MONTREAL – Used bookshop The Blot & Feather has attracted a swell in once dwindling customers with a novel solution; to exclusively offer happy endings with every purchase.
Owner Bernard Whitehead is guaranteeing a cheerful climax every time someone sits down and enjoys a choice from his shop’s collection. “Tearjerkers just don’t get people off anymore,” he said. Whitehead assures clients that he crafts the happy ending himself, but with some embarrassment admits that he devotes the back room to what he calls the “Choose Your Own Adventure types”.
The idea first came to the middle-aged entrepreneur shortly after watching his profit margin shrivel again last January. Whitehead suspected that people were mostly satisfying their needs online.
Things got worse for the business later that month. “I used to have Sally just sprawl herself in the window display, but she got too old and overweight to draw anyone in”. With Sally, the bookshop’s house cat, recently euthanized, Whitehead said he “pulled out a couple of ball points, moistened the tip, and got to work.”
Within a few months, the new store policy was doing more than making ends meet. The promotion has been such a hit that Whitehead is sometimes unsure of how to manage gross earnings from the sudden influx of bookworms.
But not everyone is thrilled by this gimmick. Employees who complained quickly got the shaft. Publishers on the other hand have labelled the business model as a “perversion of the industry”, while literary critics say they are disgusted by what they call a desperate attempt to provide easy kicks to the reader.
Whitehead retorts firmly to his detractors, however. “Let them stick their intellectual masturbation, I give people what they want: hand jobs.”
