Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Lots of float centers sell different books, usually about floating. Float On even publishes a few of them (through our Coincidence Control publishing company).
Graham and Ashkahn give their recommendations for books to sell and provide a list of the ones we have available at Float On. They also discuss how well they sell as well as the tertiary benefit to having them around as resources for your floaters on coffee tables and as conversation starters.
Show Resources
Coincidence Control Publishing (Our publishing company)
John Lilly books:
The Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence
Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer
Tanks for the Memories (with E.J. Gold)
John Lilly so far… (with Francis Jeffrey)
Other Float Books
Books not about floating, but are still cool to have around
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “What books do you keep in your float center retail and do they actually sell?”
Ashkahn: Okay, let’s do the first part first.
Graham: Alright, so book of floating “A”.
Ashkahn: Yep.
Graham: That’s a big one.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We also publish books. We keep all of our own books in there.
Ashkahn: So we’re a little bit biased, yeah. Those are the best books! And they sell … We can’t even keep ’em in stock, they sell so fast!
Graham: So let’s go through the ones that we offer really quick.
Ashkahn: Okay. So …
Graham: So there’s the John Lilly books.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: I guess separate from what we publish. There’s any books by John Lilly are good. The float center specific ones.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we don’t carry like, his whole fleet of dolphin research books in our shop or anything.
Graham: Yeah, I guess that’s true. I guess … So the float books which are, “Deep Self,” is probably the most floating.
Ashkahn: Yep.
Graham: One of his books. We don’t publish that one. “Center of the Cyclone,” has good stuff about floating in it. “Programming and Metaprogramming,” also has good floaty stuff …
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm
Graham: Those two we do publish. There’s “Tanks for the Memories,” …
Ashkahn: Yeah, which is …
Graham: Kind of a co-written sort of thing.
Ashkahn: With E.J. Gold.
Graham: Yep.
Ashkahn: And there’s, “The Scientist,” which is …
Graham: Yep.
Ashkahn: You know, more autobiographical.
Graham: Yes, so kind of like a sequel to, “Center of the Cyclone.” If you haven’t read it, it has some good float stuff in there too. “John Lilly so far”, also has some good float stuff in it. And I think that’s the range of John Lilly books we actually carry in the shop. Do you think we carry any others?
Ashkahn: Yeah, that sounds right. No, I don’t think so. We might carry one of his dolphin books.
Graham: Just for the … Yeah.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: I think we carry, “Mind of the Dolphin.”
Ashkahn: “Mind of the Dolphin?” Yeah. I think so too.
Graham: We do carry that one too.
Okay, so that’s the John Lilly ones. Back to our publishing company.
Ashkahn: So, yeah. We have a handful of books basically created from our, kind of, artist … various artistic programs we’ve done through our shops. So having different types of people float and then create certain things afterwards. So the first one I did was an artist program and so we have an art book of 150 different pieces of float artwork.
Graham: Called, “The Artwork from the Void.”
Ashkahn: We did a musicians program. Had a bunch of bands float and create music afterwards that we …
Graham: Never made a book of that.
Ashkahn: That’s not a book, I guess. Yeah, that’s right. That’s just a thumb driver. It’s online.
We did a chef’s program so we had a bunch of chefs float and create recipes.
Graham: Yep. Called, “Flavors from the Void.”
Ashkahn: And we recently did a writing program. Kind of short stories or poetry kind of combined into a single book that we just published.
Graham: Called, “Letters from the Void.”
Ashkahn: There’s a theme there if you can tell. So those are our books that we have published that we also carry in our shop.
Graham: Yep. We carry, “The Float Tank Cure.” Shane Stotts book.
Ashkahn: Yep.
Graham: Carry …
Ashkahn: And then from there I think it gets into more ancillary stuff.
So we have two books by James Nestor. One of them’s called, “Get High Now Without Drugs,” which is just a really fun book to have around. So it’s just a variety of different, interesting, ways of messing with your brain and your senses and one of them is, “Float Tanks.” There’s a little page on float tanks.
Graham: Yeah, a little cameo in there.
Ashkahn: Uh-huh.
And he has another book called, “Deep,” which is all about free diving. And he doesn’t talk specifically about float tanks in there but it is a lot about these crazy free divers and their experience of being in water and John Lilly makes an appearance in that book.
Graham: Yep.
And then we have, “Blue Mind,” by Jay Nichols. And James and Jay are both speakers over at the float conference, as well. So, they’ve kind of talked about float tanks. They actively like them and … “Blue Mind,” is another one, again, about the neuroscience of how our body’s, or I guess, just our brains … Neuroscience of how our brains react to being in a water and around water and, generally near water, and drinking water. Everything about water.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Which really ties into the float experience, too. And both of those are just a great read, too. “Deep,” and “Blue Mind,” are really excellent reads.
Ashkahn: Yeah, “Blue Mind’s,” great. It does actually talk about floating in it, as well. And … Is that it? That’s everything?
Graham: I think that might be it for what we sell. Then we have a few others that we just keep on display. But, yeah, that’s it for retail, I think.
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm. I think so too.
Graham: If we’re missing anything, it’s not in the big top sellers of books, anyway. So, the second …
Ashkahn: Do they sell well?
