A few years ago the Great Lakes Booksellers Association put together a Buy Local promotion for all of the members. We are independent bookstores from Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.  It's a great way to stay connected to the book industry. 
    Through this promotion and others like it, Buy Local Alliances began forming across the country for larger purposes.  Austin Texas has been successful with their program as well as Louisville.  Their focus are all locally owned independent businesses in the area.  These alliances are bringing together the small business owners and giving them a voice.  It also let's consumers know how important it is to support local business.
    Generally, big chain stores or franchises, send a portion of the dollars you spend at their stores out of state or even out of the country.  It erodes the local economy in money and jobs.  By spending your dollars locally you can build a healthier economy right in your own town.
    Kalamazoo area has seen enormous job loss and business moving away from this area the past few years.  Along with that is a drop in business, especially to small independent businesses.
    We are putting together our own Buy Local Kalamazoo.  We hope to have it up and organized in June and our promotion ready to go.  There is a lot to put together.  As a non-profit organization that represents business, this program has to be professional in all aspects.  We have a steering committee working out the details.  By keeping it a team effort we hope to represent many different types of business.
   
It's wonderful to see people come into the store because they want to support a local business.  And as a business owner I want to do the best job I can for them.  But we want to bring those customers back to the store.  To do that we have to be a well run, professional store that can meet the needs of our customers.
    We have always tried to provide more service.  We have staff that is extremely knowledgeable.  We keep the stores clean and have the inventory in order, but with today's economic trials with high gas prices and food costs rising, we need to do more.

    We are expanding our community space for book clubs and events.  We are hosting programs every week of some sort or another.  We are providing a meeting place for people to come and share ideas and talk with fellow book lovers.
    This is what we can do to become more than just a bookstore. 
    We can offer our community a place to gather and meet friends.
   

The daffodils are up and I’m out washing windows.

We are going ahead with the project to expand into more space in the annex.  We are punching out the wall to the back part of the house.  There is a nice community room back there with a full kitchen and bath.  I’m getting my hands dirty by helping with some of the construction and clean up.  I can’t help it, I love construction projects.  It’s a throwback from my many years in real estate and owning rental property.  It’s keeping me away from my blog and other things I should be doing, like reading.

We have some plans for our 20^th parties.  May 20^th will be the opening of the new space with a foodie with R. Stanley.  Then we have a bunch of programs and events you can see listed on the site.  I’m working on other author events and fun programs for later in the summer.  August 20^th is the real anniversary date at the main store on Clarendon, so we have to do something big for that one.

Speaking of the Clarendon store, some of you may not realize what a treasure that is.  We expanded over there in 2000 and doubled the size of the building.  It holds roughly 50,000 books most of the time.  And a lot of them are slightly used books at great prices, lots of topics for reading too.   The romance section is huge as well as the paperback mysteries, great for summer, kick-back reading.  Also, the history shelves have a big choice with a lot of subjects.

We are going to start on the gardens this week.  More of me being outside, but our staff is so good.  They read more than I do and know the new titles better too.  It’s better that I stay out of their way.

Happy reading.

    In our business we sort through a lot of books.  We love the "click on order", it comes in the mail, and we put it on the shelf kind of stock.  But not all of our books are brand new.  We have always searched for the extra nice used books people want.  As I look back on it, I seem to think it was easier to find better stock.  What I mean is, we didn't have to go through quite as many books to get the nice stuff for the shelves.
    Some of these goodies walk in the door.  We accept trade-ins from customers and give them credit toward other used books.  In the winter we get less coming in the door, basically because no one wants to lug a bunch of books around in the bad weather.  We will also go out to look at batches that are too big to bring into the store.
    We went on our first "away mission" for the year this week.  It was an estate that had to clear out an entire home with lots of trinkets and dishes and STUFF.  The house was filled with shelves that were full of books, so the sale planners called us to remove the books so they could use the shelves to showcase the other stuff.  Books do not sell well at sales around here and they knew they could do better using the space for the trinkets.
    It was a batch of hardcovers from a 20 year collection.  So we had the obvious donate batch, then the storage for the future batch, then the lets put it on the shelf batch.  When we got done sorting and packing we looked at the meager little stack for the store and wondered if it was really worth the sore back and hauling time and cost, compared with the potential sales.
    It's really hard to judge what kind of return you can hope for with a batch of 2,000 books you see in a home.  You have to figure in all the time to haul them, store them then bring them into the store and clean them before getting the stock into inventory.  But that's what we do.
    I will say we walk away from 3 out of 4 batches we look at and it's getting harder to say no because there is no place else that will come pick up books.  Even Friends groups love it when you drop them off, but rarely will they pick up a load.
    As a final note, even with the careful way we sort our stock, there comes a time we have to eliminate books from our shelves.  We pack them into boxes and try to donate as many as we can.  Right now we have a couple AAUW groups that pick up books and we have found 2 Friends groups from out of town that will come in and pick up a big load of books.
    Lifting, hauling, shelving and doing our stairs at the stores is like having your own personal gym.  I don't even have to exercise when I go home at night.  I'm too tired anyway.

