End of the month numbers.

Gone for five days, and tired today. I do want to get to talking about the bookstore visits and the overall economy of the coast. I'm trying to mull over what I saw, come to some conclusions. Trying to separate the moldy, mildewed, weathered aspect of the coastal businesses with their actual prosperity or lack, thereof.

Also want to get to talking about all the Bulletin stories I missed over the last week. Quite a bit happened while I was gone.

But both of those subjects are for later.

Linda has wi-fi on her Apple laptop, but it was incredibly frustrating to deal with the lousy connections. On the last morning, I finally learned to keep hitting the repeat button until I got the sites I wanted. Still, it was quick visits and on my way.

First thing I did when I got back last night was do the monthly numbers on Pegasus.

Low and behold, we were only down 1.5% from a very good month last year. That's two months this year that were roughly even; January was just down, in all ways. March was down big, but it compared to a huge month last year that was Christmas-sized. April was down just a bit. So, overall we're down 15%.

I'll take it. I thought--best case--we'd be down somewhere between 10 to 20%, so I planned for exactly this much downturn. I was still expanding last year, which always fuels sales if not profits.

More importantly, I actually made good profits in the off season, which is almost unheard of. In fact, I don't think I've ever done that before.

And my store is still prospering. Boy, could I see that when I saw those tired, cluttered, whiff of desperation stores on the coast!

One thing has become clear to me. Comics are the culprit. I had gone into this season hoping that the old saw about comics being 'recession proof' was true, but the opposite seems to be true. I was up significantly in games, toys, books, and cards.

I can see a several reasons why comic sales would be down:

1.) Comics are the hardest to predict, but the easiest to control. I cut the orders down to what I knew I could sell, thus improving profits but perhaps hindering sales. I don't really think that happened...but I have to consider the possibility. I've already begun to up my orders in the last month, partly for summer, partly because I think I over-corrected, partly to get the higher discounts.

2.) Weaker product. The huge crossovers last year were a hit with the comic fans. Civil War, World War Hulk, and others just sold really well. This years crossovers aren't hitting the same way, partly because....

3.) ...I handled the crossovers differently this year. See normally, I would be the customer's big brother and put comics on his or her shelf and tell them they would want it. If I was careful and considerate, the customer would accept my big brother pushiness.

This year, I decided for some reason to see what would happen if I didn't do that. The results were a rather spectacular failure. People picked up roughly half as many copies off the shelf as they would have if I'd made the decision for them.

So, it's back to old practices. Maybe I've just trained everyone that I'll take care of them. Whatever. I've already seen this month with the new summer series that making the 'crossover' decisions for my customers is working better.

4.) It turns out that my customers really are affected by the local economy, and thus are cutting back. Tourists, on the other hand, seem not to have cut back at all. I hate to rely on tourists, but then I am in a tourist zone. The drive to carry material that would sell to people off the street has succeeded.

Anyway, now that I've identified the problem, I feel pretty confident I can correct it. If I get comic sales back up to close to previous levels, and continue to increase sales in other categories, I might even be able to increase sales this summer -- despite the recession, the housing bust, and the high gas prices.