Baracking around the Christmas Tree

Our first sale today was for 3 copies of Dreams From My Father and a copy of The Audacity of Hope, all by one jolly happy lady, who was singing a song as she walked through the door about Obama. I think she'd made it up at about 4 o'clock this morning. It went something like;

'lovely lovely Obama,
it's so wonderful.
I'm sooo happy,
Obama Obama'

It was super. I'm glad I got a load more in. We haven't sold that many John McCain books.

We've started ordering lots of books now and it's really really scary. I don't know whether to stock the hilarious Alan Carr book, or the dreadful looking Fern; my story. But i'm definitely not stocking Clarkson, Hammond or May. I may crack and order Beedle the Bard, but Dawn French is definitely off the menu. Celeb biogs in general aren't really doing it for me. Tesco's and Smith's rely on these at stupid prices to get people in to buy more value pasta shells or copies of Heat. Then they're considered bestsellers, and it encourages more people to get ghostwriters to write more tatt the following year. Smashing. We don't actually have a biography section in the shop any more. The books that would traditionally go in this section are scattered around the shop. So for example, the 'misery memoirs' are kept in self help, biographies of Hunter S Thompson and George Orwell are next to the authors' fiction and so on... Not great if you want to browse the biography section, but it seems to work.

Art...nows there's a tricky one at xmas. We don't have a big art section at the moment, but this is the one time of the year when big expensive photo books and the like do well. But this is where it gets scary. They're big and expensive. A browsers paradise, which means you may need a 'viewing copy'. Which means you ave to sell a cart load to make some money. But £35 for a big expensive photo book is alsways nice to get. What a dilemma.

Kids. That's a bit easier. Order loads and loads and loads, and display them in a friendly easy way.(I know it's not as simple as that really)

Fiction. Hardbacks are not my friends, but maybe it's the time of year to let bygones be bygones. I've got a few coming in.

Cookery. Here's one of my favourite sections in the shop, and one that explodes at xmas. We've got some gorgeous books coming in, and some old favourites.

I'll stop there, as there's a lot of sections to wade through, and it is getting a bit tedious isn't it.

We're going to transform the shop into a grotto of yuletide joy next week (or the week after), so i'll take some photos for then.

We have Dominic Berry, in tomorrow for the London launch of Tomorrow I Will Go Dancing. He's a tippety top poet, who's had some rave review for his performances, so it should be a corker.

I've stuck a quid on Celtic to beat Man Utd tonight at 9/2. I also have a quid on them to win 2-1 at 16/1.