The wonderful thing about owning an independent bookstore is that 100% of the decisions are yours. The terrible thing about owning an indie is that 100% of the decisions are yours. I run up against this dichotomy every year during the holiday season, which seems to creep into stores earlier and earlier. Even though I personally love the holidays, I really hate the commercialization of them. And I’m a retailer! So it’s a conundrum. Continue reading →

I find a lot of things during the course of a day at the store: books that have slipped behind shelves, a pile of invoices from 2004, a check on my desk from a school order, marketing materials tucked aside for possible use in 1995. The quality varies, I mean to say. The other day I was brought into possession of something of rare and exceptional value. Nothing less than a terrific bookstore gift program, and I wanted to take a minute to share it with you.
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Holiday shopping flip-flops between stressful and fun. Our goal at the bookstore is to be on the enjoyable side of that teeter-totter, and sometimes that takes a little bit of work.
Recently, a woman came in with her two children, ages 10 and 12. In addition to buying some presents for other families, they were looking for a family read-aloud book. The mom was clearly frazzled and a little bit cranky. When we had to inform her that all but one of her favorite Bruce Coville Shakespeare retellings were out of stock indefinitely, she was mad. At us.
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When Dav Pilkey came to the bookstore in October, he gave over $1,000 in Flying Pig gift cards to kids who correctly answered Captain Underpants trivia questions. The cards ranged from $25 to $250 and there were seven questions asked. One young man, Carter, won the $200 gift certificate and he was ecstatic. Beaming, he leaped up to get the gift card, not knowing how much it was for. When he opened it and saw it was for $200 his smile was extraordinarily bright and almost made me tear up at his genuine joy.  Continue reading →

Our local Public Radio station, VPR, does a holiday book show every year. This year, Liza Bernard of the Norwich Bookstore and I were the guests. This holiday round-up happens on the show Vermont Edition which is hosted by Jane Lindholm. The show airs live at noon and then repeats at 7 pm. We sit and talk about our favorite books for the season for kids and adults and listeners call in with their picks as well. I love being invited on this show for several reasons. Continue reading →

It is time. Time, I mean, to announce the Seventh Annual DDG Stocking Stuffer of the Year Awards! The superb quality of the contenders demanded a worthy judge, one who could assess the degree of fun with a deep understanding of stocking stuffer qualities. Fortunately, a past winner of The Stocking Stuffer of the Year Award, The Whirl-O, agreed to do this year’s judging.
Kenny: As noted earlier,  you returned to retail life after disappearing five years ago. It is so great to have you in the store again.
Whirl-O: Thanks, Kenny. It’s wonderful to be back. I really appreciate the delicate challenge you’ve given me of assessing the merits of my new shelf mates. Justice is not dispensed by those who stand still.  Let us get things spinning, shall we?
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We booksellers LOVE the holiday season, especially in these early days of the rush, when our stores are brimming with customers and no one is seriously stressed out yet. We love these days because people want the beautiful books, the hardcovers and art books and decadent thick tomes with gilt-edged pages and fancy cookbooks (hello, Nopi) and other delicious gift-worthy gorgeous heavy satiny-in-the-hand BOOKS.
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This weekend was so busy that no one on staff had time to eat lunch. We were literally flying all day, drinking coffee and eating sugar plum candies to sustain us. By about 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday we were staggering around the store crashing from the excess of caffeine and sugar. Before things got ugly two friends saved us by bringing us food.
My friend Kim had come by earlier in the day to shop and noticed we were knee-deep in customers and unpacking a surprise distributor order. I barely had time to chat with her before she and her friend left. An hour later she texted: “What do you all like on pizza?” We all chimed in, “Veggies!” Then she showed up with a steaming hot pizza for all of us. And serendipitously when she arrived, the store was empty long enough for the four of us to eat leaning (okay, slumped) against the counter. Refueled, we were ready to tackle the last two hours of the day.
Sunday found a similar situation. The store was busy, no one working had brought lunch and we found ourselves starving by 2 pm. There is a butcher shop next door to the store and Mike and Louiza were working. I popped over and asked if they had any sandwiches (sometimes they do) but they were out. I was about to turn and leave when Louiza offered to make us some of her famous pierogis that they sell uncooked at the shop. Turns out they have a hot plate and Louiza was more than happy to make us some.
Not only did they make us cheese and potato pierogis, they delivered them on a china plate with a fork. Energy restored, we continued about our day refreshed and ready to sell books.
There is a loveliness and kindness that always touches me when people see that we are all starving and too busy to eat and they walk in with food. It reinforces what I grew up with as a kid: food is love. And during the holidays there is a lot of love at the Flying Pig.
 

Chapter One – Will This Be The Year?
Every year someone on my staff, Eldridge, makes the same promise to me.  He avows that if I staff the Downtown Farmington Early Bird Sale, which entails my getting up at 4:00 am on the first Saturday morning of November, and then making my way over to the bookstore by 6:00 am, that I will find a diamond considerably larger than the Hope diamond left out for me on the counter.

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There has been an interesting thread in the online bookselling listserv this week: should stores charge for wrapping or not? Opinions vary widely, and we seem to talk about this every year. Being able to get wrapped presents, either for birthdays or the holidays, is a wonderful thing. It saves the customers time and money and that’s always appreciated. But gift wrapping during the crazy rush of the holiday season, and it’s a short one this year, takes up valuable staff time and let’s face it, gift wrap is far from cheap. So, what’s a store to do? Continue reading →