Friday, December 29, 2006

 

Fussy Friday

TGIF? Notes from the desk:

I am awash in receipts and sales slips today as I assemble year-end paperwork. Order is slowly emerging from the chaos.

Last night I dreamed that customers came into the shop to return all the books they bought last week. And in fact this morning I received an email from an unhappy internet customer - I forgot to mention a remainder stripe along the bottom edge of the book he purchased from me online. I should have included it in the book description, he's absolutely right. Arg. I try to be so careful, so accurate, and this got by me.

My mailman drove away right after I opened the shop (he's been coming by earlier than usual this fall) and I'm expecting a package that I just know he has in his little truck. How someone can deliver mail before ten a.m. to a street on which most of the businesses open at ten a.m. is beyond me.

HOWEVER, fussiness aside, the sun is shining and there's no snow to shovel, Ryan picked me up a copy of the new TLS, my only piece of junk mail at home yesterday was from Harvard University Press (Buy the entire Loeb Classics set for 25% off! I'd love to!! They even include an engraved pen and pencil set...), a friends-of-the-library sale is only a week away, and I believe we'll get a healthy tax refund this year. Oh, and my dear pal Gary visited yesterday and brought me a first edition of No Art Without Craft: The Life of Theodore Low De Vinne, Printer by Irene Tichenor (Godine 2005). God, it's a lovely book - Godine's books always are - a full cloth binding, nice paper, lovely design, and what looks to be great content. I'll be reading it later today. Yet another book to keep me from finishing The Iliad. I simply must persevere.

Comments:
Hi Sarah,
I understand completely about letting something like a remainder mark slip by in a book description. I, too, try to be very careful, but occasionally something slips by....although so far I've been lucky to find it before sending the book. Still, I then have to email the buyer and I don't think that makes for good repeat business....
On another subject, I enjoy your blog: reading about another bookseller and the experiences and foibles of the business is a welcome distraction on slow or difficult days. Thanks.
Linda Langness at Arabella Books (on abe).
 
Hey Linda, thanks for stopping in (so to speak). Even more embarrassing: at an antiquarian bookfair several years ago I had a certain book for sale in my booth and I called it a first edition and priced it accordingly. A dealer I know took me aside and told me it wasn't a first, and here's why... I was mortified, but I'd rather have that happen then have sold it as a first. Live and learn.

Glad you enjoy the blog -
 
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