It’s not every day that we have an author event and that author not only lives down the road from us, but is also a good friend. Liza Woodruff treated us to her new book, Ten on the Sled, which she illustrated, this past Saturday. The book is a lively toboggan ride down a mountain with ten arctic animal friends. Adventure and hilarity ensues when animal by animal keep falling off the toboggan and into a snowball that’s racing the sled down the mountain. As each animal falls out, the book becomes a counting book. The rhyme is great, the book is a wonderful read-, the art is lovely.
It’s always fascinating for me when illustrators come to the store. Their process is such a mystery to me that I can’t help but be in awe of the work that’s involved in illustrating a picture book. She explained her process. First she gets the manuscript and then she starts with character sketches. Liza gave each animal a back story: the rabbit gets motion sick (although rabbit’s greenish tinge was nixed in the editorial process), the polar bear has a crush on the caribou, the fox is a safety nut, and the squirrel tries really hard to break up the polar bear and the caribou. These things manifest themselves in every spread, and add to the richness of the book as well as the laugh-out-loud fun.
Liza said she goes usually goes through three rounds of edits with the publisher from start to finish. From early sketches to gorgeous finished watercolors her work makes me smile and the amount of work that goes into everything still kind of wows me.
Liza plans a great event.  First off she baked these really cool looking polar bear cupcakes which were on theme and delicious. She also planned a great activity for the kids — making holiday cards. Quite simply they just had colored paper and made really cute cards they could give to someone for the holidays. Having a craft activity for a picture book makes such good sense because the target audience is too young to really sit through a longer event without having something to do, and it’s great for them to have something to take home.
Liza signed a ton of stock and it’s been a fun weekend of selling it. We’ll continue to sell all the books throughout the winter. And the length of a Vermont winter makes Ten on the Sled timely six more months, so that’s a win-win for all of us.

The holidays always bring the inevitable question for booksellers: just how many books do you wrap for free? We are a small store and don’t have a wrapping station as the larger stores do. We also don’t have little elves who do nothing but wrap, like you find in department stores.
What we do have is an abundance of gift wrap styles to choose from. Some classic holiday-themed ones from snowflakes to a smart Hanukkah wrap. We’ve also gone green. Every style of our gift wrap is recycled and that seems to make a huge difference with our customers. Ironically, it’s led to more requests for gift wrapping. Because we have so many different styles of wrap we’ve developed a way to help customers decide what wrap they’d like. We’ve made a small poster board with samples of all of the wrap that we can show customers while we ring them up. This way, when we’re done ringing them up, they’ve decided which wrap they want. You know, you wouldn’t think this decision would take so long, but often this is the longest part of holiday transactions.
We wrap the first two items free and then we ask for fifty cents for all the next items, which we will then donate to our local food shelf. No one has balked at paying for the wrapping, in fact, some folks have contributed more, which is great. We ask that if folks have a lot of presents they’d like wrapped and the store is busy to come back in a hour or two. This is a simple thing, but it really helps us to provide help to the other customers in the store. No one really minds coming back. I think it gives them a reason to treat themselves to a cup of coffee down the street or to continue to browse in the store.
The staff has determined that I’m not a great wrapper, as they all practically leap over themselves to offer to help me when I’ve rung up a customer who wants something wrapped. It’s actually funny. And honestly, I don’t like to wrap, so I’m happy for the help. I have a tendency to either cut myself or actually uncurl curling ribbon, which then just hangs there limply and has to be redone. I know wrapping is wasteful and not good for the environment, but there is something lovely about a beautifully wrapped package, especially when it holds something as delightful as a book.

My youngest nephew turned eight today, and it was the first night of Chanukah. This kind of blending of two great events was almost more than I could bear. These two events on the same night meant only one thing: books, books, books!
I am blessed with two nephews who live practically down the street, who both love to read, so owning a bookstore is gift-giving serendipity. Chanukah allowed me to give my older nephew a new galley of the newest Bone book. There’s nothing better than giving a gift and watching a child’s eyes widen in delight as he utters a sincere thank you and heads to the couch to dive into the book.  Twenty minutes later we had the birthday portion of the evening.
Picture an easy-to-smile, bright new eight-year-old, who spies a wrapped box on the dining room table. As of now, he can’t tell what it is. Could it be a Lego set? Probably not, it’s too small. Clothes, not on your life. As he slowly rips into a corner of the present he sees the first Secrets of Droon book, and then his eyes positively glow when he realizes that his present has not just one, or two, or three, but 36 Secrets of Droon books, He practically quivered with joy and amazement and then burst out laughing, exclaiming, “I didn’t know there were this many!”
Did Elizabeth and I go overboard? Perhaps? But he’s moving so quickly through books that we were afraid he’d outgrow these by his ninth birthday. To see a child laugh with unbridled joy at receiving books warms my heart. He started thinking out loud about where on the bookcase the books would go. He’s never had so many books all at once and the prospect of a full shelf of his favorite series filled him with such joy. For the first time in his eight years he’s thinking about his burgeoning library: What books to keep, what books to donate, what books he’ll read again. These were all questions he was asking his mom as he stacked and restacked his new books. I think the fact that I saw him actually caressing his new books made me giddy.
Yes, toys are fun, but does anyone remember the toy they got when they were eight? Or, do we all remember the books we read as kids? I still remember reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle at nine and thinking this was the most marvelous thing I’d ever encountered. I still remember all the “Cures” she had. And secretly I wished that I had the “Won’t Take a Bath Cure” for my brother when I was growing up. I don’t really remember a single toy, outside of my Snow White watch, I got as a child, but I remember the Nancy Drew books, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and all the Great Brain books that lined my bookcases. I can recall everything about these books still, some 35 years later. And I feel privileged to help my nephews make some lasting memories.

