The Real Luxuries of Life?

"The real luxuries of life:

time 

health

a quiet mind

slow morning

ability to travel

rest without guilt

a good night's sleep

calm and "boring" days

meaningful conversations

home cooked meals

people you love

people who love you back"

 

I came across this on Reddit. It pretty much describes my life, except for perhaps the home cooked meals. Don't do a lot of cooking, but do eat at home, I guess.

More to the point, this pretty much describes being retired. Heh. At least as long as we're healthy.

 

 

Bookstores, bookstores, bookstores.

It suddenly struck me yesterday how rich Central Oregon is with bookstores. Deschutes County has a little over 200K people and is fairly isolated. In this county alone, we have:

Pegasus Books

Dudleys

Roundabout

Underground 

Big Story

Sunriver Books

Paulina Springs

Herringbone

B & N

(I hope I didn't miss any...)

It all kind of crept up on me. When B & N came to town, we had three indie bookstores, all of which went out of business shortly thereafter. Paulina Springs existed, I believe, and probably Sunriver Books. But this growth has been continuous ever since. 

Pretty cool.

Don't wish for a collapse.

I'm seeing this sentiment quite a bit online. I understand the urge, but my experience is that once something collapses it takes a very long time to recover, if ever.

I remember having this discussion with my sportscard wholesaler circa 1990. I mentioned that the industry was so dysfunctional that maybe it needed to hit bottom before it could recover.

"Yeah, me and some of the other wholesalers have been talking about that. Maybe we need it all to collapse so that it can be rebuilt."

So it did collapse, and it's never really recovered fully. It's a full 35 years later and there are occasional surges and it never went away completely, but it's a pale shadow of what it once was.

Over the years I've seen a lot of product lines collapse--I'm watching one right now--and none of them have recovered. A few settled in at a sustainable level, but nowhere near as profitable as they were at their height.

Sure, in the long arc of history, a collapse seem like a blip. But humans don't live in the long arc of history, we live in the short arc of mortality.

Trying to relax. Ordering things at a once a week pace, and not getting ahead of myself. 

Saw there was a new documentary about the composer John Williams and watched it midday, which I rarely, rarely do. 

Made me realize, I am surrounded by art. Movies, books, music. Surrounded. It sustained me in my depressive twenties, especially books, but also movies. (There was a couple years where I literally went to every movie that came to Eugene. Every movie. Only walked out on one.)

There is more art available at this moment than any time in history. Art available to everyone. 

My mom had tons of art books. They were black and white, sometimes out of focus. Now we can buy art books in glorious color. When I was young, I had to stay up late, or watch movies in early afternoon, to see the classics. They used to show black and white films, no problem. I'd mark the TV Guide a week in advance.

My house had tons of books and I could go to the library; even so, I felt as if I bought every mass market SF and Fantasy book I'd find in the supermarket spin racks. I still remember being drawn across a room by the first Frazetta cover I saw.

We had to buy our music in albums. In Bend, we had AM radio, tons of commercials. They rarely, if ever, played funk, or people like David Bowie or Kate Bush. 

Now, it's all available any time I want it. In fact, there is so much art, I find myself seeking silence and solitude. I rarely watch great movies a second time because it seems like my older self picks apart movies I loved when I was younger.

Hard to say all this art has made us better, but it certainly has made my life more enjoyable. 

I'm glad I got to express myself in stories. It doesn't really matter if they were good or not; what counts is that they were a creative thing I did for myself. I immersed myself in other worlds and very much enjoyed the journey, 

 

 A pattern I've noticed. I come home from working at the store all day and I want nothing to do with the TV. I generally take a short nap. I'll turn on the fan and browse the internet or read a book.

It's occurred to me that I'm such an introvert that talking to people all day has completely worn me out and even the voices on the TV are too much. Linda doesn't have the same effect, but the jabbering on TV is just something I don't want; commercials are especially annoying.

I don't know. It's taken me until the age of 72 to figure this out. 

Sometimes, after an hour or two, I can make my way to the couch, but even then, I don't seem to enjoy it as much. I turn my brain off and do coloring. Even when I'm not working, I don't want to watch TV or listen to music during the day. I just want peace and quiet.

The idea that people come home from a day of dealing with people, changing clothes, and going out on the town is beyond me. Todd comes to visit and will get antsy in a very short time, head for a local bar where he doesn't know anyone, and have a great time. 

Wow.

When Linda and I went to Australia for a month, we spent at least three days just sitting in a motel room. At intervals. That's a long way to go to do nothing, but boy did I need it. I needed to shut down. I needed to recharge. 

At the same time, I wouldn't switch to being an extrovert for anything. I'd be a leaf blown in the wind, without agency. Whenever I'm pushed into too much social activity, I feel myself losing my balance, my core. Being an introvert is my superpower, my center, my way of thinking and thriving. I don't get bored, even when I'm not reading. I like my own thoughts, or sometimes my own absence of thought. 

I spent years in my own head, constructing my own stories out of thin air, writing 30 or 40 books, of which 25 have been published. It was utterly satisfying. 

The danger for me is is letting this go too far, of being a shut-in. Isolation breeds isolation. I've always thought that Linda gives me about two thirds of what I need in connection, and the store gives me the other third. When it comes time to retire, I'm hoping we can travel, because that would serve the same purpose. 

It's all about knowing yourself, you're own strengths and weaknesses, and instead of feeling bad about them, taking them in stride and maximizing the best parts. 

Joining the Old People RV tribe?

Back from our four day trial run in the Catbus to Crescent City. Stayed at a campground in Hiouchi, about 10 miles from the coast. Working out the kinks. We didn't really use the water or stove this time; we'll try that the next trip. 

Bumped my head four times, almost fell off the ladder one time, ran over a curb once--had to stop and open a curtain in order to see the traffic while people were waiting behind me. The upper extension is just canvass, so it will be cold in the winter, hot in the summer. The bottom bed has a divider which didn't make it completely comfortable. 

Tight quarters, no doubt about it, which makes me wonder about all the camper vans I see around that are even smaller. 

The driving was easy, but the gas is going to cost us. All in all, I think the trip cost us about half as much as staying in motels would. (But we could probably stay in motels about 600 times for the cost of the Catbus, so a money saver it probably is not.)

This is all for the cat, and Jasper took to the whole thing like a champ. Meowed a bit at the first of the drive, then settled down. Adapted instantly the leash thing. He seemed happy as a clam, which is good since he's the very reason we have the Catbus at all. 

All in all, it's camping, with all the discomforts that imposes. 

I do like the privacy, though...and this was probably the most remarkable thing that happened--suddenly old people were starting up conversations with us. Believe me, I'm not used to that, though it happens more often when I'm with Linda.

I think we've the joined the "Old People" tribe; specifically, the RV Old People tribe. Comparing rigs is de rigueur, apparently. I'm not sure if I like it or don't like it. heh.

We're going to try to fit in short trips at least once a month and eventually make longer trips--maybe much longer trips. 

I think I like it. (I always told Linda to shoot me if I got an RV--but it was either that or never go on any trips again as long as Jasper is with us. And I couldn't quite get myself to smother the cat in his sleep. 

Who I'm I kidding? He OWNS us.

The Efficiency Penalty.

 You can be TOO efficient, at least when it comes to collectables. 

I'm going through a collection of comics that sat in a garage for 25 years. Ironically, it's the comics that were in our mall store, which we sold, and which was then taken over by a former employee and friend. In other words, these comics had once been in my possession.

So far I've found a lot of bronze age comics that weren't worth anything 25 years ago, but are now closer to 50 years old and have gained some value. I've also found the first "Walking Dead" comic, which is worth over a grand (Theoretically. In reality, I doubt I'll ever manage to sell it.)

I've found a bunch of #1s that were just starting back then and are now long-running series. 

I'd say 80% of the comics aren't really worth anything at all, but the other 20% at least have a chance of selling, given enough time and space. I'm going ahead and bagging and boarding these comics for backstock, even though only a fraction will fit. 

Maybe 5% are worth anything in reality. So out of roughly 10,000 comics, 500 of them are worthy of attention. 

This is what most collectors don't understand. Only a small percentage of any collection have the possibility of selling, and an even smaller percentage of those will actually sell.

So what do I mean by efficiency?

Well, I discovered years ago that I was very diligent about figuring out which comics are hot and needed to be given some space to sell. So let's say a comic series starts to catch fire. I grab the #1 issue and price it when it's five times its original price.

So far, so good.

But a significant percentage of these are going to keep increasing in value, and if I sold it for five time the value and it increases to fifty times the value, I've lost out. But someone who isn't as diligent will let it sit and suddenly discover it later.

Of course, an awful lot of of the comics I put out for five times the value actually decrease in value over time. That's why speculating is such a gamble. It so much a gamble that I realized that even a comic store owner who is up with the trends is unlikely to outsmart chance. 

I stopped even upgrading the prices on comics about 20 years ago after the comics crash. Once in a while I'd grab a hot comic and increase the price after its selling period (We try to give everyone the chance to buy it at the original price.) I did this more to keep them around for people who were truly interested (after which I ascertained, I would cut the price) and out of the hands of speculators who just wanted to strip us bare and sell online. 

