REWORKING: Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Point #1. " Workaholics miss the point.

When Linda and I started the Bookmark, our mantra was -- "Keep it Simple, Stupid."

We simplified everything we could: We sell used books only. No knick-knacks, no new books, no magazines.

And especially no coffee bar, no pastries; a table and some couches and chairs, but that's it.

We don't do author signings, or readings. We have had a couple of writer's groups meet there, but they are independently organized.

Our trade policies were as simple as we could make them. We haven't tried to put our inventory on computer, or online because it would make things much more difficult.

People wonder why we don't enter books into a computer. Think about it. We can walk to any part of the store in less than 30 seconds. It would probably take us a minute or two to go online and look up the book that we could walk directly to in 30 seconds. (Not to mention the effort of entering the data, keeping the data up to date, and so on.)

You know, even if we look it up, we still have to walk over the section of the store to get the book.

Simply put, we either have the book in stock or we don't and we can tell by walking over to it.

We also organized our books as simply as possible. We combined categories, we don't alphabetize sections that are small. Our Trains, Planes, Ships, and Cars shelf is four shelves high -- it would take any customer just a minute or two to look through the entire selection. To constantly be organizing these books by author, when in truth most people aren't looking for these types of books by author in the first place, would only add unnecessary work.

Linda does clean every book that comes in; but that's a choice she's made to create a clean store.

Our trade policy was as simple as we could make it: we take most books that come in, though we ask that people not bring in more than one bag or box of books at a time. We don't buy books, because the 'taking everything' trade policy generates enough flow to keep the store churning.

We don't worry about "collector" books, only reading books.

All this generates a large volume of books, which we do have to deal with -- but the process is as simple as we can make it.

Meanwhile, Pegasus Book is also as simple as I can make it. The amount of inventory may make it look complicated, but believe me I've dropped many unnecessary procedures over the years. I won't go into all of them now, but I've streamlined the buying and selling as much as possible.

I've also come around to the idea that I shouldn't work too many hours. I admit my first decade I was probably working late almost every day, and then taking work home with me. First I stopped taking work home, then I tried to keep my work within posted hours. Now I'm trying to get enough time off to recharge.

I went through a really crazy phase of opening new stores -- all to no real effect on the bottom line except to add tons of stress. Won't be doing that again.

Both stores are doing better than ever, even during the Great Recession, and I do believe it's because we've refined our technique, simplified everything as much as possible, to maximize the work we put into the stores.