A wave is a wave.

A glowing article about Barnes and Noble and how well they're doing. Except...there are no stats, just the assertion. (They are privately owned.) They did open 30 stores, which is a sign of something, but maybe not what the article claimed.

Supposedly, new management has revived B & N. 

Maybe--but they couldn't do worse, right? 

But what I think is really happening is that Covid was, weirdly enough, very helpful to bookstores, at least ones that were open to receiving the benefits. People didn't spend money on movies, concerts, going out to dinner, etc. etc. But they could go into a bookstore (like I said, if they were "open") and buy a book. 

Never mistake a wave for your own efforts. We saw a wave of business that had nothing to do with management. 

We will probably revert back to normal over time. Fortunately for us, it gave us a chance to reinvent the store, make it more attractive to book buyers, and to really flesh out our inventory. We'll probably see a small decline over time, but I don't think we'll go back to pre-Covid levels.

We were down a little this Christmas--less than half as much as I expected and budgeted for. We managed to save the same amount of money, though, and to keep the inventory up.

My job right now is to not get in my own way. Continue to make incidental improvements, but keep the store functioning without disruption. Don't need to make major changes, though that's always an impulse of mine. 

Carry on...

 

 

Stuff it, Sheriff of Nottingham.

We went to Toby's for Christmas on the Eve--he finally got his way and we opened our presents a day early! Now that Toby (and Danette) have a home base, they are becoming the center of celebrations because Toby insists on cooking fabulous meals. They also had a tree. And decorations. And spirit.

Linda and I? Not so much. We don't go in for a big display of spirit. A hangover from being retailers for 40+ years. It's a tad nerve-wracking every season because so much depends on those last ten days before Christmas and you can't know how you'll do until it's over. I usually managed to relax on Christmas Eve, pick some gifts from the store, and then let the week after be whatever it will be.

Todd is home with us and binging on shows he can't get at home. Watched the Glass Onion, which was fun. 

We're pretty good at picking books he likes: this year it was the entire Murderbot series. 

Walt and Freya and Loki had a howling session set off by Linda's flute, which I boosted by coming out of the bedroom from my nap and howling even louder. It was pretty funny. 

Having got Xmas out of the way on the Eve, we are going to do basically nothing today but eat cookies and leftovers. (I'm thinking about going into town and vacuuming the store which I haven't been able to do for weeks. It really, really needs it and it would be relaxing, ironically enough. I kind of like the empty store, just putzing about.)

The Sheriff of Nottingham wasn't able to cancel Christmas. We were down a bit, but this down from an extraordinary level last year, heights we will probably never see again. Budgeted properly so we made exactly the same profit as last year, so I'm pretty pleased. 

Things are going well for us, far beyond what I ever expected. 

Bless you all, and to all a good day.

My door is open to everyone.

Specialty bookstores are a bit of a mystery to me. 

Why limit your scope? Trust me, you're going to want as many customers as possible. There is no reason not to cater to as broad a scope of people as possible.

Here's the thing. You can still focus on one element of the store without dismissing the rest. 

I arrived at this conclusion through trial and error. Basically, the beginning core product of Pegasus Books--comics--could never generate enough business to pay the bills. So I was always forced to diversify. Pop culture toys and accoutrements, graphic novels, board games, card games, and so on. Not to mention products that we carried when they were hot--beanie babies, pogs, non-sports cards, etc. 

The trick was to add product lines without detracting from the existing product lines. It has always been music to my ears to hear customers of each category describe my store as that--comic people saying I'm a comic store, book people saying I'm a book store, etc. That means I've succeeded in broadening my scope without turning away the other possibilities. 

So to become a Science-fiction store, or Mystery store, or Horror store, a Children's store, the question becomes--are you going to attract more of the specific customer to cover the loss of every other possible customer!?

You don't have to go crazy. I've carved out every niche of fiction I can, even if it's just a shelf or two. I originally was going to skip non-fiction, but I manage to spring loose three bookcases and fill them with the best non-fiction I can find. It's enough. I've done this will a little over 1000 sq. ft., which is a modest size by any measure.

I cater to readers. That is,  I carry enough diversity that a reader is likely to find something they might like. I may not have a specific book they want--but I learned long ago that the chances of having an odd book are near zero, and would be even if I had ten times the inventory. (People seem to have no real concept of how many fricking books there are in the world!) 

But as long as I have a nice selection, there's a decent chance I can hook a reader. I see no reason not to have a nice selection in as many categories as I can do. 

My door is open to everyone.

Junk accumlates like dust bunnies under the bed.

The storage shed is going to be completed this weekend, which means I can start taking the boxes of used books out of the basement at the store. Apparently, the building's insurer expressed concerns about the amount of "paper" in the basement. They have no idea...

So I can at least ameliorate the problem. I doubt we can get fit all the boxes in the shed, but a hefty proportion of them. 