Over the last two years I've bought two large collections, and I'm going through them box by box, and it's been kind of fun. I don't take it too seriously. I price most comics at a base price and don't try to look them all up: I'm sure I'm missing out on some key issues, but more power to anyone who finds them. 

Anyway, I only bring up this "efficiency penalty" (if I may coin the term) because I've never heard it talked about elsewhere.

The eight books I've neglected, but dammit, they're pretty good!

 I asked my publisher, Crossroad Press, if they'd go ahead and publish paperback versions of the last eight or so of my novels that were only in ebook form.

Here's the thing: I was writing so fast and furious for a few years that I didn't want to swamp the publishers or the readers with too much. Even I was feeling overwhelmed--but I wasn't going to stop my hot streak. I was well aware that if and when I reached the end of the streak, I'd probably be through.

I wrote these novels, which are every bit as good as any of my other novels, and just went on with the next book. I promoted the books that were in series, most often, but hardly mentioned some of the stand-alones.

Now that I'm looking at them again, I'm realizing how much I like them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I suppose. But when picked up "Gargoyle Dreams," I read it all the way through. This is rare for me. I found it charming.

When I read "Blood of the Succubus," I was a little shocked by how sexually explicit it was, but also impressed by how well written. It's gotten some of the best reviews on Amazon as any of my books.

"Snowcastles/Icetowers" are together as one book, as they probably should have always been. I was still learning, but it is straight-ahead fantasy.

"Star Axe" was my first book and the hardest to write. I can see what I was trying to do, and I'm proud that I didn't just copy LOTRs completely but tried do my own spin on the hero story. The writing, well, I notice all my mistakes, but I think they aren't that noticeable to others.

"Shadows over Summer House" was my gothic: big house, mysterious characters, along with a heist story. This along with Deadfall Ridge and Takeover made me realize how comfortable I was with the suspense genre.

The "Last Fedora" was my story of a gangster enforcer, who was also an unstoppable Golem. This is maybe the quirkiest of my books and because of that...one of my favorites. 

All the above are now available from Amazon or from Pegasus Books, or will be soon.

There are two more on the way: my little Hobbit homage, Freedy Filkens, and my supernatural good-guy(?) serial killer book, "I Live Among You."

 I'm going to go on Facebook and post the links one day at a time.

When all is said and done, I will have 25 books in print, that took about 12 years overall--separated by 30 years of running a store--to write.  

I'm proud of them. I made enough money to call it money, though I also didn't skimp on covers and editing, even when most of the publishers would have been glad to do those, I purchased my own art and editing services because I found a some people who were excellent at it. (Special thanks to Lara Milton for being by far the best editor I've run into.)

It all turned out so much better than I expected. What fun!

I'm not closing the door on writing, but I'm enjoying the store these days and I'm content with having 25 books under my belt.  

"Land of Giants" is full of pygmies.

Reading a book called "Land of Giants" about the settling of the Pacific Northwest. It had a strange vibe that I couldn't quite get a handle on. When the author talked about the "red man" one too many times, I finally turned the the frontspiece and found out it was published in 1956!

Actually, it was fairly enlightened about Native Americans, showing that they were most often the victims of white violence and that their violence was almost always sparked by outrages. But there was a strange sort of "both sides" are bad vibe that didn't quite ring true.

The Indians most often would so some petty thievery, which was then punished by over the top means: hangings in mass, slaughter of men, women, and children. Once the wave of immigrants started showing up, they didn't stand a chance. 

I had read a book about "Stalingrad" just before this book, and what I took away from both books was this: most people are feckless, unaware of their actions and the nature of their circumstances. Most are ineffective or worse. 

The only excuse is that none of them know what's going on around them in full, none of them know what history would say. 

This is a new understanding of history for me. Most people make stupid decisions with too little information. And millions die. 

There is one stand out character in "Land of the Giants." John McLoughlin,of the Hudson Bay Company.  He comes across as steady, competent, and generous, at least compared to almost everyone else, who come across as ignorant, impulsive, violent, and vainglorious. 

No such heroes in Stalingrad.

Bookstore thoughts.

These aren't serious complaints. I'm really having fun at Pegasus, finally seeing people respond to our selection. 

 

It's so interesting to me that people open specialty bookstores. A general bookstore is already "special" enough. In my experience, you need all the customers you can get. Why exclude any of them, much less narrow your reach to a small subset of what is already a small subset? You can still specialize, the way I do genre books, but why cut out a whole audience?

 

And while I'm on the excluding thing, I'm amazed by how limited most bookstores' genre selections are, especially SF/Fantasy, but including mysteries, romance, and horror. (Most stores don't even have a horror section.) I know that I'm inclined that way, but we sell a lot of genre books.

 

Had a guy in yesterday who just insisted I was leaving a ton of money on the table by not selling online. This despite the fact that he could look around my store and see the hordes of customers milling about. I mean, hordes. Hugely busy day. I was already exhausted when he said that.

I mean, how many hours and how much energy do I have? It's a bit like telling a guy who works a 48 hours week that he could make "so much more money" by working 64 hours a week! 

I'll say it again and again and again: Time, Space, and Energy ARE money. Period.

The funny thing is, this was a guy who'd retired at the age of 52. (Hey, you could make so much more money if you were working!)

A couple of days ago, an older couple was telling me how the store in their hometown sold coffee and this and that and the next things. Again, the store was packed with customers, who I'm barely keeping up with. I pause a moment and say, "You know want?"

They look at me expectantly. 

"I....just want to sell  (#@&%*) books."

Fortunately, they laughed.

 

Most frustrating thing about serving customers: I always, always say, "If you're looking for a title or author, just let me know." Ninety percent of the time, they'll shrug it off. But here's the thing: when they actually do ask for a title, I have a very strong hit rate. More often than not, I have the book in stock.

Sometimes they're headed for the door before I finally coax them to tell me what they were looking for...and it seems like when that happens, I always have the book.

I mean, there is only so much I can do. I offer, and sometimes mildly repeat it if I sense they're actually looking for something. But I can't pester them.

Teenagers especially will almost never ask.  (It's a secret...)

And then there are the customers who ask for a book, I show it to them. They ask for another book, I show it to them, they ask for another book, I show it to them.

They leave. 

That was fun. 

And finally, the people who ask for recommendations. I gets all enthusiastic about a particular book, they hold it in their hands, squint at it skeptically, and then hand it back. 

I love people, really I do.

Cats and dogs rise to the top

Stayed late and rearranged shelves. 

I don't know...it feels like I made changes that will matter, and then again, it doesn't really appear all that different. I never know if these types of changes are going to have an effect. 

Mostly, I consolidated some parts of the store and weeded out old and worn product. The store feels crisper, somehow. What happens is that when I bring in a new section, such as coloring books or drawing books or whatever, I tend to order quite a lot at first to fill in all the holes, this before knowing how well the section will actually do. Then, over time, I realized that I either overdid it or or under-did it. 

I could've ended up with two new shelves, even after adding Japanese fiction, but instead eliminated a tight shelf for a more open look. The final shelf will be used for Japanese "art" books. This may not work, but I got a deal on some very cool books, so we'll see.

I've opened up two shelves near the counter, and at least for a week or two, I'm going to highlight new books there by putting them on face-out stands. There is no way in my store that I can leave two shelves open, so eventually they'll be filled. Mostly by quirky, impulse style books. There are always books that sell based on covers or themes. For instance, I think at least one shelf will be cats/dogs. Yes, a whole prime shelf devoted to cats/dogs. 

I'm going to weed out the young adult section. I rapidly grew that section over the last few years and there were a fair amount of experiments that didn't work. Basically, stand alone graphic novels have a harder time hanging on, whereas series continue to sell. 

After that? God knows. Everytime I do something like this, I think it will be the last time, and then I get another brainstorm.

Meanwhile, it's going to be raining cats and dogs.

Mad ergonomics.

I've got some ideas, God help me. 

My mind is churning with ideas on how to configure the store. Small changes, but lots of them, and they'll add up to something significant. 

I'm trying to take the same limited space and make it as diverse as is possible. So that means adding some things, reducing some things, and most of all, moving lots of things.

The summer has arrived. What seems to be happening is that we are getting more people in the door than ever, but each of them are spending a little less money, and it comes out about the same. But it's also nearly impossible to file books when the store is packed, much less try to move product from one section to the next.

I will have to go in early for several days if I'm going to have any chance of pulling this off. 

The cubes have arrived. These are going to serve as risers for the new shelves, which were children's shelves and low to the ground. I've already raised them by one foot, and I'm intending to raise them another foot. Also gives us extra storage room. 

I'm going to put them together today in the basement, then install them on Sunday night.

I'd like to get all this in place by July 1, which means getting busy over the next week. I have a vision for how it will all look in my head and it's kind of exciting.

One unexpected result of going all in on the new bestsellers is that I'm noticing even more than before how cynical the book trade is. 

