The Final Fantasy Magic cards haven't been a flop. They're selling at about the pace I hoped for, maybe a little faster, though it's the beginning of the run so that seems right. I haven't been at the store so I don't know exactly what's selling. 

Meanwhile, new books continue to sell. It looks like this will be the sixth month in a row where we'll beat last year. In fact, we're on pace to have our best year ever. 

I can't believe how much more work it's taken to catch up from taking a week off. Pretty much spent all of today doing book orders--and I'd already done about 40% of them before today. I'm not sure I'll ever dare do a skip week again. 

Everything comes down to the budget. I'm finding it nearly impossible to keep track of what I'm spending with my three new publishers: Simon & Shuster, Harper Collins, and Scholastic. Unlike Penguin Random House and Ingram, they don't give me totals, and it would add a hell of a lot of time to add them up one by one. I count them, and round them off to a certain number that I'm pretty sure is slightly higher than they actually are. But it's inexact, and I'm been caught flatfooted a couple of times. Nothing dangerous, but slightly off putting.  All those years of living week to week without credit or reserves made me very careful about how I spend the money. 

I figured out a budget that would work within a 20% range of my high estimate in sales and the 20% range of my low estimate in sales. In other words, a firm number I stick to every week. It's hard to see progress on a day to day basis, but I know it's probably starting to accrue. I don't need to change the budget unless there is a radical change in sales, up or down.

Yeah, it only took me 40 years to figure it out.