Chapter 91 January Business Priorities

Today is the first day we are really back to our regular routines around here — kids are back in school and Thoughtful Husband is back at work. Determined to carve out real time in my day committed solely to the book business, I managed to spend 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. working today. I have plans to do the same tomorrow and Thursday. Wednesday and Friday are committed to other errands and plans, but I expect to fulfill any orders and to blog every day except weekends.

After drinking a big cup of Earl Grey tea from my book geek mug, here’s what I did today:

+ Paid the balance owed on my booth at the upcoming San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print, and Paper Fair.
+ Finalized the floor plan for my shared booth at the fair.
+ Wrote up and mailed the equipment plan for the book fair.
+ Wrote and sent an email to my boothmate at the book fair.
+ Paid some bills related to the business and renewed my business tax certificate for the city in which I live
+ Catalogued one (minor but very pretty) book — WILD FLOWERS WORTH KNOWING, by Neltje Blanchan. When I say “catalogued”, I mean that I listed the book in my BookHound database and then uploaded it to my website.
+ Emailed the editor of BookThink about plans for a future article.
+ Looked at what I need to do before the end of January and made a list of steps to accomplish it.

Here’s a photo of the final booth layout for me and Jeanne Jarzombek, of The Book Prowler, when we exhibit in San Francisco February 9 and 10. You wouldn’t think it would take so long to figure this out, but, as we are both new to the book fair universe, it did. We experimented with lots of different ideas before we arrived at the simplest.

Now, without further ado, here (in no particular order) are the things that must and should be accomplished in January:

1) Get accounting records into a computer program (given my lack of accounting and tech skills, this is likely to take a long time).

2) Complete and remit annual sales and use tax report (my first) no later than January 31, 2008.

3) Assemble three more portable bookcases for the book fair (I may — please, Honey? — be able to delegate this job to Thoughtful Husband.)

4) Start planning which books to bring to the fair. Make sure all are priced and that those over $100 have descriptions printed and placed inside front cover. In my opinion, any book over $100 should justify to a potential customer why it’s worth that much.

5) Purchase new binders for 2008 receipts for Books Bought, Books Sold, and Other Expenses. There are probably other ways to organize this, but as I am a small scale business, this seems to work so far. Also purchase a weekly planner book to remind what needs doing.

6) List at least one book per day on my website.

7) Somehow, some way, find time to begin describing the final two dozen books for my catalogue.

8 ) Contribute an article to Book Think.

9) Keep blogging.

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 90 2008 Priorities for Book Hunter’s Holiday

Hello. Tom and Huck have gone back to school, the Christmas decorations have been packed away, and a closet or two has been cleaned out. Now that I can get back to work on the books, it’s time to set some basic goals for 2008. In no particular order, here they are:

1) Exhibit at at least three book fairs (San Francisco in February, Grass Valley in May, and Sacramento in September).

2) Get a real accounting system in place to keep better track of my records and to make tax reporting easier. Farewell, ledger book and pencil (well, maybe).

3) Learn a few technological tricks to improve the look of both my blog and my website. It’s hard to get specific on this one, as I know what I want, but don’t know the terminology or method for how to achieve it.

4) Catalogue more books. I have more books uncatalogued than catalogued. I’m starting with a goal of cataloguing a measly five per week (a big improvement over my more recent zero per week), but expecting to be able to develop enough of a routine to do ten per week. Stop laughing, you fast-typing, research-happy, terminology-happy book describers who list at least ten books per day! We’ve all got to start somewhere, and this is where I start. If I make it unmanageable, I’ll never do it. Starting with just five books — that’s one per day — seems doable to me.

5) Increase sales from 2007. Get more books into the right hands!

6) Put out the word that I both sell and buy books. A steady stream of new inventory seems to be crucial.

7) Cull out the overcrowded shelves and sell or donate a few books that really don’t fit what I’m trying to do with my business.

List somewhere on the internet besides my own website — the Bibliophile List, the Rare Book List, ABE, TomFolio, Americana Exchange, etc.

9) Continue my bookseller’s education. Attend either or both the University of Virginia Rare Book School and the UCLA California Rare Book School.

10) Finish that Dante catalogue! (Really!)

11) Come up with a daily (or few days a week, since I also have to manage a family and household) work routine in an attempt to use my time more efficiently.

12) Keep in touch with the booksellers I already know, and also meet some new booksellers.

That’s all I can think of for now. I also need to make a list of priorities for the month of January. That’s to come tomorrow. After that, I intend to work on a daily routine. Sorry to fill up these entries with so much detail. I need to write this all down to make sense of it. Thanks for being patient, and if you have any recommendations as to working efficiently from one’s home, just leave a comment.

See you in the stacks!

Chapter 87 Resolved, To Be More Organized

I’m on my way home from the snow today.  I’m still having a bit of trouble posting from this computer, but I’ll be back to my regular posting from home sometime tomorrow, so please be patient.

 

I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions, but I decided to make a resolution with regard to my businesss, and that is to be a bit more organized, particuarly with the way I budget my time.