Now, this doesn't come as a surprise. I do believe all the arts are infected by commercialism (the horror!), pirating, plagiarizing on a grand scale, misdirection, and so on. 

But up to now, I've been able to avoid the worst examples. I ignored most celebrity books, most political books, most self-help books. I've avoided most books that I knew and/or suspected were ghostwritten.

A particularly notable (egregious) example is the new #1 bestseller by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. (Now there's a couple to ponder on.)

Here's the thing. I'm pretty sure that everything Crichton had ever set to paper has already been published. I read Dragon Teeth, published after his death, and it was barely a book. Meandering, paper-thin characters, disjointed. 

So my feeling is that the Crichton's pantry had already been raided, emptied of anything usable. I suspect the genesis of this new book was a tiny scrap of paper in the corner of the pantry on which was scribbled, "Hawaii explodes."

I admit, an interesting idea. But the world is full of interesting ideas, but most of them get no coverage unless they are written by already well-known authors. 

Well, nothing to do but order the damn book. Not for me to judge what other people read, me but to do as they will.

License Plate Bingo

I'm playing License Plate Bingo with myself this summer. Starting on the 25th of May, I started writing down license plates I see on my commute. The goal is to hit all 50 states by the beginning of September.

So far, in three weeks, I've seen almost half of them. The obvious, of course, but also states like Hawaii (that's like getting an inside straight) and Iowa and so on.

I figure I might be able to catch about half that many states in the next month, and then half again as much the last month, leaving me short by about five or six states. My guess is that Mississippi and Louisiana will be the hardest: maybe Delaware and Rhode Island. 

Populated states are easy: New York, Texas, but I also see a lot of Wyoming plates.

Some of these license plates have tiny lettering or are obscured; I have to stop myself from tail-gating just so I can see the plates. 

Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Colorado, New York, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming, Kansas, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts.

It just goes to show that Bend is a tourist destination.

Grow or Die?

I'm pretty obsessed with the store right now. Constantly monitoring what's selling and what needs to be put back out again and what needs to be displayed face out. I'm really banking on the idea of having extra copies of the good selling books, even more than I am in ordering the new bestsellers. 

I'm not sure bestsellers is the right word, because these books haven't really proven themselves. They are more the "Chosen," by the industry to be the next bestsellers, which is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think I sold two or three of the "Chosen" in the first four days of the week. I probably need to sell at double that pace, at least. I'm definitely banking on the summer tourist trade. 

Yesterday was the first day that really that both really felt like summer and in which all the books I've gotten were fully in place. Sure enough, we hit our goal. That's kind of what we need to do. 

Whatever happens, I need to remind myself that we have returnability. It will probably make a huge dent in our cash-flow, which is why I'm doing it in the summer, but in the end, it can all be justified. PRH is gambling on me, and I'm gambling on them. 

I'm also intending to do returns with Ingrams, but I'm not going crazy on my orders there. Probably ordering twice as many of the "Chosen" as normal, but not three or four times as much as I am with PRH. 

 

I'm fine-tuning the displays in the next week. I've bought white cube lifters to raise up the new book displays and to give us more storage. I thought I'd ordered 10 of the 15" cubes, and then realized that was probably a mistake in that they would be too big for the center rack. 

However, apparently I only ordered one by mistake. 

When I went back to look at the white cubes, I found a different maker who makes slightly smaller cubes, which work much better for us. So the mistake turned into a bonus. 

By the way, I'm also being very aggressive with buying Magic. We've made real inroads there. The "Buy 5, get the 6th Free" offer is really attracting the gamers. It probably reduces our profit margin by 10%, but it also probably doubles our overall sales, so it's a net gain. 

I really gambled that having more SKU's would make a difference and I think it's paid off.

I'm pretty sure this recent increase in sales won't go away and can still be built on.

Pokemon, meanwhile, seems more static. But there are always people who buy them so I'm not worried.  I ordered enough of it to probably last us through the summer and beyond, especially if a new wave is coming. 

I'm continuing to be aggressive with comics and graphic novels, as well as toys. I'm taking advantage of every special offer, which may not pay off immediately, but if done consistently eventually take on a sort of "rolling" benefit; that is, the special offer product I bought a year ago sells enough to pay for the special offer this month. That's the theory, anyway. I think it works. 

Board games are probably the most problematic product right now. There's just too many coming out, too hard to predict, too hard to get the in-demand games. We're making sure we're stocked on the base games: the Catans, and Carassonnes, and Ticket to Rides and those sorts of games and I've given Sabrina the go-ahead to keep her eyes on what other games we could be selling.

I'm making sure the D & D stuff is fully stocked, with lots and lots of dice, and I've plunked down a bunch of money on Pathfinder; which will give us a second RPG game we can try to sell. 

I don't really buy into the Grow or Die philosophy. I think that corporate America's goal of constantly increasing profits is starving the core of our country as well as destroying the environment.

However, I think I do believe in Strive or Die. That is, make improvements over time. I don't think it's wrong to rest on your laurels for awhile: I've been trying to train myself to do that for years. But I do believe that once in awhile, you need to see if you can't make things better, if for no other reason than to keep one's interest in the business.

170.2. I'm OK with just maintaining that weight for a few days. Still have three days to get down solidly to 170, which was my original goal. I'm going to keep on doing this way of eating for the rest of summer, not so much to lose more weight, though that will be nice, but to establish a new baseline to my weight, the way I did when I reached 180. 

I'm more flexible and have more energy, lighter in step. No real change in my appearance, though. Darn it.

New book risk/reward.

First big batch of new books came in and I found places for all them. The new display racks have space for two or more books: one face out, the others in storage below. In theory, when one sells, there is another copy beneath which can immediately replace it. 

So they all fit in. But that was just the first week. They'll be another batch next week (actually, coming in today though not all can be put out until Tuesday) and another batch the following week and so on throughout the summer. At some point, some of them will need to be removed and stacked somewhere to be returned. (If a customer asks for a copy, I can give it to them for a big discount rather than pay the postage.)

I think I probably would have been better off increasing the number of new books I bought but keeping the higher discount I had before. I wouldn't be able to return them, but I think that if I were careful, that wouldn't have been a problem.

But I've bought all in on the program, and I'm ordering considerably more than I would have before, so we'll see what happens. 

I'm ordering books far in advance. I've always been a little leery of back-orders or pre-orders both; I much prefer to order books as they come into play. That way I know exactly how much I'm spending. The tough years trained me to never make purchases without knowing the totals. (I can still keep the totals, but it's a huge bookkeeping effort.)

But we've gone beyond that point now. There is no way to grow the business further using that method of buying. What I was doing until now was pretty much waiting for the books to become successful in the market before I ordered them, but by buying that way, I was missing out on the initial sales which, while not as certain as waiting would be, are probably the bulk of total sales.

In other words, I'm taking on more risk in hopes of more reward. Ain't it the way.

Turning water into wine.

It shouldn't be possible, but we've ended up with 55 linear feet of brand new shelving, and yet we have more room than before. (Not even counting 54 feet of linear new shelving we put in the windows.) All but about 15 feet of this shelving is dedicated to showing the covers of the books, which we dearly needed.

Everything is set up and it looks and feels great.

How do you add bulk and lose weight? How do you add so many more bookshelves without having to reduce any of the space and attention given to other product lines?

This miracle has happened before, more than once. I've been trying to make room for more product for years and every time I think I've reached the end of it, a need arises and a solution presents itself. 

The most impactful of these changes was during Covid. I'd been trying to turn the eastern half of the store into more of a bookstore. I'd made some progress, but was blocked by a lack of space. When we had to close for two months during Covid, I decided to lay down some much needed new flooring.

In doing so, we had to move everything out of one side of the store, and then put it back and put everything into the other side of the store. It got me to thinking about the layout and I realized that by dispensing with a couple of fixtures which weren't really doing us any good and by moving other fixtures just a few inches here and there, we'd be able to add a few more bookshelves. In actually doing it, I found that I could add even more bookshelves. I started to realize that something would be more effective here, that there was underutilized space there, little changes that added up to a lot.

With the new flooring laid down, it seemed to me that the actual layout of the store hadn't really changed but somehow we'd added hundreds more feet of shelving. So while I was at it, I consolidated a few more product lines, without losing any volume for the other product lines, with even more bookshelves.

Still, when I was done, it didn't feel to me like we'd changed things all that dramatically. But within a short time, I realized that in the perception of customers (especially tourists and new customers) we'd been transformed.

People kept commenting on what a nice "bookstore" we had. Now, we'd always gotten compliments. But most people before the changeover had referred to us as a comic store, or just a store. 

I realized that we had, indeed, become more of "bookstore" because we were able to carry so many more books and because we were finally able to add non-fiction books, as well a dedicated sections to poetry, nature, philosophy, and so on. Once on that path, I continued to fine tune the selection until we had the selection a bookstore should have. 

So this is a continuation of that process.

Now we find out if it actually results in increased sales. If nothing else, it makes the store more attractive, and that is good in itself.  