For some time now, I’ve meant to start a recurring feature highlighting some of our favorite small presses. We independent booksellers are always working to get the message out about the wonderful benefits we offer to readers; just as important is our support of smaller indie publishers, who likewise depend on us to recognize and value (and buy) the unique books they have to offer. In this economy especially, we need to put our money where our mouths are. Let’s hear it for small presses!

The first spotlight shines on PURPLE HOUSE PRESS. Our bookstore was about four years old when this small press started up in 2000. They were dedicated to bringing back rescued treasures from out of print. I was immediately delighted by their selections; several of their books were favorites from my own childhood. I was also impressed by the quality of the books, with their wonderful paper and top-notch production values.
From Mr. Pine’s Purple House (the book by Leonard Kessler that inspired publisher Jill Morgan to start the press in the first place) to cartoonist Gary Larson’s favorite book as a three-year-old, Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat by Morrell Gipson, illustrated by Angela, to Astrid Lindgren’s The Brothers Lionheart to Clifford B. Hicks’s The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald, Purple House Press only brings back time-tested child favorites. I love their taste in books, and their carefully chosen, just-a-few-new-titles-every-year publishing schedule, which seems to ensure that all of the books they bring back stay in print.
I had a rare, wonderful, heart-stopping moment because of PHP some years ago, when I was browsing through their titles online and saw a book cover that brought back a flood of memories. I hadn’t thought about Miss Suzy in about 35 years, but when I spotted Arnold Lobel’s drawing of a small gray squirrel with two toy soldiers, my heart actually stopped beating for a second. As a little child, I had been FASCINATED by Miss Suzy’s plight with a band of mean red squirrels who chase her from her home. (She gets help from the toy soldiers.) I can’t tell you exactly why I loved that book so much, but it certainly had something to do with Lobel’s signature soft, rounded, friendly illustrations, and the slightly scary adventure with the mean squirrels written by Miriam Young.
Purple House Press’s complete catalog is small and star-studded. Enjoy browsing through books that might plunge YOU back in time to your enchanted childhood self. Booksellers, librarians, teachers, and book buyers everywhere — please consider bringing these gems to your shelves and introducing them to a whole new generation of young readers.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make a Purple House Press order. I’m not kidding. Money, meet mouth.

I’m not a competitive person, normally. But something about the holidays brings it out in me. I see it as my personal challenge when someone comes in the store with a list of folks they have to get presents for, to recommend books they will love. I want everyone to leave my store happy and surprised.
Customers often come in with a particular book in mind, say a movie-tie fairy/princess book for a niece they don’t know that well. Immediately I have a problem — we don’t carry movie tie-in books. We carry the real thing.  So my challenge is two-fold. First I must get them away from thinking about the brand of the book, and then once I’ve hopefully done that, I must get them as in love with The Barefoot Book of Dance Stories as I am. Convincing someone that your book choice is really good takes skill. Pure enthusiasm and knowledge of the book usually wins the day for me. I’ve noticed, even though I’m 46, I seem to hop a lot when I’m excited about a book, plus I tend to wear a floppy Santa hat during the holidays, so I make for an interesting sight while exclaiming over a book.
I want folks to leave the Flying Pig thrilled with their purchases. This is the one time of year I have to get folks who are new to my store to see why shopping at an indie is a more satisfying experience. Every customer should leave happy and be making a note to shop with us for their everyday purchases as well.  For all indie bookstores the holidays are a chance to make and keep new customers, and to keep thrilling your regulars who’ve come to count on you for that book for Aunt Betty and the surprise book for their spouse.
We used to have an employee who would spend a lot of time just looking at the books, slowly moving from case to case. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was taking them all in. Later I discovered he had a somewhat photographic memory, so he knew where everything was. All booksellers need this skill. Handselling only works if you can actually put a book in the customer’s hands. While we’re thrilled to order books for folks, it’s also really important that people leave satisfied with a book in their hands.
I find the biggest challenge is thinking outside the box when it comes to book recommendations. Oftentimes someone will come to me and say, “My Uncle likes woodworking. And I want a paperback.” We don’t have a woodworking section, plus it’s always a danger to get someone a specific craft book because you don’t want to duplicate a book in his collection, so now I’ve got to ponder. I don’t have all day to ponder, I have about 10 seconds and then I must produce a book. I remember that a staffer loved Shop Class as Soulcraft. I booktalk it, the customer is pleasantly surprised. And it goes on like this all day.
By the end of the day, I’m tired and probably hoarse, but I’m hopping around because I think I did okay.

