Hey hey, I’m Kalpna — the newest Product Coordinator for SalesData and LibraryData. You can call me “KP” — it makes me feel like a captain. Or a pilot! And I am thrilled to join this team.
I wandered into BookNet after many (so many) years of hanging out/working in independent bookstores in Toronto. How long, you ask? Long enough that I remember searching titles on microfiche. From selling annoying membership cards and stripping Harlequins to frontlist buying, merchandising, and managing, I’ve done all there is to do in book retail, plus a little extra — I designed and built dozens of window displays during my time at TYPE Books in Toronto (I launched that site, too), and one of them made it into Jane Mount’s Bibliophile.
Illustration for Alis the Aviator
My window work combined my love of bookselling and making giant things out of paper, which made up the other half of my life. For several years, I created large-scale decor and environment design for events across the city, including fundraisers for the Walrus, the Writer’s Trust, and Artscape, and installations for the Gladstone Hotel and the AGO. And then this one time I had to make super tiny things out of paper, which turned into the illustrations for a picture book (talk about full circle!). These days I make things for fun instead of money, and have switched from paper to fabric as I learn to make my own clothes.
Outside of work I am only ever reading. Or thinking about what I’m going to read next. Or asking you what you’re reading and then telling you what else you should read. I devour entire novels in one sitting, and leave them splayed open, dog-eared, and covered in post-its in a pile on the floor like chicken bones at Medieval Times. (I have never been there but I’ve heard stories.) I read mostly literary fiction, with a preference for Eastern European absurdist fiction; avoidance fiction; quiet, meandering novels where nothing much happens; novels narrated by precocious children; and novels about writers writing about how they can’t write.
Non-book interests include but are not limited to:
fast food
fountain pens
stationery (Leuchtturm > Moleskine, don’t @ me)
bike rides
laying in the grass at High Park
seasonal fruit
playing badminton (badly)
sitting quietly
My goal at BookNet is to get more book retailers (I’m looking at you, Indies) using SalesData and discovering all that it has to offer. It is an absolute treasure trove of information and running reports will make you feel like a powerful, mad scientist primed for world domination (or at least make you waaaay better at managing your inventory and boosting sales, same diff).
I’ll bring the spreadsheets, you bring the funny hat, let’s make magic.
What did BookNet read in 2024? We’re sharing some tidbits of data about our team’s reading habits this year.