Monday, February 28, 2011

News from N22 and a Request.

Monday isn't usually a busy day for us. It's usually the day I take off and Tim catches up on paperwork and reordering from the weekend's sales.
This obviously wasn't a Monday, because once again the good people of North London were out in force to show the Big Green Bookshop their support.
And whilst not as manic as the weekend, there were some amazing and wonderful things that happened. I shall mention a few, although there have been so many acts of generosity over the last few days, (which I will do my very best to acknowledge), that it seems a shame to pick out particular ones. But please understand that we so so appreciate every single one of you who has helped in any way to raise awareness of our plight or contributed in any way to help rectify it.
Anyway, here are a few wonderful things ....

  • today a man bought a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and then having paid for it, told us he'd read about our problems and asked us to put it back on the shelves so someone else could get as much joy out of it as he had when he read it. Nice choice of book too.
  • We've had some incredible donations over the last few days. In fact any one who has decided to donate anything at all to us is pretty incredible and we cannot tell you how grateful we are. We will do our best though (as I type this, we've just had £7 donation from a bookshop in America).
  • A stranger bought in three packets of biscuits. One for each of us. It's a shame Mark isn't here until Wednesday. We like biscuits.
  • I've decided that it's too difficult to single out things. Everyone is amazing

And today we were in The Times. page 38. Look, here we are.

THE TIMES

I have two more things to mention.

1. We are going to be doing an online book/publishing related auction, where half the proceeds will go to local schools (they're having a pretty rotten time too, so we thought we'd do something to help them). If anyone out there has anything book related that they could auction, please get in touch.

It could be that you work in the book trade and know a marvellous author who'd be happy to donate a signed copy of his or her book.
It could be that you're a book artist with a lovely print or something like that.
It may be that you have a skill to offer any budding author.
You may have a manuscript of The lord of The Rings stuck under your stairs in a box.
Perhaps you are a kids author who will visit the school of the child of a winning bidder.
You get the idea.
We already have a number of choice items that have been kindly donated to us, and we'd love some more. If you can help....

2. The Strugglometer, the strugglometer.

There we go. Another 4% of our target has been achieved.
The momentum of the first few days needs to continue for us to get out of our predicament and the big week is obviously next week, that being the 'Please Buy One Extra Book' week. But (and I keep saying it)thank you all so much.

I'll post up the minutes of the committee meeting we had on Sunday over the next day or two. Thanks to Carmel for typing them up so accurately.

Onwards.

9 comments:

Dani said...

Would you like a bag o' goodies from The Literary Gift Company for your auction?
We would like to support your impressive campaign! Good luck and best wishes.

Simon Key said...

Hello Dani,
that sounds brilliant. Thanks so much. I'll make sure we give you a huge shout out when it goes to auction.
I shall look forward to seeing what's in the goody bag...

Dani said...

I'll try and sort it tomorrow. Do nudge me if something hasn't arrived by Monday (this week is likely to be a bit mad!)

Lucy Coats said...

Simon--I'll donate a whole signed box set (12 books) of Greek Beasts and Heroes for your auction, if that's a help. You're going to get there! Think you've got my email but if not you can always get hold of me me on Twitter or FB.

Dani said...

I've posted some stuff. Its a bit random...

Good luck
Dani

ThomasLion said...

You know you're in the Guardian too, right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/mar/01/world-book-night-local-bookshop-year

Simon Key said...

Hello ThomasLion. Yes, it's brilliant, isn't it?
And thanks for the comments you made too.

Anonymous said...

I'd love to donate a signed book and offer an author school visit. I used to live off Turnpike Lane as a student and I'd have loved a shop like yours (in between the kebab shops). Good luck and keep smiling. sophia xxx

Anonymous said...

When's the deadline for things to submit?