We're getting a massive load of new books today. I've really turned on the spigot for titles since we are now going to be returning books to the publisher if they don't sale. I'll probably be spending a few weeks adjusting, but we should be ready by the time summer really kicks in. 

Amazing stuff.

Final touches?

Well, I showed up for work yesterday and whatever event they were having on Bond on Saturday, was gone. But all the parking spots were being used, so I just went ahead and parked near Hospital Hill. After work, I took a couple trips around the block, finally inserted the car in a space not quite big enough, moved the fixtures onto the sidewalk, parked the car in the garage, and then pulled the fixtures into the store. 

Spent a couple hours putting everything in place. I'd managed to already push the bookshelves an inch away during store hours. I also managed to put in place the game books shelf and find a place for the toys somewhere else. 

I'm very seriously considering moving the front counter about eight inches to the west. That should give us plenty of room, maybe even to put the side bookcase back up. If I do it, I'm just going to do it. I'm undecided about using the cubes on the center bookcases. They would overlap the base by about three inches. I can use three of the cubes under the counter for storage. 

My measuring was all wrong. I think I translated the 48" by 24" of the card table into the base, when it was actually 40" by 28". The old story of measure twice. I sometimes don't measure even once. I'm just not good at carpentry, but if I take it slow and steady, don't get upset and just reverse the errors or try to jury rig them, I can get it done. 

All's well, that ends well. Everything is done but the cubes and putting the Rom-Com books in order. Tomorrow is the big day on new books. I figure we'll get about 500 books, which is about three times what a normal big order would be.

What I think will happen is: it will appear hopeless, but I'll adjust a little here, move a few things there, take out a few things, stack a few things, and so on. Over the course of a few weeks, I can get things functional. Then try to figure out what kind of flow I can handle. 

I have faith.

Spurred into making upgrades.

Not going to try to do anything today but deal with customers. Can't get near the doors anyway with the event happening. 

Luckily, I'm working Monday and most of the books don't arrive until Tuesday. 

My overall feeling is that the returnability program is a gamble, that ordering so many books maybe won't boost sales and that I might regret losing points on the profit margin. I'll see it through Christmas; I can opt out and go back to the old way of doing things if I want to.

If nothing else, I found a few more way to display more books, which I would have thought impossible before. The second best thing about this is the extra storage. 

Speaking of which, I ordered ten stackable white cubes. I want to raise everything up another 15 inches, to a little over five feet high. Plus, more storage. I figure three at the entrance, and six on the table. Could be cool. The only question is how secure they'll be. With tight quarters, they're almost certainly going to be collided with at some point. I'll see how solid they are when I'm done, and if they seem shaky, I'll hire someone to screw them together (who has proper tools.) 

Can still have it all done before the end of the month. If nothing else, the returnable program has spurred me into making upgrades.

I'm nothing if not inconsistent.

I preach the gospel of don't complicate things, Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), if it ain't broke don't fix it, time and energy and space are the same thing as money.

Well, I'm nothing if not inconsistent. 

All it took was an offer from a major publisher for a generous book return program to throw all those good thoughts under a bus. 

We will almost certainly lose profit margin, work much harder, and risk having everything becoming uncomfortable. All for the uncertain goal of increasing sales.

Thing is, once I accepted the program, which seemed like a no-brainer as long as I didn't take into account all the things I mentioned in the first sentence, it was easier to keep going than try to change course. Now that I'm in the midst of it, I see even success in the venture as a possible problem.

We are stretched to the max right now in handling the flow of customers and still maintain a store staffed by one person at a time. If we boost sales by, say, ten or twenty percent (the best result from ordering more books) it will be that much harder to maintain our energy. 

I'm always trying to build sales, and this venture probably will, if for no other reason than we'll have more product to sell. I've always said, the more you have in stock, the more you sell.

The reason to do this is to boost sales in the slow months, or eight months out of the year. I'm always aware that there will be another down market. There always is. You want the slow months to continue to be profitable, or at the least, still viable.

If sales increase too much, we can let business take care of itself during the summer and Christmas, slow the pace down a little.

We also have the option of opting out of the program, going back to the previous way of doing things. If nothing else, this has impelled me to find more room for books (which if you had asked me in advance, I would have said was impossible.)

But most of all, I just think I need a challenge once in awhile, even if I'm throwing the gospel of KISS out the window.

Final changes just in time for summer.

I've built two of the window displays, three yet to build. Pretty crude, but effective. Once the books are on them, they'll look fine. I used wood glue this time, so I'm hoping that will be strong enough. It cost about $250 bucks because wood has gotten very expensive. I mean, buying window displays even if I could find them would cost a lot more and assembling them myself isn't that onerous a chore. And it needed to be done. 

I don't know. Maybe taking out the standups won't make any difference, but at the point in the store where I have only so many options about going forward. I'll have excess inventory, and this will eat up over 100 spaces.

So basically, about the same number of face-out titles in the windows as inside the store, or about 250 in total. I think I might be able to figure out one more bookshelf on the slat walls above the games if I'm willing to put some toys aside; say for Warhammer and other game related books. (Just had this idea, but it's a good one. Warhammer fiction sells extremely well.)

I now have two days to get all the fixtures fixed and ready to transport. I'll need to go in early on Sunday a couple of times to transport everything. (I might make a run this afternoon.)

What's kind of cool about these changes is that I have done anything but scrimp on comics. I've encouraged Sabrina to up our orders, I've got a whole fresh supply of back issues, all spruced up in fresh bags, boards, and boxes, with a large backstock to keep refilling them. 

So in exchange for pushing books harder, I've made the commitment to keep up the comics, card games, toys, and board games. I have more product than ever in all these categories. 

I think any changes from here on out will be micro adjustments because I can't imagine finding any more space. 

 But I've said that before. 

Many times.

I'm really proud of Pegasus Books.

 

When I first started carrying books, it was a sideline. I thought that even if I did choose a few categories to be in depth, it wouldn't be possible to become a full bookstore.

Well, we've done it. I don't know how. We don't have any more space than we did before, but by being as ergonomic as possible, we now have a wide range of books: fiction, non-fiction, art books, biographies, true crime, Rom-Com, classics, mysteries and thrillers, fantasy and horror and science fiction, manga, graphic novels, pop culture books, literary, inspiration, self-help, journals, coloring books, puzzle books, children's and young adult. 

And we managed to do this without really infringing on the other product we carry. Amazing.

I did the math on the latest changes, which will allow us to carry even more books since we're shifting to returnability.

I started off by taking out the poster rack and the spin rack for greeting cards (we're converting to a smaller counter rack). I'll be sorry to lose the posters, but they really don't sell all the often.

By taking out one bookcase, substituting with a smaller bookcase, and by adding the three new faceout displays, we're:

Replacing 168" of linear space (that is, spine out or storage), with 296" of linear space.  Basically, it's letting us take out of the general fiction area the titles that I'm calling Rom-Com, (not all are comedy, but most are light, even if mysteries or fantasy), and giving them their own dedicated space. These aren't what I consider Romantasy, but there is some crossover. 

This opens up space in general fiction for more titles there.

But the biggest change is how much dedicated space we will now have to facing out books. We're going from 49 face-out book spaces to 111 spaces face-out.

In other words, we now have 62 more spaces to display new bestsellers. If we couldn't do this, I'm not sure it would make sense to order on a returnable basis. 

I'm going all in. My first order in June from Penguin Random house was the equivalent of a full month of normal orders. (It actually covers two weeks, because I had to wait until June 1st for their program to begin.) At this rate, I'll be almost doubling my orders.

So I needed that space. If I didn't have the extra space, I'm not sure it would make sense to order so much. We are very dependent on books of which people can see the covers. Because we're a tourist town, impulse buying is more important than people coming in for a specific book (though we try to have the inventory to do that too.)

Most of this won't be finished until this coming Sunday, then we'll be ready for summer. 

The final change for this season is that I'm going to take the standups out of the window. Seeing cartoon characters in the window makes us look less than serious to the casual passerby. We'll still have standups, but they'll be inside on the comic side of the store. 

To hide the backs of the three bookcases I have against the windows, I'll need to build some more window display. With the multiple copies of books we're be ordering this summer, we'll have more than enough bestseller type books to show off. 

I'm excited by the changes. I don't know for sure if it will change sales. We perhaps already had enough selection to get whatever sales we were likely to get. We will get some sales by having a hot book in stock without any delays, but I suspect this won't quite be enough to cover the loss in discount.

So I'm banking on more sales with the simple equation: the more titles we carry, the more we'll sell.

Most of all, I'm really proud of Pegasus Books.

Trying to make the best store possible.

I moved eight very large bookcases last night. Turns out, I could maneuver them still almost full of books. A bit of levering and scooting them, and I created the six inches I needed. Took out the poster rack and one of the metal display cases. There should now be enough room for the customers to move around the new bookcases easily. 

(I do realize what I'm saying is hard to visualize. I lack the proper terminology.)

I laid out a four-foot by two-foot table to see how much room it would take up. 

One thing I hadn't considered was that one of the bookcases was hiding all the wires to our computers and such. Because of that, I took the bookcase that faced the door and moved it over the wires. I lost about 6" of space, but that's better than the 11" of space I would have lost with one of the new bookcases, which I had ruled out.

