Shelf logic: how our little shop decides what goes face-out

Some customers think the face-out shelf is random. It is not — it is the closest thing our shop has to an editorial page.

Three rules we argue about weekly:

1. The two-second rule. A spine gets two seconds of a customer's attention. If the cover can't say what kind of story in that window, it goes spine-out and something else takes the slot.
2. Local beats famous. A debut novel set 40 km away outsells a Booker winner here, every month. Debrecen readers want to recognize their own streets.
3. Rotate or rot. Anything face-out longer than two weeks sells 30% fewer copies the week after rotation. Familiarity reads as "already considered."

The system is unromantic, but bookshops run on margins the width of a dust jacket. What does your local shop do differently?