Achieving horror.

For the second time in my career, I've written something so dark and twisted, that I don't think I'll show it to anyone.

Which is weird, because horrification is what I'm supposedly after. The story horrified me, which most of my stories don't. Where does that darkness come from?

I mean, I supposedly write horror, but I've always known my stories weren't heavy on the blood and gore, the twisted mental landscape, the sickness of depravity.

So when I actually got there, I'm a little creeped out about it.

It's part of the spectrum of writing, it's just a little farther to the dark side than I'm used to.

But again, isn't that sick feeling what I'm going after?

I think I may send it off under a pseudonym just to see if the story is as effective as I think it is.

UPDATE: I rewrote the ending to Linda's approval and have posted it on this blog. 

The fate of Barnes and Noble.

As you might imagine, I'm interested in the ultimate fate of Barnes and Noble.

I've always felt that the chain stores were more damaging to my business than Amazon. I don't have a ready explanation for this except to say that that they are different beasts living in different eco-systems. I share an eco-system with B & N, but not with Amazon.

The catchphrase is, "Amazon requires a click. B & N just requires a look."

Don't know if that makes sense, especially since a click is so much easier than driving to the store for a look. But people aren't rational. One is not the same as the other.

Besides....there is nothing I can do about Amazon.

Anyway, I don't have any fondness for B & N. I don't really understand why the American Booksellers Association is striving to save them. But then, I don't understand or agree with most of what the ABA model bookstores do. They seem to fail continually, and new ABA stores pop up to take their place, not having learned a thing.

One thing about being a small business is that you realize that everyone thinks--and I probably thought this at first too--that big businesses are more efficient, better at what they do. That's how they got big.

Well, the latter part of that may be true, but the former is no longer true. I'm ten times more efficient with my purchases because every dollar counts. Having been trained in the comic trade where I need to order product blind months in advance without any recourse to returning unsold product, I've learned to be lean and mean and agile.

I'm the little mammal scurrying beneath the feet of the dinosaurs. The Internet is the asteroid.

What I've noticed most about B & N is how feckless they are. They come up with a strategy and when that strategy doesn't immediately work, they change strategy.

So here's a clue: Choose a strategy and MAKE it work.

I had my doubts about their Nook from the beginning. I thought they'd be flayed by the higher end and the lower end, and that they'd be the mediocre middle. Turns out, the higher end Kindle was still cheaper than them, and that was a double whammy.

But they bungled even that attempt from the beginning. They were both overly pushy--their big booths--and yet also gave off a provisional odor, as if they'd abandon the effort if it didn't work.

You can't do that. The first time they offloaded some of the work, they showed their doubts and that was a deathknell.

Since then they have wavered back and forth with the strategy of adding other product than books showing doubt about whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. (Never mind Borders desperately tried to fill their store with knick-knacks and that didn't work. Never mind that Waterstones in England rededicated themselves to books and were successful at it.)

Ironically, now they're talking about building smaller stores, but I wonder if they have the assets left to do that. And...well, if they are feckless about it, wavering, it won't work. No one will trust them to follow through.

I'm not sure what will happen to the Big Five publishers if B & N goes down. But I do know they'll be a lot more interested in my little store than they were before.

With my luck, I'll have the only remaining Barnes and Noble in the country in my town. 😀

Got lucky. The enamel pins and the Ingram's order and the stand-ups all showed up in time to be put away on Friday. Was able to fit them all in. Pegasus Books is as stocked as it's ever been. I have a rather large order of new books coming in about a week, which includes all the classics and cult books I've been itching to get.

Keeping up the game orders, a new Magic release, ordering lots of toys and graphic novels when they go on sale.

So we're set for the summer. After this, everything else will be maintenance. I should be able to keep up with everything on Mondays.

All in all, I've enjoyed the interactions at the store. Seeing old friends has been fun. I genuinely smile broadly when people come in. Plus an amazing number of people who have read my books.

Probably time to write the next Virginia Reed novel.

I've stopped spending lots of money on my writing because I've slowed down. I think slowing down is probably the right thing to do.

I'll get back to it this fall. The walking and the writing. But for now, I'm just trying to enjoy the time off. The Tuesdays with Linda are great too. We usually go to a movie, and I've enjoyed that.