I think it will all fit, and because I was able to keep one of the existing bookcases, we're going to have a increased capacity of 2.75 bookcases, instead of the 1.75 bookcases I thought I was going to have.

We're talking inches, here.

The 3/4 sized bookcase can't be fitted in without moving four bookcases exactly one inch to the left. One inch. I couldn't quite do that last night, so I'll attempt it on Tuesday night. 

And then all I'm waiting for is the new bookcases (four in all, plus a foundation table), which Linda and I are going attempt to put together ourselves. 

We are also awaiting a huge avalanche of books, probably quadruple the normal number for a week. Part of the reason is that I was saving up for the new program Penguin Random House offered, which didn't start until the first of June, and then there is the fact that I can pay for the bulk of the product at the end of summer.

It's a bit of a chance, but also one that can by redeemed by returns, if need be. I'll be out of pocket in the short run, but it should pan out in the long run. 

I'm creating more display space and storage space. Instead of ordering one "Just-in-time" copy of a title, I'm ordering multiple copies so that I don't run out of them in the heat of summer. 

That's the plan anyway.

Why am I doing this when everything was going so well? 

My goal from the start has been to make the best store possible, and I still feel that way. 

And, well, it's just fun to see if I can make something work.

Just-in-Time model.

What I've been doing up to now:

I order some bestsellers each week, but I reserve most of my budget for backlist and...

new bestsellers that came out in the last month or so.

In other words, I hang back a beat, wait to see what's actually selling, and THEN order it. Because most of my buyers aren't coming in specifically on the week something is released to buy something from us. They come in more or less on a whim, tourists or locals out for a lark, and so what they see is all new to them.

My theory is that many stores have already moved on the next new shiny title while there is still demand for that last new shiny title that might have come out a few weeks back. It's kind of a sweet spot where I can see what's actually in demand and then order it and have a pretty good chance of selling.

In some ways, this was necessary because I wasn't returning books.

Now that I'm starting to return books, I can take more chances on this week's shiny new book.

But what I don't want to do is go away from what was working. So I've got to try really hard to find space for this week's shiny new books and last month's shiny new books. 

The problem, as always in our store, is finding space for both things when I barely have space for one thing. 

As I said, I'm bringing in a few new shelves which should allow me to show off about 75 new titles that I couldn't before. So I should be able to do both if I'm careful.

The other thing I'm going to start to do this summer is ordering more than one copy of any backlist book that has a record of selling. I do this already on the very best of them, but I think I can take a chance and order more copies of all the backlist books with a good history.

Up to now, I've been mostly getting one copy of most backlist books, figuring that I'm only a few days from replacing it from Ingram, and a week or so from replacing it with Penguin Random House.  It's the Just-In-Time model of stocking.

In theory, if I have two or three copies, if one sells, I still have a copy in stock, covering the time it will take to get another copy in. 

In theory. 

It's summer and I can experiment a little bit. It's always fun to try to find more effective ways to sell things.

Book returns. A big step.

Yet another phase in the evolution of books in Pegasus. We're finally going to bite on "returns."

The publishers and distributors allow a certain percentage of books to be returned for credit, but up to now, I've been ordering non-returnable. I have favorable terms with non-return, and I've been well trained by comics to order only what I can sell, but one of my suppliers has offered me pretty decent terms with returnability, so I'm finally going ahead.

This doesn't really affect the backlist books in my store. I order those to keep anyway, but it will affect how I treat new titles, especially so-called bestsellers.

I've been careful with new titles from the beginning. For one thing, I can fill my store with proven standards. For the first few years I was doing new books, I didn't order any hardcover bestsellers. I basically didn't have faith that I could sell them in numbers enough to warrant the risk.

When I redesigned the layout of the store during Covid, I decide to take the plunge. But even then, I was pretty careful. Probably a little too careful. Take a book like "Lessons in Chemistry." I was probably ordering one or two of that title at a time, and I distinctly remember several occasions when I didn't have it in stock when a customer wanted it.

I looked up how many I'd sold direct from the publisher (and I'd probably sold another third on top of that from another wholesaler) and the numbers of books I sold was, to me, pretty impressive. I should never have run out. Same could be said of a another couple dozen titles over the years that have had legs.

So I've thought for some time that I needed to up my game. If I can order larger quantities upfront, then I'll have enough in stock while I'm waiting for reorders to arrive.

Of course, doing this goes against two of my precepts.

1.) Keep it simple, stupid. 

This won't be simple. I'll have to keep track of which supplier sent me the titles, and how long I've had them, and so on. A Point of Sale would make it easier, once I got past the complexity of learning the system. Up to know, I've been able to keep track the old fashioned way: paper, pencil, and a calculator. Heh. 

2.) Don't be a duplicate of other stores. 

As I've mentioned, we specialize in backlist. If I find a book or an author I like, I keep it in stock. Not just one or two Kurt Vonnegut books or Cormac McCarthy books, but every book they ever wrote. 

It believe it's made my store stand out as different. Not just the same bestsellers as everyone else. What I have somewhat disdainfully called the "American Booksellers Association" model.

So ordering more bestsellers means I need to create some space. I looked around the store, which is packed to the tippy-top, and tried to figure it out.

If I remove a few free-standing fixtures, I make a little room. But...and this ALWAYS happens!--if I move a block of bookshelves 5 inches, I make room for two new outward facing shelves, and if it move another block of bookshelves 1 inch (yes, 1 inch. It's ALWAYS 1 inch!) I can fit in yet another bookshelf.

This necessitates that I remove all the books from each bookshelf and move it over an inch, and then refill the bookshelf. Arrgghh. 

But once I've done it, I'll have once again found a way to display more books, so even if the returnability program is a flop, I've still improved the store. 

 

Paying attention to the collector market again.

When the comics bubble popped in the mid 90s, the only customers I had left were readers. 

About five or six years ago, that started to change. It's taken us a little bit of time to readjust to collectors. My theory is that the 20 year olds are now 45 year olds with nostalgia and money in their pockets. 

So, recently, I've snagged two rather large collections of comics, going back to the Bronze Age. (Also bought a collection of pulps from the 50s, for which I haven't found any interest. But they are cool, cool, cool.)

Anyway, had an older fellow come in with some Golden Age comics. For perspective, in the first twenty years of buying collections I'm not sure I saw even one Golden Age Batman or Superman. This guy had about 20, (very late Golden Age, nearly the 60s) not in great shape, but one of them was a Green Lantern Showcase with the first appearance of Hal Jordan.

He also had a box of old Walt Disney, most in terrible shape, and a box of Dells, ditto.

I priced out the Golden Age, added the Disney on top, and made an offer for the whole batch.

He turned me down, no hard feelings. The sticking point was he wanted to save the Disney. (More on that later.)

Actually, I'm proud of myself. I offered what for me was a realistic amount of money. Yes, a lot these comics "Book" at high prices, but there was nary a one that would score a 3 on a scale of 10. 

To be honest, the DC Golden Age comics would have been advertising: "Look at us. We have old stuff!"

But it would have been a long time, probably never, that I would have made the money back.  

However, I could have taken the Disney comics, that aren't really worth that much, and put a moderate price on them and maybe had some luck. 

This is typical of buying collections. They want you to make an offer, and then, almost invariably, they want to take back the part of the collections that would make it worthwhile. 

Shrug. I don't really have an idea if he can get a lot more for his collection, or whether everyone else will turn him down. 

I just know what I could have done with the collection.

Long-form business podcasts.

I've started listening the "Acquired," a podcast about tech companies that usually runs 3 or 4 hours long. They go in-depth into the history of major companies, from their precursors all the way up the present day. 

So far I've done Costco and Nike. (Yes, Nike is a tech company now.)

Whenever I start one of these, I think that there will be very little parallel to my Mom And Pop business; but I've been surprised. Costco, not so much, but Nike more so.

Costco comes across as a very admirable company; but bottomline, it's a discounter. It's the best of what to me is a destructive thing. We Americans have traded middle-class businesses that offer regular prices for volume of discount scale. They present this as an unmitigated good.

But do we really need so much cheap stuff? 

When I was younger, downtowns were filled with drugstores, clothing stores, etc. etc., all of which provided middle-class or even better earning for their owners. Owners who were all local residents. But most people could afford less clothing, less furniture, less toys. 

So yeah, we have more bang for the buck now, but for what? Cheap stuff that either we don't really need or that falls apart and can't be repaired. We fill the land and oceans with crap we don't essentially need. 

The other problem with the podcast was that the two guys seem to believe that volume discounting started with Walmart and Costco, but it has been around at least since the turn of the century. The idea of putting a big warehouse sized building on cheap land on the edges of cities and undercutting retail has been around for a hundred years (or more.) It's just that they get old, they don't adapt, and they get clogged with bureaucracy. I would posit that the big stores of today will someday follow Sears, Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, and Kmart into obsolescence. 