I’ll admit that I almost forgot to write this post last night, because I was so full of holiday cheer. How quickly the cheer goes to right back to business. Off to work I go, ready to battle the hordes (I hope) of holiday shoppers. I even dreamt about making the perfect recommendations to customers who were ultimately thrilled; even in dreams, though, there are tough customers.
So, to all of you out there working very hard this weekend, and for the next four weeks, have a great season! And for you shoppers out there, go indie and you’ll walk away with some real treasures for everyone on your list.

Today’s post is going to be brief, because like most of you, I have a ton to do and I have to work today. Thanksgiving is a day of giving thanks, but for booksellers, or anyone in retail, it’s a day of gathering your strength and gearing up, mentally and physically for the next four weeks.
Getting ready for a major holiday, one that involves hours of cooking and hosting people, and in my case furiously cleaning the house, while also heralding the start of the busiest time of the year for the store, is a tall order. So, today I will divide my time between work for a few hours and then home for more work.  All this so I can get up early Thursday, call my mother and ask again how many minutes a pound should I cook the bird so I spend the day filling the house with yummy smells and good friends. Thankfully, there is some downtime on Thanksgiving, some time to take a deep breath and realize that the next four weeks are the most important for my store’s bottom line. Time to make a list of the books I fear I can’t live without during the holidays and time to learn to be zen about the chaos that is the next month.
I have one staffer who literally dances like she’s shadow boxing, as the holidays approach. She embraces the lunacy, the bizarre requests, the secret phone calls, the shipments that go missing, etc. I am going to emulate her attitude tomorrow when I’m cooking and it doesn’t go well. So if I forget to take the giblets out of the turkey or realize that I don’t have any vegetables to serve, can’t get the lumps out of my gravy and my dog won’t stop barking at my friend’s kid, I’ll just dance around the kitchen, have a laugh and enjoy my friends.
I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Every year, during the week of Thanksgiving, we are frantically finishing our yearly 16-page newsletter, Pig-Tales.  This year we’re not mailing it, choosing instead to go green and make it available on our website and via email.  It seems that no matter when we start the process, things always come to a head during the week of Thanksgiving.
Our process is seemingly simple: choose the best books of the past year, with an emphasis on those from the past six months, for kids and adults. Oh, that’s so much easier said than done. We go through the books we featured on the website, on staff picks shelves, and what our staffers are just loving. Our newsletter is a  glorious excess. At last count we had reviewed over 114 books, and we’re not done yet. Picture if you will, Elizabeth (the only one who can do the graphics), surrounded by piles of books on the couch, not just piles, enormous towering stacks facing our new indulgence, a new monitor big enough that it can’t be comfortably viewed from the desk, so it sits on the coffee table where she works, quite comfortably from the couch. Elizabeth is doing the final run-through. Double-checking and re-checking the staff reviews and placing them with their cover art. It’s a blur of book reviews and covers. Staff members are proofreading pages thought to be done. Edits are being made and while I sleep, so are minute changes in spacing that will make the newsletter read more clearly and smoothly.
Our newsletter is a labor of love and a point of pride. We publish one newsletter a year. Folks count on it to guide their holiday shopping, year after year. Our first newsletter ran four pages, long before the day of just emailing a PDF to the printer. Back then it was a multi-step process that took days before the newsletter could even go to press. Now, it’s an email, a quick proof and the same day we’ll have hundreds available at the store for pick-up and a click away on any computer.
The newsletter is divided into sections: Gift books, Teacher’s corner, then we break up the sections by ages straight through adult fiction and non-fiction.  One thing I love about the newsletter is the chance to herald our favorite books. The books our staff loves. Sometimes we feature different genres — this year, dystopian novels get some special attention. Our graphic novel section has expanded considerably. The Vermont section is always chock full as we have so many talented writers in the Green Mountain State.
One of my favorite aspects of the newsletter is the staff reviews. Every staff member has been sending reviews of their top books for the past year. I love seeing what they highlight and love. Having five people contribute reviews makes our job a lot easier. Plus, there are now seven different voices to be read in our newsletter as each review is attributed. This has a nice long-term consequence as customers will read a review that they particularly like and then they’ll seek out that staffer for help the rest of the year.
While Elizabeth toils at home doing things I could never do, my newsletter job is two-fold: make sure we’ve got all the books in the store that we’re listing (no easy feat with a few titles that seemed to have gone out of stock the minute they made the cut), and to start the co-op ball rolling. This feels too easy compared to the hard, hard work of creating the 16-pager, so I’ve been cooking a lot of hearty mind- and body-sustaining food.
So, we soldier on, trying to meet a deadline that can only be met by the nicest printer in the state of Vermont, who promises a six-hour turnaround on Wednesday. Newsletter time lets us know it’s the holidays and for 13 years people have come to rely on Pig-Tales to guide their holiday choices. Crazy deadlines aside, that makes us feel pretty good.

