On the good news front, Pegasus sales were only 2.5% less than last February, which considering how much less I spent, is a minor miracle. I had an extra leap day, so without that we were 6% down on a daily average.

Linda's Bookmark was up over 10% from last February, this after a down December (one of the few down yty months in her history), and a flat month in January. So she's back to double digit increases!

We were up 15% from January daily average at Pegasus, which was a relief. I had cleared away so many bills in December, that I hadn't really felt how bad January sales were. Now that a better month has passed, I look back at it and shudder.

I think maybe I've finally learned a trick that works. I order as little as humanly possible in my monthly big pre-orders, then reorder what I think I need. It accomplishes pretty much the same kind of inventory as I used to do by ordering it all upfront, but the thing that makes it work is that I can still play around at orders every week.

Because -- before -- I was making fairly hefty pre-orders before AND ALSO making pretty hefty re-orders. And that was just too much. I can control my impulse to order too much that one big weekend I make orders, but it's hard for me to follow that up by being in control the other 28 days or so.

I think half the trick of a small business is figuring out ways to accommodate your own weaknesses and personality quirks.