After the last post wherein I expressed my "inner fountain of fury and wrath" (thanks Carl Hiaasen) I thought a lot about what kind of bookseller I want to be. Turns out it isn't unskilled garbage picker. The local libraries feature hip hop classes and free internet porn, the one bookstore in the whole area is mostly a coffee shop. That's just the way it is. I can sit in my book room and spew out my frustrations over what isn't here or I can move on.
So, I canceled my expensive annual subscription service that allowed me look up isbns on a pda and get real time values. Yes, its super cool to put in a title about macrame or day trading and have that little machine tell you that you just scooped $10, $20 or even $60 dollars out of a pile of crap, but it doesn't increase my knowledge and connoisseurship. It just made me more anxious to find more books to sell as fast as possible, any books, where are they, omg I need more books. I have to justify the cost of this machine! Next garage sale! I only found $30 today! I am a failure! I hate everyone!
Meanwhile, the books I'm really interested in, the slow sellers, the long dollar: classic literature, Sci Fi, pulp, detective fiction, early Modern Library editions in perfect jackets, non fiction in interesting subjects like science, cooking, and history, pile up like driftwood in my book cave.
The fast dollar book dealer lifestyle is like day trading. A hot new book today could be worth pennies tomorrow. If you don't sell it immediately, you will shortly have a worthless book about fad diets or navel gazing self improvement taking up your limited storage space. Susan Powter anyone? No? Anyone?
I still feel the call of the fast dollar, but there are Iphone apps that do the same basic thing should I get the urge. In fact, I'm going to try one out at the thrift today. I'm still going to estate sales but not as urgently. AND I'm going to start cataloging the huge backlog of books I've already stashed for my website. It's like the Collyer brothers up in there only with fewer boobytraps and more Ulysses.
I won't have to sit up in my book cave to do it either thanks to my new friend MacBook. Hello MacBook, I'm making kissy noises at you. We're free to roam you and I. AND I can listen to pod casts and news feeds that give me news from outside this cultural dystopia. I'm as happy as a North Korean with a secret radio.
No comments:
Post a Comment