So we aren't going to have a lot of money for retirement, but enough. I'm content. I can indulge my art and not have to worry.

I'll have ten days to read and revise Fateplay (Sabrina liked that title much more, so I'm trending back to that.) Then send it off to Lara.

Then the question is--what do I do for August?

I really think I need to finish Castle LeMagie and the Wyvern Riders, then dive into rewriting the Lander books one last time. I'd love to feel like that series is finished.

I do want to give Deadfall Ridge a quick rewrite, and I want to take a stab at Takeover.

When I'm done with all these, I'll have the three thrillers ready and the four novellas. Plus the four Lander books. Put them out every month or two for a year or so.

Write the next Virginia Reed by the first of the year.

If the store gets in the way of original work, I can work on the books that aren't finished or edited. Spellrealm and Castle LeMagie and the Deeptower books and so on.

I'm still intrigued by the Tales of the Thirteen Principalities.

Man, just talking about it makes me want to get back to writing!

Such is life.

I'm having great fun at the store. Of course it's always more fun when tons of people are coming in the door. It's been a very active place for the last couple of weeks, the changes give off a good vibe, and I'm enjoying the chance to stock the store again.

I'm also seeing friends and selling my own book, and talking to people who have read my books and seem to like them. Jumped all over a guy who'd said he'd read all my books and I said, "Review them!" and he laughed and said "You always say that," and then..."you shouldn't pressure me every time..." Oops.

Not meant to be pressure. Sorry. I probably should just stop asking since it doesn't work anyway. I've asked probably a couple hundred people face-to-face to do a review by now and as far as I can tell (and there are ways to tell) only one or two have ever done it. So...the danger of "pressuring" versus the actual results--easy thing to drop.

July is being given over to the store and to family and friends. It's probably time to take a little break. Let the books I've written sink in a little. I think the effectiveness of selling previous books drops when I'm always dropping a new one on the world. Heh.

Went to see Antman and Wasp yesterday and that was a hoot. I found myself laughing out loud a bunch of times when no one else was because Paul Rudd's delivery of even the most innocuous line makes me laugh.

Staying away from politics for the month as well, for mental health. I just assume every thing is terrible and move on.

Haven't been walking or writing, gaining weight, going to bed an hour earlier than usual, feeling a bit more connected to the outside world, feeling both encouraged and discouraged about the store, feeling both encouraged and discouraged about writing but proud of what I've done. Linda is a joy, always. The cat is unexpectedly healthy. Lots of moral and ethical dilemmas being presented, mostly through the constantly changing cultural mores and political situation.

Such is life.

Stress and uncertainty and the spending of money.

I'm not sure whether to do this or not.

I started going through lists of cult favorite and classic novels and making orders for them. I figure there is somewhere around a couple of grand in solid books I could order right now. Because of the reorganization, I actually have room to display them for once.

These are the kinds of books that most often sell in my store. It's the basis of my inventory. In comparison, I checked the top-selling books in the country right now and there were only two I wanted: Stephen King's Outsider and the latest John Grishem in paperback. I mean, the rest is junk.

I wonder why I don't just have every significant Kafka book, every Camus, every Bukowski, every...well, the list is long, but really--I think it's more or less possible to get a lot of the significant novels over the last couple of centuries within my budget. Maybe my budget for several months instead of one month, so I'm trying to decide whether to take that chance.

I have most of July and August and first half of September to sell, and then I have Christmas coming up.

Am I sure most of these books will sell? Yes, pretty much. But not all at once. So it's a bit of an investment, because I'm going to want to keep them in stock. So they more or less have to sell 3 times to make them worth stocking in the long run.

But I've already decided that games and books need to grow and the only way to do that is to invest.

I can't be sure this isn't all a rationalization to spend money. I'll say this: I think this the kind of spending that has kept the store vibrant over the years---and it has also caused great stress over the years.

Then again, maybe running a store just involves stress and uncertainty.

Tons of books and toys.

I've turned back into a pumpkin.

It was only a matter of time. I'm not writing, I'm not walking, I'm lazing around the house.

But I had an intense five or six years of writing, which is pretty amazing looking back on it. I currently have 20 books for sale. (Though "The Darkness You Fear" seems to be MIA at the moment.) 