I love this time of year. It’s not about the money, although that certainly helps. I’s about a little bit of lying to children, underhanded shopping and a frantic throwing of presents under the counter.
I’m not talking about horrible lies to children. I’m talking about Santa lies. “Maybe Santa will bring you that” is a phrase I hear many times a day now. It’s a distract-and-delay strategy that works well this time of year. The lying comes in (not about Santa, I’m not getting into the whole Santa thing here) with the “maybe.” There’s no maybe about. My role as a bookseller is to remember these present idea for children when the parents come back alone to shop, or to have them thrown at me to bag and label for a later date.
This year, for the first time, I’ve noticed more adults than ever looking at me pointedly and saying, “I really want that new Sondheim book.”  So, not only do I need to remember the kids’ books, now the adults are entrusting me with their holiday wishes. This year, I’m keeping an adult Christmas wish list in the back of my special order book, so adults can get their favorite holiday books, too. And, just like children, the adults visibly relax when they see me write down their wish list titles.
Normally, I prefer it if customers don’t throw things at me, but this time of year I love it. The realization that the perfect is right here, right now, and has to be saved, charms me and I’m happy to be a part of making that happen. I’ve done it today for grown-ups (one actually asked her partner to leave the store) and for a child securing something for her Mommy she probably can’t afford, for when she comes in with her dad later in the week. And I’ll do it straight through Christmas Eve.
The real subterfuge comes in when families do all their holiday shopping together. Then I’ve got Mom throwing things at me to get separately bagged and rung up, while the kids are colluding in the corner about Mom’s gifts. Siblings working together fill me with hope. Quickly wrapping presents makes me nervous because I’m afraid I’ll label them wrong and ruin everyone’s first night of Hanukkah.
I know it’s the holiday season by how many books on my special order shelves are in bags. Some of these bags have little toys, games or stuffed animals in them. Every day brings new shopping challenges and another chance to catch a thrown gift.

This year we advertised in the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility annual coupon book. This book is for sale for $10 and it contains over $2,300 in savings at participating stores. The booklet looks great and it’s been distributed throughout Vermont and actively marketed as a great present for socially responsible shoppers who value shopping local, as it’s paired with Local First Vermont. Think stocking stuffer with a heart.
This book, printed on heavyweight recycled paper, looks and feels great. One on the nicest things about it is all the participants have the same size ad, and every page is visually appealing with just one store listed. The coupon book hit stores in the last two weeks and I’ve never seen such a great response to our coupon.  Every day, at least two coupons get redeemed. And more often than not, these are new customers to our store. Sometimes coupons can look bad, or shoddy.
People who use this booklet are the same people who make a point of shopping local, even if it means driving past a chain store to do so. Indies need this kind of person to keep us alive and thriving. These folks will tell their friends about your store if they’ve had a good experience. Reaching your target market so efficiently is a boon to any business. I don’t have to sell these customers about the importance of shopping local. They save money on their purchase and I make a new customer who might not have heard of my store before.
But not every customer comes in already knowing about the power of shopping local. For those customers I recommend posting any of the myriad of promotional signage available about the reasons why shopping local is important. This time of year is the best time to reach new customers who are coming to your store because of the holidays. They might not be a regular, yet. So part of a bookseller’s job is selling the bookstore as well as the books. And, part of selling any indie is customer education about what independent stores mean to the community and state.
During the busy holiday season, lots more people are waiting in line and it’s smart to give them sometime interesting and informative to read. The American Bookselling Association has great promo material that supports Indiebound. One of my favorites is the 3/50 Project. Their printable pdf is clear and looks great and really catches people’s eye. Its message is so clear: Pick 3. Spend 50. Save Your Local Economy. Almost all states have a shop local campaign and it’s worth finding out more about yours. Professional-looking signage from these organizations can be the catalyst to good, educating conversations with customers who want to know more. And this can be the path to securing customers.