I cleared the basement of sports cards several years ago: just gave them away. Trust me, there was nothing valuable there. I sold off the 40,000 comics I had in the basement for pennies on the dollar. There was some value there, for anyone willing to put in the time and effort. 

Weirdly, the basement has refilled with comics, not only the 6000 comics I bought recently, but at least another 6000 or more that simply accumulated somehow, like dust bunnies under the bed. 

There is a lot of junk down there; old beatup toys, non-sports cards, used books, and comics. Broken or unused fixtures, the detritus of 40 years of putting it in the basement and forgetting about it. 

I'll probably make several trips to the dump with the worst of it, then have to make a decision about the rest of it. 

I had thought that I might start a used bookstore in Redmond, but that possibility seems to be receding. I certainly don't want to throw away the books I've accumulated, but I would be willing to sell someone the whole works for a very reasonable price: bookcases, fixtures, cash register, and used books, enough to get started. 

I guess I think someone some day will mention "wanting a bookstore" in my store and me ascertaining that it wouldn't be in Bend and making them a good deal. Someone could possibly earn a living off them for very little investment. The nucleus of a new life.

As far as I'm aware, there are no used bookstores in Redmond, Prineville, LaPine, Madras, or Burns. (There probably are, but I'm not aware.) It wouldn't be a lavish lifestyle, it may not be totally possible to do used books alone, but you'd be you're own boss.

I did it. I know it's possible, though not easy. I've never regretted it.

Pardon me for preaching.

Jesus, the news is so depressing. We're going to lose, and the only thing we can do about it is try to protect ourselves. There may be a test ahead of us--do we stand up for what is right or stay silent? I'm tired of the outrage, the constant bad news, the murderers and liars and thieves. I cling to my idea of ethics even when I discover by talking to people that most them have no idea what I'm getting at. Bad behavior is celebrated while good behavior is mocked as naive. Villains are emboldened while the good are ignored. The rich and famous get away with everything they do while the poor and disenfranchised are ridiculed or punished. 

Was it ever so?

Probably. Not exactly a consolation. The dysfunction is now part of the system. Instead of laws and government alleviating the problems they seem to be slowly but surely used to enforce the dysfunction. Government doesn't work--and By God, we'll prove it!

Polarization is so deeply ingrained by now, re-enforced with every broadcast of right-wing media and protest of left-wing wingnuts, that there is no way to reach the other side. Instead we fall into the chasm of misunderstanding and hate.

The temptation is to withdraw. Obama can coax us not to give up, but the man has done his duty and is rich and famous enough not to really feel the sting of oppression. He's a good man, but he's preaching from a place of comfort and achievement. 

It is my fellow old white men who are the worse; followed closely by old white women. There seems to be no understanding or memory of when they were young and poor, or any realization that their struggle was nothing compared to those who aren't white or male. No understanding that no one is trying to minimize their efforts, but only to point out that others undeniably, indubitably, obviously have had it harder. No understanding that it isn't a zero sum game, that wealth could be distributed with kindness and generosity, instead of used only to taunt. I got mine, tough luck that you aren't as smart or hardworking or Godly as I. No understanding that if that were indeed true (it isn't) it is even more reason to help.

Can we pull ourselves away from the cliff? I don't think I'll live long enough to see it, but at this point, one of the tires is already spinning over the chasm, and the engine is racing. 

History continues, countries rise and fall, humans fail for the same old reasons, and succeed against all odds. It won't look the same, it may not be what we aspired to, but the struggle will continue forever.

Yes, this is a diatribe. Sorry, but it's how I'm feeling right now. Agree or disagree, it's totally up to you. 

Sure...if the price is right.

After twenty-five years of not buying collections, something seems to have changed.

I spent the first fifteen years at Pegasus Books firmly in the collector mode. I'd buy and sell collections of comics, card, toys, whatever I could sell. I saw comics and cards more as a collectable than a form of entertainment. 

When both the card and comic markets collapsed within a couple years of each other in the mid 90s, I saw the error of my ways. Or, more exactly, I saw that comics readers, as opposed to collectors, were still customers after all the wreckage. It was a much smaller group, but just enough to keep the business alive. Card collectors, on the other hand, disappeared altogether. I even came up with a saying, "Collectors always quit, but readers keep reading." 

I upped my prices up to retail, maintaining keystone from that moment on. It was a tough decade, but I built the business back up on a new, firmer foundation. 

I also had a form of PTSD when it came to buying off the street. Every time I ventured even slightly into the collectors' world, I'd recoiled in alarm and disgust. My anger would instantly manifest. It wasn't healthy for me. 

So I simply said, No. No. No. No. No. 

I would try to stop the seller from proceeding with a firm, "I buy all my stuff from wholesalers and sell at retail."