20!! Pretty crazy. I was very, very diligent, writing most every day most of the day. I'm not quitting writing by any means, but I'm definitely slowing down. Between changing the store around and family visits, July is going to be a wash.

I spent all day yesterday going through online lists of cult books and classics, and then going to my wholesalers and ordering them. Got a pretty big dent on them for a couple of thousand dollars--which would completely blow my weekly (or monthly) budget out of the water. 

On one hand, these are the kinds of books I want to sell. But it may take some time to sell through on them, especially the three times it takes to justify keeping them in stock. And yet--that's the direction I'm trying to move.

I've got both orders sitting there while I mull over the possibilities. It was a valuable exercise even if I delete the orders because I got a pretty good sense of how much I'd need to order to have a really good stock of this stuff. It's not an impossible number or an impossible amount of money, but it is stretch to order them all at once.

Meanwhile, I finally got a hold of a couple of toy distributors to set up accounts. I'm going to try to carry some tween type toys in the store, because that is a group that is coming in the store with their families and can never seem to find anything.

Toy catalogs. My God, so much stuff! I thought I was immune to sensory overload, but my eyes are melting.

Does the world really need this stuff? I mean, it's pretty incredible. So much of it is retro, and so much of it is cheap plastic, and so much of it is doubtful--like all the slime and little toys with small pieces. And why does everything have to be so potty mouthed?

I'm sure there is a whole range of toy material out there--but I need something that is less than ten dollars, that has some appeal, and also fits the image of the store. The thing about toys is that you have to buy them in units--half a dozen or a dozen at a time. Each company seems to have a couple of toys that I'm interested in. So I think I can assemble a viable product line. It's a bit of a gamble, but I need to try to continue to mainstream the store--we're getting the foot traffic, so I want to make use of that.

I don't want to make the store too tacky (well, even more tacky) though, so I'm going to need to be careful.

Dragons, and dinosaurs, and ooze. Oh, my.

Went into a toy store while in Crescent City.

First thing the clerk said, "We carry stuff the big stores don't."

They certainly did. It was almost all brands I never heard of. Heavy on the dinosaurs and ooze and stuff like that. It was kinda cool. Reminded me of Merlin's Toys downtown, which always had lots of cheap toys that were fun. I always wondered if I should carry a few brands.

This summer has convinced me. We constantly have the pre-teen crowd looking for something cheap to buy. (Sadly, not interested in books.) We have blind packs that are 6.99 each, which is a little pricey for most parents.

Anyway, this toy store had little mini pokemon figures that they sold for 2/1.00. They had dinosaur eggs that you put in water to hatch. 1.00 for the small ones, 5.00 for the big ones. They had lots of ooze and slime. 

I've been racking my brain for something to put where our last sports cards reside and I've decided to try some of these toys lines that I can sell for a dollar or a few dollars each. Just as an experiment. I won't try more than maybe a dozen brands at first, just to see if it's something we want to do. They could be more hassle than they are worth. I expect a fair amount of damage, but the stuff is price-pointed where it should still be possible to make good money.

I'll fill the sports card section with non-sports and be done with sports cards forever. Good riddance.

Meanwhile, the toy store. It was a little too linear, not a lot of imagination in the displays. I'm not sure how you shake that up, I just know that it works to break the linear line of sight. Also, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to carry a few branded names to mix in, so that it doesn't look completely alien. I tried to interest them in Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride.

"Just try one of each and see what happens," I said.

They seemed skeptical.

My store is morphing a little again, just because of the large volume of foot-traffic downtown. I have lots of young families come in where they wander around as if they should be interested, but they aren't really into reading and most of the toys I have are too specifically comic related and or too expensive for the parents.

So those are lost opportunities, I think. I tried candy, found out I eat most of the profits. So having little five dollar dinosaurs and dragons and such might not be such a bad idea.

Then again, it could be a terrible idea.

I guess we'll find out.

Enamel book pins are sweet.

Reordered the enamel books pins.

I thought the $10 price would be intimidating, but we sold almost all of the first batch even though I had to order 4 of each.

The only one's left from the first order are:

(2) Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (a bit of a surprise.)
(2) Wrinkle in Time (a bigger surprise.)
(2) To Kill a Mockingbird (also a surprise.)
(2) Pride and Prejudice (not so much a surprise?)
(3) 100 Years of Solitude (not a surprise at all, but I do love this book.)
(1) Frankenstein
(1) Handmaid's Tale (a pretty big surprise.)

