This is all i've got

Simon;

Booze and Cakes

I've been out all day and i'm off to bed now. I've had a lovely day and i'll tell you all about it tomorrow. Keep voting for the font. IF YOU CAN'T SEE THE FONTS CLEARLY PRESS THE THING UNDERNEATH THAT SAYS 'PRESS HERE FOR A BETTER VIEW OF THE FONTS'. I can't beleive you're still voting for number 4 after all I said!

Sock a doodle do

Simon;



Today.

I sorted out sport stock, and I've had a very very good idea for an event at the end of January (i'll tell you about it later Tim)

Please keep voting for the Big Green Bookshop sign. My favourite isn't winning at the moment, so if you feel sorry for me don't vote for number 4.

If you have a look at Scott Pack's Blog he's advertising a Charity Auction on E-Bay. The postcards are all pretty cool, it is for charidy, so instead of spending £150 on a xmas booze up or somesuch nonsense, this would be a much better option.

I'm off to Crouch End in a moment to do a little late night shopping and to sing carols.

Please continue to air your views, if any, about discounting.

Let's Have a Debate!!

Tim;

Price promoting, is it really necessary?

There, that should set felines amongst Trafalgar based tweeties.

I know a lot of authors read this blog, and I just wondered how you feel when you see money off stickers pasted all over your pride and joy, and don't just go for the "Well, it's the way the industry works..." answer. That's a cop out. I want to know how you really feel. (cue concerned look and possible knee stroking)

To the booksellers who read this blog, tell me how you feel about the whole price promoting issue. Do we think that books would sell just as well if they weren't money off. Do we think that some books would just wither and die without this extra help? (Dan Brown, I'm looking at you)

To the book buyers who read this blog - and let's face it, that's everybody - how much does a promotion really affect your decision to buy?

There is a reason for this debate. We've been checking out best sellers, and everything in the charts is price promoted. Did they get there on merit, or money off?

Go anonymous for this one. Let's have the truth.

Simon;

In addition to Tim's interesting question, do you think that there's too much price promotion going on? I imagine that the less money that bookshops make on a book, then the less the publisher makes and therefore the author's percentage is likely to be less. It seems to me that it's now got to a point that the moment any interest is shown in a title, there's a kneejerk reaction by bookshops/online to discount it or stick it in a promotion. It almost devalues the book.
I might be talking out of Tim's hat, and the authors and publishers just want to see those sales figures going up and up, but I dunno.

you don't have to be anonymous...

Oops, almost forgot!

it's a sheep on a trolley

Ring Ring....

Simon;


Ah, the festive Parrot

Not much to report today. Spent a long time on the phone trying to get in touch with our Small Business Advisor. We need a reference, and our solicitor is unable to give one, as we hardly know him...obviously.

With the situation now being that we have a little more time on our hands before we open, I've got in touch with some of our distributors to make sure that our accounts have been set up. In most cases the answer was 'Yes', so I then phoned a few reps to re-acquaint myself with them. I'd hoped that our experience and contacts might give us a little bargaining power in getting better terms and discounts, and most publishers have been really supportive. I'm not naming names and it's so vulgar talking about money, but thank you all very much.

in the meantime, whilst I was very very busy working today, I found this on Youtube, and it kinda blew a chip in my little brain. I hope you like it too.


Ta Ta for now.

An Update (or should that be downdate)

Simon;

It's 22 days til Christmas now, and we don't have the keys yet, or for that matter, any positive sign that we'll get them in the next 2 weeks. We have to concede that it's very very unlikely that we'll open before Christmas. I am a ball of pent up anger at the moment, but will not vent my spleen at any particular person or company at the moment, as they are still 'working for us'.

Calm thoughts...calm thoughts...

We have to try and be positive about this, don't we....

Positives
* We have more time to get the stock right
* When we open, it'll be easier for us to cope with the inevitable teething problems
* We can make our own deadlines
* It'll be something to look forward to in boring old January
* I can have my first christmas off in 24 years

Negatives
* We could have done with having a bumper first couple of weeks
* We are itching to sell books again
* I am a ball of pent up anger
* Everyone keeps asking us when we're going to open and we still can't tell them!

