Once the ABA’s Winter Institute for booksellers begins, there isn’t much time to explore the world outside the convention center. The conference is a fabulous whirlwind of educational sessions and panels for booksellers and a cornucopia of books, authors, publishers, and vendors, with back-to-back events from 7:45 am until around 11 pm. So I flew in a day early to sneak in a little discovery time. Memphis is a new city to me, so I spent time walking around downtown yesterday. This year marks a powerful anniversary, the 50th year since Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered here in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The city has been preparing to honor his life and legacy in a number of ways.
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With Winter Institute looming I decided to do some advanced level soul searching about what I absolutely need to do by way of preparing to go to Memphis while not leave a disaster at the bookstore unfolding in my wake. Here is a terrifyingly candid breakdown of what must be done and means of resolution.
 Prevent a cataclysmic disaster in my absence
(Pay core utility bills, power, telephone, internet)
Don’t incur the wrath of the federal and state governments
(Do W2’s 940, 941 and quarterly and monthly taxes)
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I dutifully attended a nearby Chamber of Commerce networking event last week, bringing a pocketful of business cards, and tucking both store brochures and event calendars in my bag, along with my cell phone with its alarm function set to ring in 55 minutes. (Did you know that you can make your alarm sound like a ringing phone? And that you can “take that call” after looking at the screen, immediately excusing yourself from any function? And that most reluctant networkers can be found in the foyer of such meetings, taking  “calls” about 55 minutes in to these events?)
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For most of the 13 years I’ve had my bookstore, I’ve been on a continual quest for affordable fixtures, scouring Craigslist and other classifieds for a deal. Anytime you’re looking to significantly increase your inventory, you first have to have a place to put all those new books. Preferably that place will be on sturdy commercial grade bookshelves, which can be incredibly expensive, especially once you factor in shipping something that large, bulky, and heavy. The shipping can cost as much as the fixtures! This is why most of Spellbound’s fixtures have been homemade, accented by occasional tables purchased at the local Goodwill. In November, however, I got an early Christmas present from a bookstore in a neighboring county. Blue Ridge Books, less than an hour away from my store, was moving into a beautiful new space just before the holidays and had some extra fixtures from the old space to sell. And not just any fixtures—these were custom-made, top-of-the-line bookcases from Franklin Fixtures. The kind of fixtures I’d window-shopped online and dreamed about for years but could never afford new. And they were all on wheels! Continue reading →

I may have previously mentioned that my oldest son, Nikhil, started kindergarten this year. It’s been an adjustment for all of us. I work a lot with schools and librarians, but this is my first experience being a part of a school family. There are a lot of people and programs that all intersect to build a school community, and there are a lot of ways to get involved as a parent volunteer. It can all be a little overwhelming (and gives me new admiration for the dedicated PTA bookfair volunteer chairs that we work with around town).

One of the programs I’ve gotten involved in this first year, though, has been really rewarding. Our district participates in a literacy program that pairs volunteers with struggling readers for a reading session each week designed to give them a little practice and to make reading fun. I have been partnered with two second graders for the last few months, and I love it. I stop by the class every week, and each reader joins me in the hall for 15 minutes back-to-back. For each session, the first reader brings out a book he or she has been reading in class and reads it to me for about 6 minutes before we chat about it a little bit. Then I read from a book I’ve brought for about 6 minutes and then chat about it a bit. Then the kids switch and we do it again. The program has had great results for the school, giving kids who need a little extra one-on-one attention a boost, and I love doing it. I have also found the slightly tricky task of book selection stretches my bookselling brain in a neat way too. Continue reading →

When I arrived for my annual interview with the new Year I was a bit startled by an unexpected sight. Here, see for yourself.

Kenny: Thank you. Umm. Hold on. (Checks his glasses) Hmmn. I notice that there are two of you. Are you both The Year 2018?
Year 2018: Yes.
Year 2018: No.
Kenny: Hmmn. these are deep waters I see.
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Drip. Drip. Drip.
After a week of subzero temps and frigid winds keeping everyone home for the first days of the new year, today we are treated to a milder high of 40 degrees in Indiana, so the icicles are melting off the overhang in the front of my store. I can hear them melting (drip, drip, drip) because it’s quiet in here. Winter Break is finished, the kids went back to school today, story time ended four hours ago, and there was no noon rush of adults picking up a quick gift on their lunch hour. Now it’s nap time for the preschool crowd, and we hope we’ll see some middle school students after school, or parents on their way home from the office, but right now the parking lot is empty.
Drip, drip, drip.
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Once upon a time, there lived an innocent bookseller who skipped along the path with a basketful of flowers, singing “Inventory will soon be done / Counting the books, one by one.” She was dreaming of a store perfectly organized, each title in its place, with accurate numbers in the point-of-sale system’s on-hand quantity column. “No more negative numbers!” she crowed. “No more mystery copies of unfindable Milk & Honeys and Dog Man! We will know where every single book lives!”
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Coming out of the holidays, there’s always a sense of putting the house back in order as we busily turn over displays, schedule returns, and update our notes of Christmas past to save our future selves future headaches. But I always also feel a marked mental shift this week every year, as I pull my brain out of the year-end bustle and refocus on the books coming out in the new year.
This is the hardest season to read deeply for in advance, with the Winter / Spring buying season embedded within our busiest months. I always start the season feeling behind, so I try to hit the books as soon as January hits (which actually feels like a treat after the holiday whirlwind). One of the best books I’ve picked up recently has been Love, Hate, & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed, which not only offers a vibrant, memorable voice but also ended on a note that resonated with me in unexpected ways. Continue reading →

The last week of the holiday season has its own peculiar atmospheric pressure, one that has been building, geometrically, in the hearts and mind of last-minute book buyers. This pressure results in unusual customer proclamations, which range from the amusing to the revealing and then back to the amusing again.
What called this to mind was an unusually memorable question that was asked here on Christmas Eve. A man looked around the store for a bit and then marched up to me.
Customer:  “Do you have regular books too? Like James Patterson?”
We had a copy of the book he was looking for, Sixteenth Seduction, and he left happy, with his Patterson gift wrapped and tree ready. And I? I was buoyed by Charles II’s assurance that “God will not damn a man for taking a little unregular pleasure along the way.” Phew!
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