Nike, I thought I'd have almost nothing in common with; but their beginnings were very familiar. They started by importing shoes from Japan. Phil Knight had very little cash. His business was doubling every year. It was nearly impossible to grow without cash for inventory. Roughly speaking, a 50% margin and doubling sales means that all your money is going toward growth. There is nothing left over. One or two bad quarters and you're gone. 

Worse, if your margin is more like 30 or 40%, you literally can't pay for the doubling of sales. You're constricted by a punishing slow process of building your inventory. It's almost the definition of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. In order to grow, you need money--either investment (give up some or all of your control) or by borrowing money.

But 40 years ago, that "investment capital" (or venture) didn't really exist. So you went to an old fashion bank, who in those days were unwilling to loan you more than about the value of the inventory you already have. 

So Nike and Pegasus had similar beginnings. Sales doubling every year, banks being very leery of loaning money. 

There's a funny anecdote in Phil Knight's book, "Shoedog," where he went into a bank and proudly showed how his sales were doubling every year and that it didn't look like that would slow down anytime soon. 

The bank officer looked at him and said, "That's a problem."

"That's a problem?"

"Yes, you are growing too fast."

The reasoning is, you're plowing all your money into growth, but if you don't keep growing, if you have a bad quarter or two, you have nothing left. You're toast. 

Of course the answer is to get enough borrowed money to be able to withstand that kind of downturn, but there was the Catch-22 back then. Banks would only loan what you where already doing, no more, no less. So failure was almost built in. 

So here's the funny thing: I had EXACTLY the same conversation with a bank officer. "You're growing too fast. That's a danger sign."

"Huh?"

It proved to be true. With the money we had, we could barely survive a downturn, and we had several, it was only by stubborn tenacity that we survived at all. 

I had no interest after we stabilized to gamble like that again. But people like Phil Knight and my old boss, Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Comics, constantly leveraged their way to bigger business, taking chances all the way. That they succeeded was unusual. Most who try that technique don't.   

The other thing that I find fascinating is that these broadcasts, which get into the nuts and bolts, are often describing processes that I figured out for myself. When I finally got a loan from a bank it was with the help of a small business counselor from COCC. He told me I had a "primitive sophistication." 

I figure these things out the hard way, I guess. My eyes blur over at any business book I read.

It's hot? Let's overdo it!

I gotta say this: The number YA graphic novels coming out each week is insane. We specialize in YA GNs and there is no way I can order them all, or even a hefty percentage of them. I'm taking a wait and see attitude toward most of them, unless they are part of a series that we're already carrying. 

It's the usual thing of when something gets hot, everyone follows. I could say the same thing about coloring books, or Tarots, or Greek mythology books.

Sometimes a single book can inspire an entire genre. I'm not sure who started Romantasy (fantasy+romance) but Sarah Maas is the queen. "A Court of Thorns and Roses"is emblematic of books with two or more nouns combined. Again, total overkill.

There are diminishing returns on these types lemming books, so as an author, you need to be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon. I'm sure that authors everywhere are instantly changing their titles and descriptions of books already in the works or even finished, in order to be in the zeitgeist. 

My first book was homage to Tolkien, but Sword & Sorcery was hot when I sent it off, so the publisher bought it on that basis. Close enough. I loved S & S almost as much as high fantasy. 

The covers of books also give it away: if there is a hot book with a distinctive cover, it doesn't take long before you see cover after cover giving off the same vibes. My book "Star Axe" had an undeniably Frazetta-ish cover.

I mean, it's true of everything. Most of us are followers, even if we deny it. But a bookstore can ride the wave a little too long and find out not everything that is based on something hot is going to be hot.

We have ALL the YA graphic novels!!

Well, pretty close.

Brian Hibbs is doing his yearly accounting of graphic novel sales, at least of the top 750 titles.

Out of the first 100 bestselling titles, we have all but 5.

Out of the top 200 titles, we have all but about 20.

Out of the total 750 titles, we're carrying all but about 75. (I have counted all the individual books in a series we aren't carrying as one title.)

I'm not sure how we've managed to do this; mostly, we pay attention to titles that are requested or otherwise rise to our attention for some reason.

I have already tried to order the 20 titles in the first 200 we don't have, of which about 25% are not available. 

I'm going to work my way down the list until we have all of them.

An active social life...of doctor visits.

I'm starting to see a future of constant doctor visits.

A few years back, there was a group of doctors who announced that after a certain age (I think it was about 60 years old) they were going to just let nature take it's course and not accept any treatment. It would be interesting to see if they followed through...

So far this month I've had my regular doctor visit, along with labs, then a visit to a kidney doctor, coming up a scan of the kidneys and also a scan of the heart. another lab test, and another visit to the doctor next month and so on and so forth. My doctor wanted me to have colonoscopy but I demurred. I'll do the poop test instead. 

Coffee is good, Aleve is bad. My creatine level is higher, borderline, so all the tests. Maybe I just didn't drink enough water that week? (Despite what everyone else was telling me, the H2O in my coffee and lemonade is...well,...H2O.)

I know that the heart exam will show a buildup of plaque. I've known this for 40 years, taking statins diligently; it my inheritance and it's the big danger in my life.

Someone I know well who is a generation younger than me just had a life-threatening event out of the blue. 

I don't know. 

It just seems to take up a whole lot of head space.

I'm very fatalistic. What will be, will be. I do not intend to take extreme measures to continue on. Now I'm wondering just how much of this preventative care I want to put up with. Sigh. I'm semi-retired, I can find the time to see a doctor. 

I was worried about having a social life when I fully retired, but these doctor visits may just fit the bill!

Goodbye McD's.

One of the measures I do at the store when ordering product is to gauge my own interest:

Way back when I was a sophomore at Bend Senior High, one of the senior debate guys was doing a presentation and said that, when you try to choose an interesting subject to talk about, you have to decide if it's interesting to you, and if it is, then there is a good chance that others will also.

Stuck with me. 

On the other hand, I often get customers in the store who act surprised that, "people are still..." doing whatever; magic, comics, cards, games.

"Yes," I say. "Believe it or not, this stuff went on without you." 

Anyway, I've stopped going to McDonalds, or indeed, any other fast food joints. Once McD's dropped the $1 sodas, they lost me forever. 

Working a week straight.

These periodic weeks where I work full time are good for me. I get the chance to experience the more general flow of the store.

For instance, I see more comic customers, which reassures me that it is still an active product line. I get to see where people are coming from by their zip codes; it appears to be more than half non-locals, though the majority of those are from Oregon. 

I've been leading people over to the new back issue bins and that's been a great success. I need to remind Sabs and Ash to physically lead comic customers over to that section.

(My crew at are a comic convention in Seattle for six days...)

I've also sold one of my own books every day I've worked, without really trying that hard. There is a certain percentage of people who will simply buy; but I can't tell who they will be in advance. The heavy majority will shrug it off, but a significant minority will buy. 

Could I still work every day if I had to? Probably now, with this slowdown, but it would be very hard. The problem I have with people is more me than them. There is a fair amount of thoughtlessness, but I don't think there is maliciousness involved. So it's up to me to shrug off the thoughtlessness because I can't change that.

I'm definitely tired. No way around that. And that is due to age, I think. I could probably get back into the routine if I had to; it's a matter of rationing my time and energy, of delegating time, pacing myself. 

I feel really good about the store. For once in my career, there is very little I would change, and nothing much to add. Just keep refining what we're doing.

I have the weirdest bookstore.

Every week I order the big books--the ones that will be on the New York Time's bestseller lists. For instance, last week it was "Women," by Kristin Hannah. The week before that it was "Gothikana," by Runyx. And so on.

I can tell they're going to be big books by how many copies my wholesaler has available; a pretty sure sign that the book will be heavily promoted. I have a benchmark number that I automatically order.

However...these books rarely sell for me. They certainly don't sell fast, and they don't sell in big numbers.

I know that most bookstores sell the hell out of these books. I often visit Brandon at Herringbone Books here in Redmond (a really great bookstore, by the way) and he sells most of the big new releases by major publishers far better than I do.

And yet...and yet...

I sell hundreds of books a week. We've been on a very healthy streak for years now. We ring up book sales all day. And there sits the #1 book in the country, gathering dust. 

If I had set out to change my store into a bookstore by doing the traditional things, the store would have failed. I'm not sure why--mostly, I think locals have a pre-concieved notion of what we are. 

Instead, I have a regular clientele of people looking for the unusual, the quirky, genre books, and standards; classics, cult books, etc.  We sell to tourists who are looking for something other than the usual Top Ten.

I pay attention to the books that are bestsellers, but with a long tail. I pay way more attention to TikTok books than I do to Publisher's Weekly. So the big book from a few weeks ago was, "House of Flame and Shadow," by Sarah Maas. This is the kind of genre book that will continue selling for me.

Don't get me wrong. When the USA today does their 150 bestsellers of the week list, I'll usually have at least 80% of them. 10% of the uncarried books are books I don't want to carry; 10% are books that I'm waiting to making sure they aren't a blip and are going to be on the list for more than one week. 

But what I try to do is identify books that sell and just keep on reordering them. Ordering them until they stop selling, by which time, I've usually identified another title that can take its place. 