Having said this, things will take off tomorrow and we'll get the keys in a trice.Mmmmm

In the meantime we're making sure that we haven't forgotten anything in a business stylee type of thing. Fire extinguishers...check, License to play music...check, Oddbins Account...check.

HO HO HO!

Simon



Three more books we're going to stock. Although they're traditionally christmas books, they can be read any time of the year, and still keep the magic.


Box Of Delights by John Masefield

Written in the 1930's, this wonderful story is still as thrilling now as it was then. It centres around a boy called Kay Harker, who meets a mysterious Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawkins. Cole entrusts Kay with a magical box which gives the owner special powers. The trouble is that the evil Abner Brown and his gang are also after the box....


The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

I loved Sophie's World and this is another great story. A young boy called Joachim finds an old wooden advent calendar in a bookstore, and when he gets it home and opens the first door on December 1st, discovers a note. This is the first clue to a cracking and magical (magical again!) tale.


A Christmas Carol by Boz

Spooky, exciting and less than £2 in the dover edition. It's a well deserved classic.

Read 'em to yourself or read 'em aloud.

Simon;


We're not going out of the house today, 'cos it's pouring down.

Anyway, as I said yesterday, here's some books we're going to be stocking in the shop.

The Dirty Bertie Joke Book.
A fine alternative to Horrid Henry, and something to keep you chortling over xmas.
a couple of examples;
Teacher: Bertie spell the word weather
Bertie: W-E-V-A-R
Teacher: that's the worst spell of weather we've had for ages

Q:Name 2 days of the week that start with T
A:Today and Tomorrow

.........marvellous

Something to read aloud now.

Augustus and His Smile
this is a gorgeous book, with beautiful illustrations, and has a great positive message (it wouldn't look so good on Kindle, would it?). An award winning picture flat.

The last one for now is a book I had when I was little, which has been recently reprinted by Usborne.

The Spy's Guidebook
This was one of my favourite's and has loads of activities and games for the young secret agent. It's got codebreaking tips, hints on how to track people and great disguises. My Mum takes great delight in reminding me of the day I made a fake beard out of a hanger and some wool, and went up to the shops wearing it assuming that no-one would recognise me. I was about 7, I think. I'm getting this for myself, as I can't find my original copy any more, and I want to try it again.

What's Timmy Been Up To?

Tim:
Why it's a.....
Yes, it's definitely a .....

Ham sandwich and a can of cola.....

Your Virtual Advent Calendar

Simon;



It's about this time of year that I revert back to my childhood and get very excited about the prospect of watching 'Home Alone', 'It's a Wonderful Life' and 'A Box of Delights', whilst cracking open walnuts and finishing off the Quality Streets.
This fits in quite nicely with our plans for next week (yes, we're still waiting for the contracts to be signed and the lease to be written up). We're putting together our children's opening stock order. The kid's section will occupy about a third of the shop and is probably the most important section for us.
We've talked at length about how we're going to lay the section out and have come up with a pretty good template. Having worked in chain bookshops all our lives we realised that we'd become institutionalised. What I mean by this is that when we started talking about the layout of the shop we were breaking it down by the categories that we were familiar with at Wottakars, like '5-8 fiction', 'activities' and 'reference'. We realised early on that we could, in-fact, have any categories that we wanted, so we went for a bit of 'Blue Sky Thinking', if you'll excuse the business speak. Now ,what we have is something which we think is a lot easier for our customers to navigate, and also a lot easier for us too.

Now the challenge is to fill those shelves. As I said i'm reverting back to my chldhood now, so throughout the week i'll be giving you a few of our choices and recommendations for the shop. We've had some fantastic suggestions already. We had a great response for Children's Book Week in October, as well as plenty more ideas for the shelves from all you wunnerful wunnerful people. We've been inundated with catalogues and freebies, which certainly increase the chances of representation.

Anyway, that's all for now apart from saying that the kindle is a pile of poo (see i've started reverting already), 'cos you can't share your books, you can't smell your books, you can't look at your books, you can't feel your books and you can't write notes in your books. Oh and it looks ugly, and in 5 years time laptops will be the same size as the kindle, and be able to do the same thing, so if anyone without a soul wants to read like this, the kindle will be outdated. Which (except maybe the driving test practical manual) will never happen to books.
bye bye, i'm off to the sweet shop.