Reordered: (some of these I skipped the first time around.)

1984
Alice in Wonderland
Ann of Green Gables
Charlotte's Web
Dracula
Dune
Emma
Fahrenheit 451
Hamlet
Harry Potter 1
Harry Potter 2
Harry Potter 3
Jane Eyre
Joy of Cooking (wasn't sure about this one, but ordered it.)
Little House on the Prairie
Lolita
Lord of the Rings
Moby Dick
Nancy Drew
Romeo and Juliet
Princess Bride (This is new--I ordered twice as many)
Sense and Sensibility
Slaughterhouse Five
Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hobbit
The Last Unicorn
The Velveteen Rabbit

The only ones I didn't order are "Elements of Style" which I have a writer's objection to, and 4 thru 7 of Harry Potter, which is a bit of Potter overkill, I think.

Cardboard Standup Line up.

Ordering standups.

I love these things. I mean, they're impossible to display correctly, especially in a store as crowded as mine. But they are cool things.

Thing is, I never know what to get. Like posters and t-shirts and buttons, my tastes don't necessarily reflect what the public will buy. There is a gender bias I try to overcome.

I don't try too hard to overcome my nerd bias, though. I mean, the store is a reflection of me in that way.

There are a lot of licensed products out there I would love to get (or would have loved to get) but they never had a license. I could have sold Skully and Mulder all day long, for instance. Buffy the Vampire Hunter, and so on.

There are multiple Marilyn's and Elvis's and John Wayne's, so it's always a guess which one. (I usually go with the 7-Year Itch Marilyn and older John Wayne and Jail House Rock Elvis.)

Some superhero licenses are the movie and some the cartoon. So that's always a choice.

The price point is $40 which a lot of people balk at, but which I think is pretty reasonable. The postage is horrendous. This is one of those rare items that you really can't save much by buying online because of the postage. 

I put it to a vote with Linda and Sabrina and me (I made the first cut) and here's how we all voted and whether I ordered it or not.

First vote is Sabrina, second vote is Linda, and third vote is me.

Batman:                     8/5/5   Ordered (1)
Beetlejuice:                7/1/3        (1)
Black Panther:            8/10/8      (2)
Bob Ross                    10/0/7      (2)
Boba Fett:                   8/10/8      (2)
Captain America         6/9/6        (1)
Chewie                        9/10/8      (1)
Darth Vader                 8/6/6        (1)
Dobby the Elf              5/9/5        (1)
Han Solo (Ford)           8/8/7        (1)
NBX Jack and Sally    6/5/7        (1)
John Wayne                 5/1/8        (1)
Marilyn                       7/5/6         (1)
Pennywise                  8/7/3          (1)
Slave Leia                  7/8/7          (1)
Rey                            8/9/5          (1)
Sam Winchester       10/0/5          (1)
Dean Winchester      10/0/5         (1)
Frozen Elsa               10/8/4         (1)
Spider-man                5/8/5           (1)
Superman                 5/5/5            (1)
Thor                          5/10/6         (1)
Velociraptor             6/10/5          (1)
Wonder Woman      10/8/10         (2)

Pegasus Books changes in place. Looks great!

Most of the changes are done. A little finishing up today.

Looks fantastic.

I probably should have made these changes to Pegasus Books six months ago, in January. But that's the thing about these kinds of big changes--they happen when you're ready. I'm not sure what sparked this, just that I started looking around for fixtures and when I found six solid ones for a good price, I pulled the trigger.

Done by the 4th of July, so probably no harm done.

I'll have the rest of the rough outline in place by the end of today, but it will take months before the new space is used efficiently.

I've got eight bookcases worth of new space. Five of them have been used to move SF around. Three of them are for regular books. One of them is being used for YA. Mysteries and Horror are being given a bit more space, more effectively. The art books were moved to the comic section, so the outward display space is now used for YA.

All in all, an actual increase of about 30% for new books, which has been my fastest growing category.

I regret the necessity to cut down on the used books so much. Mostly because by appearances we don't have as many books, which was NOT the message I wanted to give. But I had no real access to used books anymore, so it had to be done.

