. i also try to not have any games on my computer, as it'd distract me too much from getting my work done... though warcraft 3 is threatening to break that policy.
posted by lotsofno at 10:51 PM on June 17, 2002

> Btw..burning books is EVIL.

Not necessarily, not any more than burning newspapers or magazines is evil. Many books are worth far less than, for example, this week's issue of the Times Literary Supplement. If you can't burn one of the eight billion copies of Stephen King’s latest paperback (what is it now? scary doggies? scary clowns? scary cars? scary monkeys?), you can't burn or bin the TLS: you must preserve every issue of the TLS or you're evil. If you’ve been a subscriber for 20 years, you had better have a collection of 1,000 TLS issues or you’re evil. And if you can’t burn the TLS, maybe you can’t burn Hello! or People or Popular Hair, and you certainly can't throw away even one day of the New York Times.

Attempting to burn all of a book -- every copy of Tom Clancy's latest -- may be an attempt to suppress the expression of an idea, but tossing one copy of it in the recycle bin may just be a book review.
posted by pracowity at 3:24 AM on June 18, 2002

if i won this bookstore i would burn the books turn the place into an arcade.

Class.
posted by Frasermoo at 4:02 AM on June 18, 2002

Yeah, but who wants to live in Oregon?
posted by fleener at 6:03 AM on June 18, 2002

Who can afford to live in Oregon? It's no Ohio.
posted by mecran01 at 6:25 AM on June 18, 2002

One does get all the books in the store, as well as the space, the name & the lease, right?

They get the books and assume the lease for the next five years. I didn't see anything that shows they get the name (or the Web site and domain).

My long-term dream business is owning a bookstore (rather than a restaurant), so I periodically troll the Internet looking for store "for sale" ads.

Here's a bookstore for sale that should put the Oregon offer in perspective: 21-year-old bookstore that includes 90 percent of the inventory plus 180-year-old, three-story site in Plymouth, Mass., historic district that's suitable for residential use also. Asking price: $435,000.
posted by rcade at 7:05 AM on June 18, 2002

How very strange! My girlfriend and I were just at this shop about ten days ago, travelling north from SF to home in Wash. State. I didn't notice any for sale signs while we were there, but she did pick up about ten Wodehouse books she was missing.
posted by jaustinspace at 12:01 PM on June 18, 2002