90% of my books every week are reorders of the backlist. I call them "the standards." Kurt Vonnegut will just keep selling. Tom Robbins, Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Chuck Palahniuk, Murikami, and so on. 

I'm good with this. I think it's not a bad thing to have standards instead of so-called bestsellers, which can be hit or miss. 

And I think it makes the store more interesting and unique.

There are story ideas everywhere.

 

Started a story yesterday, realized immediately that it wasn't good enough. Made me wonder how many stories I've started over the years. Hundreds, I'm pretty sure. Thousands? It's not that all of them didn't have potential, it's that I was either in the mode of finishing things or in the mode of not finishing things. 

When I came back to writing a decade ago I had one rule: finish the stories, don't change anything until you're done. 

So for eight years, that's what I did. Some of the stories worked out, some didn't. But most of them were finished.

The story I wrote yesterday made me think of how fertile my imagination is; I'll never not have stories to tell, if I so choose. But I'm waiting for the KILLER idea, and that means waiting a long time. I sat on the "Werewolves + Donner Party" idea for years. I knew it was a winner. But most of the other stories were more spontaneous. I don't know that the spontaneous stories were any worse than the long incubating ideas, but it always felt a little iffy, and most of them didn't get the immediate "That's a cool idea!" response that Led to the Slaughter got. 

But I've decided that I should start a new story every day; in fact, just waiting for inspiration for an hour or two every day, writing the beginning, and then seeing if it has any legs. The proof of concept will be the urge to keep writing. 

Today's idea, which I just now came up with.

Barbra Streisand barely mentions singing in the first chapters of her book. She wanted to be an actress. She spent her first few years in New York auditioning for serious plays, trying to the get into the Actor's Studio. At some point she's offered a job if she'll sing in it. The way she depicts it is, "Yeah, I can sing a little." So her best friends say to her, "Hey, we've known you the whole time you've been in New York and you've never once mentioned singing. Sing something for us."

She says "OK, but I'm going to turn my back on you because I'm embarrassed." She sings a song she's been working on, and when she turns around, her friends are crying. 

Nice story. 

So here's what really happened: She went to one last audition where she is humiliated, comments on her looks, and so on. She meets a well-dressed gentleman as she leaves the stage and he says, "Listen, I can get you parts if you can sing." 

"I can sing a little."

"Oh, I can help you with that," the gentleman says, whipping out a contract. She read the paper, signs with a flourish."

"Go ahead," he says. "Sing something."

She starts out hesitantly, but her voice gains power and confidence and she is...well, the diva we all know and love (or hate.)

I know, I know...not a new idea. Completely Faustian. And writing it would be hard; I'm not musical myself. 

But you see what I mean: there are story ideas everywhere. 

Hey, I'm not saying they're all good ideas...

Back issues are up and running.

17 long boxes of fresh back issues; bagged, boarded, and priced.

This first batch are mostly DC and Marvel iconic characters, along with a lot of Star Wars. I have a base price, but didn't have the time to look up every comic online, so winged it as far as pricing goes. I may have gone way under what they actually sell for, or I may have gone slightly higher. I tried to underestimate instead of overestimating. (There is no authoritative price guide, really.)

I didn't have time to separate the variant covers, so they're mixed in there with the regular covers. 

It took a year to get these ready, mostly the bagging and the boarding. I mean, I took long breaks, but it is finally done.

I probably have about three times what I put out still to do. Most of the major titles have been done; Spider-man, X-Men, Thor, Wolverine, Batman, etc. (though I held back some for refills). 

There are lots of good titles I didn't get to yet. For instance, complete runs of Hellboy and BPRD and other indie comics. Those are going to get out there soon, though I'm still trying to figure out how to fit them into the store. 

Anyway, it feels and looks good and it should be fun for some of you to browse through them. 

Thanks to all of you for 45 years of selling comics!

Barbra wow wow..

I've been listening to Barbra Streisand's book, read by her. She's still got that heavy Brooklyn accent (though I suspect she's playing it up.)

Bottom line--I simply can't comprehend that level of ambition. 

I don't usually read autobiographies because I don't think you can trust them. Early on, I read one by a famous entertainer that I subsequently learned was 90% bullshit. 

So I'm listening to Streisand with a huge grain of salt. I'm trying to read between the lines, and trying to figure out what's genuine and what isn't. Funnily enough, the genuineness is at the forefront of her storytelling. 

So I don't really buy her humility and down-homeness. She lays it on a little thick. 

At the same time, she reads off comments about herself from friends and reviews that make her sound fantastic. Fair enough. She's proud of herself and she should be.

So at this point, I'm listening to hear the process of how you create a career like hers. I'm at the point in the book where she's 24 years old, the toast of the town, and about the film Funny Girl.

I'm exhausted just listening to her schedule. Like I said, the amount of effort it takes is almost incomprehensible. 

She's constantly saying she's a loner, but the subtext is that she is surrounded by people all the time. 

It's only the second audiobook I've ever listened to. I heard a snippet of the book read by her and it sounded like something I could listen to and not try to read. 

Ah, well. Only about 30 hours to go.

Restock back issue update #2.

I've finished organizing the boxes, but I want to do a little finessing, so I'm sticking to my February 15 Grand Unveiling.  

My first choice was the put comics under their title but not try to order them by number. It isn't all that hard to search through a batch of comics, and there's always the chance that you'll find something you didn't expect.

Putting them in numerical order would add another week to the organizing (and would probably only last a couple of weeks before they were out of order again.)

I'm also hoping Sabrina can find the time to go through them and see if I missed anything, overestimated or underestimated anything.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that I've been making sets of mini-series, and/or the first X number of issues in a series. We've done this in the past, but back then it was mostly comics leftovers. These, on the other hand, are premium comics that are complete within a collection, so qualitatively much nicer. 

It's kind of the last slot in the store that needed to be fixed. I honestly can't think of anything more to do. I'm sure there are things, and they'll come to me, but for now the store feels as complete as the time, space, and money can make it. 

It's been fun to have comics all around me again.

I guess I kind of missed that.  

Me and Clean Gene and Tricky Dick.

Hard to believe I started this blog 18 years ago.

I was young(er) and naive and thought I could say anything I wanted and nothing would come of it. 

Ah, the wisdom of age. It is better to keep my mouth shut and listen. 

But, you know, kind of boring. 

Speaking of young and naive. When I was 15 years old, my mother, Libby McGeary--a liberal, Unitarian, volunteer for good causes, fabulous gardener--decided to start a Eugene McCarthy "Get Clean for Gene" campaign office in Bend. 

So me and some friends went door to door with buttons and stuff. I don't remember much about it, except for the old couple who greeted us at the door and invited us in. And then start attacking us.

An ambush!

I don't remember what we said, or how we got out of there, but I've always remembered the savagery I saw in their eyes. 

The McCarthy people realized they had a shot in Oregon and came along and took over. I went to see Nixon's daughters at the Pine Tavern. They saw I had "L" and "R" inked on the plastic toes of my tennis shoes (on the wrong foot, of course) and they thought that was hilarious.

My friend Wes and I went to see Robert Kennedy at the Bend High auditorium, standing on our chairs and shouting for "McCarthy!" (me) and "Nixon" (Wes,...sorry, man.) But the Kennedy charisma was real and we (or I, at least) followed Kennedy out into the parking lot, shaking his hand more than once. 

I was watching TV the night he was assassinated and woke up the parents. 

Why does this all come to mind? Well, there's a guy in my neighborhood who has a flag up saying "Trump Won."

I'd love to knock on his door, acting innocent, and ask him to vote for Biden. I imagine him and his wife inviting me in, all friendly like, and then ambushing me. And I'd give it right back to them.

But it would probably end up in an old man fist fight, my glasses would be knocked off, and I'd get smacked in the back of the head with a frying pan. 

Like I said, the wisdom of age. Shut up and listen.

World-building is harder than it looks.

Recently, I've gotten bogged down trying to read big fantasy books. I read one recently that was obviously trying to have a "Dune" like approach to world-building, and it didn't quite work. It didn't quite make sense, nor was it satisfying.

"Dune," to me, is the best SF book ever written. (No need to tell me you didn't like it--I get it.) All the parts fit, all the world-building makes sense. 

The thing you find when you try to construct a world is that is very hard to do without contradictions. Or rather, with life-like contradictions. What "Lord of the Rings" and "Dune" have in common is that the worlds feel real. They are one-time triumphs, in a way. Tolkien couldn't top himself, and neither could Frank Herbert. 

It also hard not to create a world that feels somehow simplistic. Even if you get the structure right, most of the time the fantasies I read feel shallow, Potemkin-village like constructions.

This didn't bother me too much when I was younger, but eventually the fantasies lost their appeal. Underneath the particulars, the generalities were pretty much the same. 

When I wrote "Star Axe," "Snowcastles/Icetowers," I was in thrall to Tolkien and R.E. Howard. I used them as a template.