The graphic novel section has been improved dramatically. From having almost no face-out space to over 240 linear square feet; room for up to 420 graphic novels to be displayed face out. I'm trusting this will help sell them.

It looks colorful and fun and gives the impression of more space to move around, which the store needed.

I'm giving comics and graphic novels full support at a time when they are a little weak. It's weird that movies and TV shows an be so HUGE and their source materials so small, but it's always been that way, to some extent.

The question to ask was--"Am I going to continue to be a graphic novel store?" and if the answer was yes, then retreating was the wrong move. So I'm making a statement here--graphic novels as an art form are continuing to improve and some of the younger generation especially are catching on.

Titles like Paper Girls and Lumberjanes and Saga sell like crazy to "those in the know." The old superhero crowd is the biggest part of the market, but if we can retain enough of them--and I think both DC and Marvel are trying hard--then this new crowd will someday be very helpful to the bottom line.

It's a matter of diversity. Sometimes you trade some of the hard core for a softer wider spectrum. And that takes time.

"Do nothing" days.

I decided today, after two weeks of renovating the store and then going on a very tiring vacation, that I would absolutely "do nothing" today.

So?

Well, it occurs to me that I often say that--that I'm going to "do nothing" today. Linda even have days she calls, "no go" days.

But you know what? I realized that because--for once--I'm really committed to the idea, that I rarely if ever actually "do nothing." I always feel pressure to accomplish something.

In fact, about the only time I ever truly crash is when I'm sick and that is almost a relief because finally I have an excuse to "do nothing."

I blame my Mom who would never let me sit around without telling me to go do something. As a kid I still resisted, but as an adult I seem to have bought into her Puritan ethic.

So a day is to never be wasted. Something must be done! Anything! Do anything, even if it's wrong!

I'm really enjoying this day.

Just as soon as I'm done weeding the garden and mowing the lawn.

Was in Crescent City for a few days. Home of the homeless and near-destitute.

It's easy to forget how vibrant downtown Bend is.

Great beaches and redwoods and the Smith River. Why isn't this place thriving?

Same problem Bend had for a long time. It isn't on the way to anything much. It has to develop as a destination, and which comes first--the visitors or the development? Bend had some investors; Brooks Resources especially.

But I do remember when downtown Bend was half empty and there was no sign it was coming back. Only in hindsight does it seem obvious.


Waited until two weeks before leaving before making reservations, so got an older motel and I'm not liking it. Didn't sleep much last night. I think we're just going to have to spring for 3 star motels instead of 2 stars from now on, and make sure we make reservations far in advance.

Linda and I haven't had a vacation together for more than two years because we were certain that Panga the cat was on her last legs. But she seems to be doing fine now. I finally convinced Linda we could leave her alone with visits from a friend.

"She's a cat!" I say.

But not to Linda. She is more than a cat. 


Woke up one morning to see 98% humidity. That can't be right. Do we drown at 100% humidity?


I'm trying to do some rewriting, but I've suddenly gotten lazy with my writing. I've spent a couple of weeks trying to prepare Pegasus for summer, and that was unexpectedly fun. I'm really enjoying my one day a week at the store; realizing that I was missing the people and the action.


Would love to write on the beach, but even near July at midday it's barely over 60 degrees with wind. I tried to find a place out of the way behind some driftwood. Sort of worked. Have worked on the first three chapters. Not a whole lot of progress. Will try for another few chapters tonight. Obviously not going to have this done by July 1.

On the good side, I really like what I've written.

Loving the changes at Pegasus.

The store looks great. At the cost of losing most of the used books, we have dramatically increased the space devoted to showing off art books and graphic novels.

I can't get more used books without trading or buying, which I just don't want to do. (Sports cards made me allergic to trading and buying off the street--like a peanut allergy that would kill me.)
Also--new books outsell used books by 10 to 1 Really. Since used books were free, the ratio was more like 5 to 1, which made them just worthwhile enough to devote two or three hundred square feet. But no more.

The bonus is that by moving my art books over to the new section, I'll also be able to add about a third more space for new books, which are our best growing category. More space for children's graphic novels especially.

So I'm really looking forward to that too.