 

I don’t really plan ahead which days I will work on my book business each week.  I do a little bit each day, and some days I do a lot. Most of this depends on the rest of the family’s schedules and whether a book fair is in the immediate future. For instance, I’ve done almost nothing in December, because of the kids being off school for two weeks. When they are home (while they are home — 9 short years until Tom goes to college), I want to focus my time on them. Because I had originally started with collecting books as a hobby, I never worried about how consistently I spent time on my hobby. I fit it in whenever and wherever I could.

 

I realize that if I want to consider myself a professional bookseller I need to figure out how much time I need to spend on books, how much time I actually have to spend on books and somehow reconcile the two.  Upon my return, I plan to look at some of my household routines and see if I can get them organized in such a way as to work on books only (and not errands to the grocery store and answering my personal telephone and such) two to three days a week while the boys are at school. Since the boys started school in August, two to three full days per week spent on books has not yet happened. More like one day spent full time on books and about 2 hours per day the other days. 

 

September, 2007, when Tom and Huck started school, was the first time in almost ten years that my time between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. has been my own to plan. I admit that I have been enjoying not having to plan anything for the past few months.  Now that I have done so, it’s time to actively sell my books. That means listing more books on my website, trying to build up a customer base, and listing books for sale in other venues, something I do not currently do. And, yes, first and foremost, it means finishing that Dante catalogue!

 

I’ll be sharing my business priorities and my rationale with you as I formulate this plan, because I need to have them written down somewhere to remind myself.   If any of you are working from home with young children still at home much (or all) of the time, leave a comment and share your routine  if you’re willing.

 

Happy 2008! 

Chapter 68 Book Keeping

From the title of this post, you might think that I’m going to write about the care and keeping of your fine books. Alas, that is not to be today. There have been a few distractions besides housekeeping that have delayed my book cataloguing — poor Dante! He continues to languish on the shelves, wondering when he’ll get to be properly catalogued and go live with someone who truly appreciates him.

First, I’m planning for February’s book fair and now I have to plan for taxes. Today (and probably for several days to come), I’m trying to get the business end of my book business organized. Why now? Because it’s almost the end of the year and I hate to do things last minute. Before he retired, my Dad used to be accountant. He and Thoughtful Husband keep reminding me that soon it will be tax time and have I got all of my business records organized? Since it’s my first year in business, this will be the first time I’ve filed a sales tax return and done taxes for the business. I want to make sure I do it correctly. You might think that I’d be familiar with this, but as a teacher I only had to file income tax returns. I’ve never done business taxes and I am (as usual) a bit intimidated. Also, I admit that a part of me really does not want to know whether this first year has been a profit or a loss. I’m the type that loves bookselling so much that I will want to keep at it regardless of whether it’s costing me (and poor old Thoughtful Husband), though from a business standpoint that would a bad decision. Lucky for me, I don’t make many of my decisions from a business standpoint.

Does your bookselling database (mine is BookHound) run sales tax reports for you? I didn’t know if mine did, and I was worried I’d have to go back through each individual invoice and write down the taxes for taxable sales. I hadn’t taken this into consideration when I purchased a bookselling database program, but if you’re about to purchase one, you should. I was blinded by BookHound’s easy to use cataloguing program, customer records, and invoices. Unbelievably, I never thought to ask about taxes. “Sure, honey, I’m sure BookHound has something for sales tax reports,” I said nervously to Thoughtful Husband. I was not at all sure. Fortunately, I discovered this morning that when you click on a tab called “Reports” (a tab I had ignored all year) it has all kinds of reports, including sales taxes! Yippee! Thanks, BookHound. I promise to read the user manual because I now realize there are all sorts of helpful reports I’ve been ignoring. That means there are probably all sorts of other useful bookish aspects of BookHound of which I’m not at all aware.

Luddite that I am, I have been keeping a ledger book with pencil to record my other expenses. Thoughtful Husband, who is also smart and tech savvy, smirks when I say that. He said, “I’ll mention it to the accountant and see what he says.” (I should mention that Thoughtful Husband also owns his own small business and has an established relationship with an accountant. With all of this small-business-owning and a wife who uses an old-fashioned ledger book, you need an expert to help figure out your income taxes.) The accountant said I should get Quicken or QuickBooks and transfer all of my accounting to computer ASAP. As I hate numbers and only respectfully tolerate computers, I cannot imagine a more boring way to spend my time, yet I know this investment of time will ultimately help me refine my costs of doing business. So, it’s off to check out Quicken and Quickbooks, and then (gulp) transfer an entire year’s worth of pencilled-in ledger book into the computer.

I know what this struggle with accounting is. Dante has put me into one of his circles of Hell for failing to complete his catalogue in a timely manner. Accounting is my punishment.

Chapter 59 Blocked

Now that I have gathered all of the pertinent books for my purpose and am ready to make the Dante catalogue a priority, I’m having a hard time writing it. I guess I could call it writer’s block. (Read: horrible, horrible bout of procrastination.)