Then the 25 year break from writing. In all of those 25 years I thought that if I ever wrote again, it would be fantasy. Instead, I had an idea of werewolves being part of the Donner Party and wrote that, had a very modest little success with it, found the horror community seemed to appreciate my writing, and off I went.

The one book where I tried to build an entire world completely fell apart. I rewrote it again and again trying to fix it, until it all became a jumble of words.

Truth is, I love telling stories--and I confess that I'm writing those stories to amuse myself. It's much easier to write a story if you already have the background in place, either the real world or a historical version of the real world. All the complexities and contradictions are built-in. No need to convince the reader of their reality. 

I mostly read thrillers these days. Last night I read the new Thomas Perry thriller, "Hero," and it was great fun. I fell right into the story. It felt comfortably familiar, but with enough of the complexity of the real world to feel satisfying. 

I'd love to write a big fantasy, but I'd need to build the world first, make sure that the story fits into the framework of the world, and not vice versa. 

It's a hell of a challenge.

Back issue restock update.

It's happening faster than I thought. I believe we'll have everything up and running by Thursday, February 15th. 

It's been a bit of a trip down memory lane. I spent years doing this kind of thing. At first because when I bought the store I had so little inventory or money that I had to try to scare up business by organizing as best I could, finding hidden gems, figuring out how best to display the product. 

The first comic book show I went to, I bought every X-Men comic I could find.

The second or third comic book shows I went to, I found Swamp Thing and American Flagg and a bunch of other great comic books that forever changed my perception of comics. 

I remember asking some other retailers how they were able to increase their back issues. Someone said, "Don't worry. You'll have more than you'll know what to do with before you know it."

Which, over time, proved true. 

I sold the contents of the basement storage, some 40K issues, a few years ago to another retailer. I just didn't seem to have the time to go through them and try to organize them. 

What's so interesting to me is that I've probably accumulated at least another 20K issues without even trying. But this time I looked at them and I didn't despair. I decided I could deal with them. 

So what's going to be for sale?

So far, it looks like:

Two and a half long boxes Spider-man.

One and a half long boxes of Avengers.

Three long boxes of Batman. 

Two long boxes of Ultimate and X-Men.

Two long boxes of Star Wars, one each of Dark Horse and Marvel. 

The rest of the boxes are assorted titles, mostly DC and Marvel to start with. 

We have plenty of replacement issues for Spider-man, Avengers, Batman, and Star Wars. 

All bagged and boarded, in fresh clean white boxes, priced. 

About the price. 

I simply didn't have time to look up every comic. I set a base price for most of the comics, looked up a few obvious ones, went a little higher on first issues and variants. But most of it was guesswork and I undoubtedly missed a lot of "Key" issues. 

But hey, that gives you all a better reason to hunt for hidden gems. 

For example, I put together a set of the four "Edge of Spider-verse," comics and priced it for $20. Sabrina noticed and told me that it had the first appearance of Spider-Gwen, which was worth more like $400 dollars. It was only happenstance that she caught that.

I'd be very surprised if I didn't miss a bunch of other comics. I'm just not in the loop anymore. But that gives everyone a good reason to look through the boxes and IF we get the base price for most of them, we'll do fine. 

I admit, it still hard for me to transition to the collecting side of things.

 

Replacing and renewing our entire backstock of comics.

I spent about 20 years not buying collections.

Mostly because we are a reader store, not a collector store. In most cases, graphic novels served that need better than maintaining a backstock of comics. After the comic crash in the mid-90s, it seemed like almost all my customers were readers, and collecting was secondary.

Secondly, because our space is limited. 

Thirdly, and most importantly, I really started to become allergic to the process of buying collections. Most collectors expected me to pay top dollar for their collections, but it required a lot of time and space on our part to make the money back. So I just stopped. Dead stop. It was the process of buying collections at an affordable price that stopped me.

Catering to readers first and collectors second worked for about twenty years, and then about eight years ago, collecting started being a thing again. I noticed that back issues were selling more often, and that my competitors were serving that need. Covid seemed to bring collecting to the forefront again. Not sure why. People with time and money on their hands? People having the time to remember when they used to collect?

For whatever reason, I saw that I needed to try to start catering to that market again as best I could. 

About a year and a half ago, I bought two collections.

The first collection was a bunch of pulp magazines and books. I bought these to save them from being dumped, because the owners were discouraged by the number of rejections they'd gotten. If I didn't buy them, no one was.

Technically, these books are worth money. They are in beautiful condition, which is very rare for pulps from the 50s and 60s. But I don't have a customer base for these. Ideally, they should probably sold online. 

So I'm sitting on these books, mostly, and enjoying the art and the vibe of them.

The second collection was a bit of an accident. A longtime customer announced on Facebook that he was going to sell his collection before moving to another house. The price he quoted was more than reasonable, and I immediately called him and offered to buy them all.

See, I don't mind buying collections. I just hate having to dicker for them.

For the last year and a half I've been bagging and boarding and pricing these comics. It's been a massive project.

The comics start from the late 80s up to the time I bought them. Full runs of Spider-man and Batman and Avengers and Wolverine and Ultimates and many, many others. Lots of variants and special covers. Good solid stuff. 

Last week, I finally started organizing them. I'll be able to put out about 18 long boxes of new comics, replacing all the current backstock, which I'll take downstairs and reorganize. We have tons of comics left to deal with, but I'm putting out as much of the good stuff as I can.

It's kind of nostalgic, actually. I have a collector urge as much as anyone, I just got a little discouraged by the boom and bust cycle. This feels like the right thing to be doing. And the right time. 

I'm posting this to put pressure on myself to get this done by the end of February. Hopefully a little sooner than that. I'll keep you all up to date.

AI is inevitable.

I spent years trying to convince people that Walmart was bad. I spent further years trying to convince people Amazon was bad. I tried moral suasion, I tried practical suasion, but in the end, none of it mattered. People will do what people do.

When I see how far and how fast AI has come, I'm already ready to throw in the towel. Oh, I'll personally resist...for awhile. 

Truth is, I use Amazon. I would probably use Walmart if it wasn't such an yucky place to visit. 

My store is designed to survive the actual existence of Walmart and Amazon, acknowledging their strengths, trying to find things that we can do that they can't. 

I don't think moral suasion is going to work any better against AI that it did against the previous goliaths. It seems impossible to control. It's already escaped, it's out of our hands.

People will do what people will do. 

Freezing rain, freezing business.

I don't remember freezing rain as being a thing in Central Oregon. Ice and snow, sure, but not rain. That was always a Portland thing. (I'm more sympathetic to their plight--we used to make fun of those clueless city folk.)

At the same time, the foot traffic in downtown Bend has been to die for over the last few years. Something I never could have dreamed would happen 40 years ago, when Jerry (the Sole Shop) and I would sit on the sidewalk and play cribbage until a customer showed up. 

We're an attraction to both locals and tourists. I'm aware of many Bendites saying they never shop downtown, which is a shame. The garage always has room and is a short walk from just about any shop in the area. I always respond with the Yogi Berra comment: "No one goes there anymore. It's too busy."

Anyway, over last couple of weeks we've seen the other side of that. It reminds me of February, 2019, when we saw a similar downturn in business. The snow, the ice, the cold, the slush, the puddles have kept people away. I have a feeling that a lot of tourists looked at the passes and the weather predictions and decided to stay home.

So it's been rather impactful.

If you base your business on tourism, then you have to accept that. 

It's fine. I mean, the last three years have boomed, so having a couple of slow weeks isn't deadly. But it is also a reminder that this kind of weather can happen at any point past Halloween, and if it was to happen the week before Christmas would be a disaster. Another warning to be careful. 

In the broader sense, it's a reminder of just how slow it is possible for business to get. String a few disasters in a row and it could be really hard. 

As I've mentioned earlier, Pegasus Books no longer has to order the bulk of its product far in advance. We can respond to inventory as it happens. It was designed thus. Covid taught me that even a complete stop in business won't kill you as long as you don't have to pay for unwanted inventory and your overhead is low enough. 

But it ain't fun.

The Snow! The Snow!

I'm going into the store today to finish up some work that had to be done anyway. 12:00 to 4:00.

Once I get past the first residential block or two, it's main roads all the way into the downtown garage. 

If no one comes in, fine. I kind of like kicking around the store on a snowy afternoon. But I'd also love it if you came in spend money. Heh.

This month reminds me of Feb. 2019, which was way, way below average. I looked it up and my records say "SNOW!" printed in big block letters. 

An act of God. Thank God it has never happened in December, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars in profits. I'm aware of the danger every year. 

It's part of the cycle. 

What's different nowadays is that the unlike the old days, when I ordered the bulk of my product months in advance, I now order most product on the week I need it. So I can easily adjust. My wholesale order for books this week, to replace all the books I sold as well as bring in new ones is only about 25% of normal. But the overhead is easily covered. 

I don't think I fully realized how hard it was to sell product like comics and card games and sports cards. I had no control over cash flow; huge orders would arrive when I could least afford it, and small orders would arrive when I most needed it. 

Gives me a nervous twitch to think of those days. 

It took me decades to figure it out, but I finally did.