It was a lot of work, but I lucked out when Todd was home with his trailer--hard to imagine how it could have gotten done any other way, which also means it was meant to be. Todd saved my life, as well as Sabrina and Dylan and three of their friends they Shanghaied into helping. Those fixtures are as solid and as heavy as rocks, man.

It'll take a few months to really find the groove that these new spots have created, but meanwhile, it looks great.

Diversify or die.

Some comic retailers are cheering the addition of exclusive comics in Walmart as well as other outreach ideas as a way to "grow" the audience.

Sounds reasonable?

Nope.

I've been through this before with sports cards. It doesn't work. But you can't convince anyone of that, because it "sounds reasonable."

Sabrina said, "Yes, but we have the expertise. People still have to come to us."

I say, "That's exactly what I thought about sports cards."

To me this is the equivalent of publishers asking for free writing as a way of "promoting" yourself. Almost all professional writers know this is a scam.

Or the equivalent of closing our downtown streets on half of the busiest peak weekends of the year (summer) and inviting people to set up in front of our stores (without the high rents we pay all year) and saying "It promotes your business."

It's all bullshit but there are just enough idiots and newbies to go along with it.

I have a weird advantage in that I've had to add product lines to my store from the very beginning. Comics have always only got us about 70% of the way to where we need to be to be viable, and only about 50% of the way to being truly profitable. For some reason, this ratio hasn't changed in 35 years no matter how big Bend gets.

So I've added books and games and toys (and innumerable other attempts) to the mix and that works.

There are a lot of comic stores out there, especially in bigger cities, who could get away with just selling comics--sometimes, not even with graphic novels in the mix.

It's a dangerous position to be in.

Diversify or die, I always say.

Kid's graphic novels are a Thing.

Over the last couple of years I've been excoriating other bookstores for their lack of inventory.

Today I finally got a chance to sit down and examine the "Tilting at Windmill" column by Brian Hibbs where he analyzes the bestselling graphic novels from last year.

20 out of the top 20 were young adult or kids GN's. Probably the vast majority of the top 50 and top 100.

I started carrying these kid's GN's a few years ago and they nearly leapt off the shelf. Books I'd never heard of. Books that the comic market sometimes carried, but most often didn't.

I basically can sell a Dog Man every day. Believe me, that isn't normal.

What a discovery.

(Not so coincidentally, Barnes and Noble just announced they are creating a whole new section of nothing but kid's graphic novels. Wouldn't you know it.)

So now I'll excoriate myself for not following my own advice. This T at W's came out three months ago and only now have I gotten around to analyzing it. Found dozens of titles that are bestsellers that I haven't carried. I don't have much doubt that most of these will sell fast.

I did sort of have to wait for summer--and I was distracted by my renovations, but still no excuse not to hit the summer running. With any luck, all of these will show up by July 1, so most of the summer still to go, and I just need to keep making reorders every week.

This will be somewhat new for us and somewhat a gamble. We've always reordered from Diamond once a week, but I haven't been as regular with books and games. So this summer we are doing that. A budget has been set aside for each and every week. Hopefully we won't ever have to go without Calvin and Hobbes for more than a day or two.

Even before I started stocking up on these kid's GN's, I tried to carry a full line of C & H and Tintin and Asterix and Far Side for summer.

Not to brag, but this book thing seems easy to me--knock wood loudly and often--compared to carrying comics. Ordering comics blind two months in advance for fickle fan boys can be a daunting task.

Ordering tried and true books that have a long history of selling by contrast seems like a no-brainer. You need to identify what books will sell and just keep ordering them.

Sometimes you even find a little pearl among this detritus. I got a Princess Bride randomly one day, sold it instantly, ordered another, and I've sold dozens and dozens since.

If you can assemble a thousand books that can do that, you've got something. Since downtown has great foot traffic these days, carrying Dog Man is like printing money.

Content and happy with my own little world.

Had a friend come in who is connected journalistically to some big name authors and so on. Talking about the realm of movies and TV shows and bestsellers and on and on.

I blurted out, "That stuff just isn't pertinent to me. It has nothing to do with what I do."

That's not the writing world as I experience it.

Nor does it need to be.

Comparing myself to Stephen King, say, is like comparing Pegasus Books to Walmart. It's ridiculous and unnecessary and misleading about what is important.

Look, I had four stores at one point and I hated it. I was no longer doing what I started out to do, or what I really liked.

