Quiet Day At Home.

Simon

today i'm tying up some loose ends. We're joining a company called Leading Edge, who are a group that supports Independent retailers, by offering similar benefits that a larger chain would have. The more members they have the more weight they can put behind their negotiations with publishers etc. Although it's a fairly young company in the UK, it's proved extremely successful in Australia, and also having spoken to other Indies who have joined, the benefits far far outweigh the costs. Paul Henderson, who looks after the book side of things seems like a good guy, having had a few conversations with him.
Tim's trying to get in touch with our new landlord to find out if we can paint the Big Green Bookshop green, otherwise we might have to change the name to the Big Brick Bookshop.
I've sourced the shopsign from another company, after the one we'd arranged to meet last week didn't turn up. They've quoted us a better price as well, so hurray for that.
I really have almost finished the ordering now. I'm ploughing through Turnaround catalogues and related publishers websites (and amazon), and trying not to be tempted by all the amazing stuff that's available that i'd love to stock, but know won't sell. Distributors like Turnaround and Central Books are so important for bookshops (in my opinion) as thay champion the publishers who perhaps take more risks or are more niche. I don't know what i'd do without them.
I've finished reading From Here To Paternity.

If you want to be reassured that everything's going to be fine, this probably isn't the book for you. However, it's really well written, very funny, at the same time scaring the nuts off me. I'll give it 7 diapers out of 10.

I hope you like the MP3 widget thing. I'll try and change the music more often than we used to when I was at Waterstone's. If I hear the Divine Comedy or Belle and Sebastian one more time...