This inability to focus is not for lack of reference books, lack of bibliographical information, or even lack of interest in the subject. I love these particular books, but I also love having a book business, so it’s time to offer them for sale. When I thought about why I was having trouble completing my catalogue, I discovered that having one’s workplace in one’s home can be a problem. For instance, I start typing and realize I have really important household chores to do, like re-organizing the kitchen cabinet that holds pots and pans or getting dust off the baseboards. I also started a major clean-out project in September, one area of the house each week, and to keep up with my cleaning list, I am sacrificing catalogue writing time. Everyone’s dresser drawers and closets look really clean, though. When I do sit down to write, my thoughts wander to what I’ll be cooking for dinner that night to wondering what I will buy my brothers for Christmas. Then my mother or my best friend call me. Well, then it’s just plain too late to spend the rest of my free hours focused on writing a major undertaking like a print catalogue. I write a blog post like this one instead.

I won’t give up. The catalogue will be written. Since this is the first time I’ve been home without children in almost ten years, I am still discerning the balance between household management and bookselling. I trust it will work itself out in the end. But, if you’re wondering why this darn catalogue of only 50 items is taking so long to produce, now you know.

I have a binder that I call my “Household Management” binder that I use to keep myself organized. It holds sections of To-Do Lists, Grocery Lists, Meal Plans, Cleaning Chore Lists, Phone Numbers, Kids’ Sports Team Information, Medical Information, Holiday Planning, Car Maintenance Records, etc. It keeps me organized and without it I would forget lots of tiny details (like the fact that I promised to drive on Tom’s field trip this week and that Huck has Show and Tell on Friday). It sounds silly, but it works for me. I am toying with the idea of creating a similar binder for bookselling. If I write down my tasks, I can see what I actually need to do (sell books, buy books, catalogue books, write, learn more about bookselling) and plan my time more efficiently. Except that making said binder and organizing it will take away even more time from the Dante catalogue.

I know what I really need to do: Take out all of the Dante books and just look at them together and think about them for a while. Then I need to sit down in my chair and not move until I am finished sharing them with the rest of the world through my catalogue. When that happens, you’ll be the first to know.

See you in the stacks!

P.S. I am still very interested in reading your stories of fingerspitzengefuhl. Email them to me at chris @ bookhuntersholiday . com.

Chapter 8 Lunacy and the Arrangement of Books

I posted the question I asked about shelving at a book fair to the Bibliophile List and the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar List last night. Now, I’ve mentioned before that such lists can be helpful. When I awoke this morning I already had 15 different messages advising me on shelving ideas, packaging methods, and book fair supplies. I am still determining which method of shelving will be best for my books at this particular fair, and I’ll post photos of my ultimate decision.

And, I’m telling you again: If you are a new bookseller, you simply must be a part of an email list. They have often stopped me from reinventing the printing press, so to speak. If you want to become well-informed about such controversies as the benefits of spine-out vs. face-out shelving and alphabetizing vs. just grouping books by subject, then sign up now! (If, however, you are a non-bookselling friend or family member and reading this and your eyes are glazing over at such arcane bookselling information, then stop reading now. Just be happy that I take the time to think about how I want to present my business to the world.)

At the recent Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar in August, I had the great privilege of being instructed by Terry Belanger, founder of Rare Book School at University of Virginia and a 2005 MacArthur Fellow. (I promise to post another time about both the Colorado Seminar and the Virginia Rare Book School, because both are amazingly helpful to new booksellers.) While I was mulling over all of these responses, it occured to me that Professor Belanger has already written a book on the very subject of arranging books and it was perhaps written with me in mind:

Belanger, Terry. LUNACY AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF BOOKS.
New Castle. Oak Knoll Books. 2003. 8vo. stiff paper wrappers. (ii), 24 pages.
A humorous and poignant essay on the idiosyncrasies of book arrangements by collectors over the centuries. Professor Belanger treats the reader to some of the idiotic methods of categorizing and shelving books. One gem from an etiquette book of 1863 decreed that a perfect hostess will see to it that the works of male and female authors be properly segregated on her book shelves. Their proximity, unless they happen to be married, should not be tolerated. This book will bring a smile to the face of any bibliophile. Belanger, founder of the Book Arts Press, is the University Professor and Honorary Curator of Special Collections at the University of Virginia. First edition, third printing.
Price: $ 10.00, or, in my case, priceless.

You can order your own copy from Oak Knoll.

Below, you can see why I need this book and need it now! My folio sized books are on the top shelf of my sons’ closet, right next to the box I use to store other treasures — their artwork and schoolwork. While I like to think of it as keeping my treasures together in a safe place, perhaps it is lunacy?

Now, for those of you who live in homes with attics, basements, and rec rooms and are wondering why I would store books on a closet shelf: I need to keep the books I sell out of little hands, and I live in a house that is “only” about 60 years old. Like most post-WWII suburban homes in California, it has no attic, no basement, and very few closets or built in shelves. What, you ask, can a house like this small tract home offer to a bookseller? It’s California location has sunshine and beauty almost 365 days a year and is only a couple miles from helpful grandparents who like to babysit when their grandchildren’s mother goes to book fairs. Lunacy? You be the judge.