I love my little store. It's my playground. I can have fun here, do what I want, buy what I want, display it the way I want, talk about it or not talk about it, just my own little world.

Content and happy.

The idea of having a hundred stores would be a nightmare. It's not what I want.

So this may sound strange, but my writing career is pretty much the same way. I'm not after fame or fortune. If it happened as a byproduct, I might or might not like the outcome. It may sound weird, but I suspect I wouldn't like it. (Sure, the money...)

But since I'm making zero effort in that direction (just as I'm not interested in duplicating or expanding Pegasus Books) that will never happen.

I love my little writing career.  I'm happy with it. It's my playground. I can have fun, do what I want, write what I want, publish it the way I want, talk about it or not talk about it, just my own little world.

Content and happy.

I try to re-read Watterson's (Calvin & Hobbes) commencement address once a year to re-orient myself to what's important. http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0025-watterson.htm

Hidden treasures--Pegasus's downstairs.

Got sucked into the maw of the downstairs yesterday instead of boxing books. Wanted to make sure I could find enough space to store the boxes. Bonus, I found a bunch of empty boxes, which means I'll come close to being able box them all after all.

I've done all the work so far. Two more days of boxing, and I'm pretty tired. Come Sunday evening, I'm hoping that Dylan and Sabrina can get some friends to come and help and they can haul all the boxes downstairs.

I'm going to watch. I'm too old for this shit.

Anyway, poking my head into the boxes of stuff. Found hundreds of toys--mostly one-ups, mostly toys that are the only toy in a series that no one wanted, mostly damaged. Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly treasures down there but no way to know without spending way too much time researching.

And even if they are worth money, I don't sell online, no time or interest in developing that, and besides whenever I did it in the past, it proved to be not worth the time and effort.

So I thought I had maybe 100 boxes of comics, 300 comics apiece. Turns out, including comics upstairs, I probably have 200 boxes. There is a bunch of space in them, say 25%--so more like 150 boxes.

Wow. All of them basically unsaleable.

Everyone but everyone doubts me when I say that. Believe me, I've tried. There aren't any hidden prizes down there. (Well, maybe there are but see above note about toys...) They are almost all midlist titles or below. The Spider-mans and Batmans are mostly gone.

Add to the downstairs menagerie are all kinds of goofy things from 35 years of business, again no doubt of interest to someone but who?

Here's the thing--there simply is no cost-effective way to match the product with the person who might be interested. I have tens of thousands of sports cards, hundreds of boxes of books, tens of thousands of non-sport cards, hundred of incomplete sets, and so on. If I could get the technical value of them--say in a price guide, both comics and cards--I'd be rich.

I not only can't get that, I can't really get but pennies on the dollar, and I got better things to do. The store upstairs is doing well. I can get keystone for my efforts instead of pennies.

I found a couple dozen toys worth saving and brought them upstairs. The rest is junk.

I know some of you are thinking that you could dive into that stuff and make use of it. I assure you that everyone who has ever tried has been defeated.

Cherry-picking maybe, but screw that. If this chaos is ever going to be worth selling to someone, I can't have people cherry-picking. I allowed people to go down there for more years than I should have with the caveat that they wouldn't cherry-pick.

Everyone but everyone said they wouldn't cherry-pick and everyone but everyone cherry--picked. So I put an end to it.

It kills me to know that someone with limitless energy, time, and resourcefulness could probably make use of this stuff, that person ain't me or anyone I know. (I know you're thinking you could do it, but believe me...probably not...)

It's fun at first and then you just get tangle up in it and realize, oh my God, I could spend the rest of my life down here and never get it in order. Heh.

It's a bit like an abandoned goldmine. There comes a time when it costs more money to extract the gold than the gold is worth.

Pegasus Improvements.

Second day of boxing books, making room for the new fixtures. Have two of the new fixtures against the window. I think this is going to work!

Today I'm tackling the corner that I intend for used books, two racks worth, then if I have time, work on boxing the SF and Fantasy books.

Have decided to have 3 shelves of mass market SF and Fantasy, 3 shelves of mysteries/thrillers, 1 shelf of horror, and 1 shelf of westerns.

On the other rack, it will all be general fiction trade-paperbacks. So we will still have a selection of used books, but just using 1/20th the space.