Graham: Well, “well” is such a relative term. You know?
Ashkahn: And so, what is “to sell” really? Huh?
Graham: You know, our entire capitalist economy is basically just a construct so ..
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s not something that should be admired or … So not really. I mean …
Graham: It’s not .. We’re not living in the Bahamas off book sales from our float center, you know?
Ashkahn: Yeah, like, there’s certain ones of the books we’ve mentioned that we haven’t re-upped an order in, in over a year, at least. Like, our stock of 15 or 20 of them will last quite a while.
Graham: Yep. Yeah. So not great, but that said, retail in general is not something that sells awesomely in our float center either.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And there are some float centers that really knock it out of the park with the retail and the retail sales are doing good. But I think, largely, those are set up as retail shops. You know, it’s almost like retail is really a big portion of what they’re spending their time setting up.
Ashkahn: Or they have something like yoga going on, too. They’re just doing something where there’s a lot more people walking through their store on a day to day basis then you’d get at a float center.
Graham: Cuz, a lot of people know where they want to go when they’re doing retail shopping and the float center is where they want to go when they’re floating. And we found that, despite trying to push a lot of things, there’s not as much crossover there. So, relatively to overall retail, I think our books do good and well, okay-ish.
Ashkahn: I mean it’s also, like, books, I think, are a harder thing to sell in real life.
Graham: Than like, color therapy glasses, for example.
Ashkahn: Yeah, ya know, the other stuff we do sells better, but it’s like, books … Like even I … if I wanted to look at a book, kinda in my head, I’m like, “I’m probably just gonna buy this on Amazon,” or I’m gonna buy, like an ebook or an audiobook or, you know what I mean? Like, there’s so many kind of reasons to not just buy a book on the spot nowadays. So I think that’s … In a way that doesn’t exist for color therapy glasses or some of the other retail we have.
Graham: Supplements.
Ashkahn: Yeah, right. You’re like, “Okay, I’m just gonna buy … I wanna take this right now or try this.”
Graham: Yeah, so, goodish?
Ashkahn: So here’s the positive. Here’s the good thing about this is that, like, of the things you could sell, it’s a really awesome thing when someone buys one of these books cuz it doesn’t just mean that you made a little bit of money or you sold a retail item or whatever. It means they’re about to go read a book that’s all about float tanks and they’re about to learn a whole bunch about float tanks or about John Lilly or about free divers and therefore, something about John Lilly. And that’s really great. It’s kind of the best thing you could sell. Like, the book of floating is an awesome thing to sell because that person’s about to know a whole bunch about float tanks.
Graham: And even if they don’t actually take it home and read it. Even if they’re one of those people who buys a book and then puts it on their bookshelf and is like, “I’m gonna get to that someday.” And they never do.
Ashkahn: Yeah, who … Nobody does that.
Graham: Then, it’s there. It’s sitting on their bookshelf and it’s kind of an advertisement for floating.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Or in the case of, “The Artwork from the Void,” or “The Flavors from the Void.” The cookbooks. I’ve gone over to people’s’ house and completely unsolicited. I’m sure, not because I just happen to be visiting. They have those set out on their coffee table and that’s an even better advertisement to floating, you know, which was kind of a lot of the impetus too in doing, “The Artwork From the Void.” Is this idea of kind of, passive advertising. If one of your customers walks home from the float and, not only bragging about it, but having this book they take with them. How cool, if someone then sees that and starts asking them questions and kind of prompts this whole conversation about their time in a float tank?
Ashkahn: Yeah. And even one step back from that. I’d say, just even having these books in your lobby for sale, is great. I’ve had a lot of conversations with customers about them. And then they don’t end up buying any of them, but I get to give them a tour of like, “Oh this one’s really cool. It talks about ‘this’. This book has this sort of info in it.” And that right there is a good interaction and it lets them know that, “Wow, there’s all these different books with different types of information on floating.” That, by itself, I think, is a benefit.
And even like, one step back from that. Just like having a copy of some of these books to have on your coffee table in your float center …
Graham: Oh yeah.
Ashkahn: Is great. That gets used all the time. People constantly like … Before their floats, after their floats, they’re sitting on the couch … They’re always picking up the books on our coffee table and thumbing through them.
Graham: I mean, I honestly think that there’s no reason not to have five copies of, pretty much, any book that loosely relates to floating around.
Ashkahn: Mm-Hmm.
Graham: You know, like, one copy for your coffee table and even if it’s just a couple times a year someone really connects to that book while they’re on your couch and wants a copy for themselves, you know? Having those to be able to sell to people too so you don’t just have to give away your coffee table version is really nice. So, I mean, there’s so few books that actually deal with floating, why not carry some copies that you can have on display? And just for customers to flip through and have set out on display.
Ashkahn: They make nice gifts too. It’s an awesome thing to give to a member on their 10th or 20th float or something. Like, “Hey, you should take one of these home like The Book of Floating.” People are stoked when they get something like that. And it’s good for you too. It’s … They’re kind of like, amongst the better things, I could imagine giving a good customer as a gift.
Graham: But are you going to retire based on your book sales? Probably not.
Ashkahn: No, but you should still have them.
Graham: Alright. So, anymore questions you have, go over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
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