The very persistence of some sellers only reinforced those feelings. Card collectors especially wouldn't take no for an answer. They'd persist, asking me what their collections are worth. Then get mad when I couldn't tell them. 

Notice I said couldn't tell them, not wouldn't tell them. See, here's the thing: if I'd not bought anything in years, decades even, how on earth would I know what things are worth on the collector market? It's like going into a car dealership and asking what your bike is worth. 

Understand then...I didn't buy anything, no matter what the seller told me. It was a firm no to everything. 

But something has changed. In the last few months I've bought a large collection of comics, a nice collection of paperback and pulp books, and recently a batch of LOTR's toys.

In all three cases, the price was right. The sellers came to me with realistic expectations of what their collections were worth. In a couple of cases, they told me what they wanted and it was reasonable. 

Turns out, I wasn't actually opposed to buying collections, I was opposed the the process of buying collections. But if my PTSD doesn't manifest, then I might buy. 

Maybe it just took twenty-five years to get over the trauma.  

Don't think I've opened to door to buying again, but... I have decided that I can at least ask the seller if they have a price they want and, in the rare cases where they are realistic, I might....might....maybe, if the sun and stars align, and you are a pleasant person, and the stuff personally interests me, and I think I can sell it over a reasonable period of time....I might go ahead and buy. 

I also suspect, the first bad experience will set me back to my former, much more contented mode of not buying at all.

 

It's been a long time since I had a panic attack. So long that I'm forgetting what it felt like. I'm starting to minimize it, at least emotionally. Looking back, it seems like an over-reaction, something not quite real. There's the temptation to think I should have just buckled up and got over it.

Intellectually, I know this is wrong. I remember the incidents, if not the feelings. It was bloody awful and I became extremely agoraphobic for a few years. Over a period of probably 20 years, that agoraphobia started to fade, but it was always lurking in the background. And, in fact, it mostly dimmed and faded because I didn't actually "buckle up," but instead avoided most situations that caused the panic attacks. Basically I stumbled upon the fact that every time I forced the issue, made myself challenge the syndrome, it would only reinforce the panic. 

So, yeah, I slowly weaned myself off the panic attacks by avoiding "the marketplace." I picked my shots. I forced myself to go to writer's group because that was important. I forced myself to go into Pegasus Books the first few times, because that was important. I forced myself to go to movies, (show up late, leave early, spend as much time in the dark as possible), because that was important.

I learned ways to cope. I liken it the way an adult illiterate must cope--getting others to read the signs, pretending to be without my glasses, whatever. I always found clever ways to get the stuff done that needed to be done. I would send actual strangers to the bank with my deposits. (Banks, stores, and restaurants were the worse triggers.) I would pick slow times of days. At the beginning of the panic attacks, I would venture out very late at night to do my grocery shopping. I was a little bit of a vampire, I guess. 

The best solution to my inability to operate in public was to have the public come to me. My own space, where I was in control, where I felt safe. Pegasus Books. 

It's complicated, because the panic attacks at first came along with a deep depression while I was a senior in high school which continued on through most of my 20's. I came out of the depression, but I really do remember those feelings and if they ever reoccurred, I'd go for help right away. Thankfully, by the time I was thirty, I was pretty much over it.

But the agoraphobia remained. I remember finally diagnosing it when I read an article. It became very clear to me that that was what it was. It was a relief to finally know. In a way, it helped me realize I wasn't crazy, that it was situational. (I have some anxiety, but probably no worse than most people.)

So it took probably way too long to get over my agoraphobia. Especially since it is one of those rare conditions that can actually be cured. Really, the way I got over it was by marrying a kind, calm, grounded woman who never pushed me. It turned out that I could go most places as long as I was with Linda. Then I discovered that a small dose of tranquilizer prior to a challenging event would help me through. I used alcohol for a long time, but that was often counterproductive and not usable during the day. (I no longer drink at all.)

It turns out that that small dose, so low that I wonder if it isn't more of a placebo, will get me through just about anything. I remind myself that the event isn't about me, usually, and I can just be there. The more success I had at not have a panic attack, the more success I had.

I believe that there were some weird benefits to it all. Because I was restricted in what I was willing to do, I could concentrate on the things I could do. I focused on the store and my writing, and I was extremely productive. I didn't have as many distractions as most "normal" people. 

I do feel that I probably got left out of a lot of social events because of my agoraphobia, but when the agoraphobia faded I also realized that I really do like being by myself for long periods of time. I really am an introvert, and there is nothing wrong with that. 

Anyway, I'm not ready to pronounce myself cured. I doubt I ever will be. The little demon of panic is always lurking, somewhere under the surface. I'll never be a YOLO kind of kind. I recognize that my emotional equilibrium is vulnerable. 

I'm extremely self-protective and probably closed in. But...I think I also open myself up to people I trust, and that's enough.