Did a little math and figure these new face-out magazine racks are 240 feet of linear display space. Which should allow me to display something like 360 graphic novels full cover--or a little more if I leaf them slightly, say 7 books per shelf, which works out to 420, minus some space devoted to art books, so somewhere around 400 books that can be seen in all their glory.

You have to realize, other than an 8 foot space on a current rack, and a single rack devoted to Indie graphic novels which is probably 50 linear feet, and a Dark Horse rack (how do they rate?) of about 20 linear feet, at the base of which is another 20 linear feet for art books, all other graphic novels are displayed spine out.

So I currently only have a grand total of 98 linear feet of display for graphic novels.

(I do face-out on comic monthlies--really the only way to do it.)

Crazy! These are books with crazy good art!

But I decided my store would do better by having as many books as possible, and a single face out book is the equivalent of something like 15 books by spine. So my calculation was that having 15 books was better than displaying one book. Which was the right decision at the time, I think.

Used books were great for us for a time because I was getting all I needed from Linda. So the dollar value of any sold used book was twice that of any other item in the store.

But surprise, surprise, new books outsell used books by ten to one, or five to one taking into account the discount level.

But the deciding factor is I have no more access to used books unless I trade or buy off the street, and that is against my policy. (I simply can't do it anymore--I spent 18 years doing it until I was ready to collapse in a nervous angry puddle, then quit doing it happily for the last 18 years no matter how much it might have benefited me monetarily: read my book, the Small Business Survivalist Handbook. 😉

So this finally gives me permission to "waste" space on face-outs. The craziest part of all is that the best-selling graphic novels are the ones that haven't gotten any exposure (on the theory that Saga will sell with or without face-out.) So Image will now have a rack of its own, and Marvel, and DC, and Vertigo, and probably Star Wars, and the rest will be an experiment to find out the best use.

I love doing this. It is a creative effort. Something very satisfying about it.

But also a lot of work.

Brought the six new fixtures into the store. Spent most of Sunday night removing one of the used books fixtures and boxing up the books to make room for them.

This is going to be a much bigger job than I expected. I'm definitely going to run out of boxes, which means that the fixtures along the walls will be emptied last, which was the main benefit to the whole thing, dammit.

It's a good thing Todd was home with his work trailer to load them up on. I was delusional about doing it myself without a trailer or a hand trolley--or Todd. (Borrowed a trolley from the little grocery downtown.)

The fixtures are bigger and more substantial than I expected, which is a good thing in the end. I was able to get them for about 1/4th what they would cost new, but still a big extra expense. They're in good shape. Solid. Nicely painted white, which fits the rest of the store.

But for the first time in years I'll be able to show graphic novels face out. I mean, I've basically been trying to sell art books by hiding the art.

I thought I was going to be able to do this over a couple of days, but I'm now realizing I'll need spend at least a week. Taking today off to go to a movie, then diving in tomorrow.


Next day; Watch Hotel Artemis which I enjoyed. Both this and Upgrade were the kind of thing we've been watching on Netflix, but now that Linda I have date day on Tuesdays, we've been going to more movies and I'm sort of fed up with remakes and corporate crap. A little indie smell is refreshing.

Going to box up another bookshelf worth of books today, then again tomorrow, and Friday and Saturday, turning this into a full week thing.

Having read through the "Small Business Survivalist Handbook," I couldn't help but compare the bookstore to my writing.

The idea of staying smaller to stay satisfied, to avoid burnout, to avoid doing the things you don't want to do merely for the money, and most of all the idea of not spending all your time, space, energy, and money on ineffective and counterproductive promotion all hold true.

The idea of filling the store with inventory is much like being a productive writer.

I'd say the one big difference is finding a viable selling platform. With the store I'm on a "High Street" where a casual consumer can find me. Or rather, enough consumers can find me.

I haven't been able to find an equivalent platform to the High Street with publishing.

This is where the natural tendency is to assume that I haven't promoted my books effectively, that I need to do more.

But that doesn't usually work with the store and I don't think it will work with writing either.

And since everything else seems pretty analogous, I'm going to go with my instinct and just keep trying to write the best books I can and put them out on the available platforms.

Without content, the platform doesn't matter. I have a feeling the platform will arrive one of these days, one way or another.