    It's still cold here in Michigan and the snow doesn't seem to want to melt.  In years past we have had glimpses of spring with a few days of bright sun and enough warmth to remind us that spring is near.  Not this year.  And Easter is right around the corner, earlier than usual.  Perhaps it makes us think we should be further along in the season.  Daffodils in bloom at Easter are in our memories.
    I suppose we should be lucky that we didn't get many huge blizzards this season.  They come in with a bang then leave a couple days later with a splash of sunshine and warmer temps to brighten our winter days.  It seemed to be a constant dribbling of a few inches every week without a peak of sunshine anywhere. Soon, I wasn't even listening to the weather report.  Snow of some amount was predicted every day of the week.
    I've lived in Michigan all my life and snow isn't a bad thin and I'm not one to complain about something we can do nothing about.  I usually can get along with it fairly well, but enough is enough.  Lets get on with the season change.
    I know it's not just me, because I see it in the number of customers that are staying home.  We aren't getting the increase in walk-in customers that happens when the weather turns to spring.
    That's my plug for spring.  So anytime now it's going to break out and say "here I am - you can take your jacket off and put away the boots."  I'm ready, how about you?
Gloria Tiller, Kazoo Books

    My time recently has been focused on getting a buy local campaign started in Kalamazoo.  It's a movement across the United States right now to heighten the awareness of local business and industry within an area.  These businesses are the fiber of a community.  The dollars spent at these businesses stay in the local area, supporting the people who reside there.
    When you spend dollars at a chain, big box or franchise, a percentage of each dollar spent leaves the area to be given to another community.  It erodes the economic structure of community.
    You can see the power of spending when you buy something at a local business that employees local people.  They get paid in local dollars that are spent locally.  The money stays in the community and provides work and business to it's population.  As soon as that money leaves the area to support a corporate headquarters someplace else, it looses value to your area.
    Kalamazoo has a lot to offer it's population.  We have some great schools.  Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Valley, Davenport University, as well as our public schools that now offer the Kalamazoo Promise.
    Statistically, many of the students who graduate from these schools tend to stay in the area.  We offer arts, theater, entertainment and loads of things to do.  Although jobs are scarce right now, we have some great start up tech companies and local manufacturing companies that are up and coming.
    If you are interested in promoting a buy local campaign or want to be a member, contact the store or drop me an email.

    Bookstores need to sell more than just books today and I don't mean other items.  We need to promote a sense of community and provide a place to gather, have meetings, and entertain.  We have a wealth of information we can share.  Readers like to learn.  Even reading fiction we all learn, but there are some great economic books and history books currently on the best sellers list, which attests to people wanting to learn by reading.
    Mini seminars or programs not only teach in an informal setting, but also bring community together.  I'm always surprised when people come to a program and discover an old friend or neighbor.  We tend to grow communities with our little book groups that meet once a month, then people begin to communicate and interact between the meetings too.
    I get authors every week who come in with a book already printed and want me to sell it in the store.  Many of these are self published and the printing and set up have cost so much that it puts the price too high for the market.  Or the manuscript was never edited or the set up has print you can hardly read.  All kinds of factors make a book marketable, or unmarketable.
    That's one of the reasons a writers group was started last year.  It brings aspiring writers and published authors together.  We put together programs highlighting different aspects of writing.  It also provides an opportunity for writers to network with each other.  Kalamazoo has some terrific talent here.  It's fun to see who is working on a new book or just got a book published.
    It also gives people a chance to find friends to start a writers group.  They can get together and review their writing and get comments from fellows to help polish off the rough spots.  It's a hard process of revising and editing after the plot has been woven and the characters developed.  But starting with a small audience of peers helps this part of the process.
   
Just a few notes this morning.  We are having another snow accumulation today - most of us are use to driving in this stuff now, but it is getting tiring.  Our Foodie at Sarkozy's meets today at 2.  Hope everyone can make it.

Gloria
      

    Most of us wear watches or have clocks that keep us on schedule during our busy days.  Some of us even wake up at night and out of habit check the clock.  Time is just part of our life that we take for granted.  Yet the other night as I watched the moon dim from the total eclipse I began thinking about time in another way.
     As the shadow of earth began to spread across the face of the moon, the flat orb in the sky began to show it's true roundness.  It took on a 3-D effect while changing color to a soft orange glow.  Through our binoculars we could distinctly see the craters and valleys on the surface, almost like you see the continents here on earth from space.
    I thought about the peoples of earth, before they had everyday watches to remind them of time.  These people depended on the moon and sun to let them know where they were and what time it was.  The position of the sun would also tell them the time of year, when to plant crops, and when to expect the weather to change.  The kinds of things that still happen today, but we pay little attention to, until there is an eclipse.
    It was almost as if time stopped while I watched the shadow of earth cross the surface of the moon.  I thought about how small we are!  How much we depend on our moon to keep the tides and our atmosphere consistent.  What would we do without our sun to provide the energy to grow our plants and warm our faces.  But as time stopped for me, it would not stop as the shadow carefully exposed the full glow of our moon from the other side.  Gently exposing the whiteness we see at night when we glance up at the moon and go about our business, checking our watches and running to appointments and getting on with our lives.
    Maybe eclipses are a way for us to slow down for an hour.  Stop and see where we are and where we are going.  Balance is always good and sometimes it's nice to just look up at the moon or sun and put life in perspective.
   

    I opened "Book Exchange" in August of 1988.  It was an exciting adventure and I was set to own something.  This was after an 18 year career selling residential real estate in Kalamazoo and this was my change to create something tangible.  Boy was I naive.
    I purchased the property on Clarendon in 'as is' condition and went to work.  An entire summer was spent fixing and building.  When I opened in late August there were 3 rooms finished and about 5,000 paperback books on the shelves.
    Those were the old days of used bookstores where you could trade 2 for 1 or get a book for a dollar.  I never wanted to have a business like that.  Right from the start I was aiming for a classier look.
    I would sort through the trade-ins that came in and only put the best on the shelf.  Today we do the same thing and our used books look like they are new.  Our customers can come in looking for a new book for themselves or a gift and usually find something perfect right on the shelf.
    Soon after I opened. a book collector found me.  Jack the Book was retired and loved talking books.  He and some friends at the college would have lunch weekly and talk books.  My store was close and they began to drift in during the week.
    Jack soon realized I knew nothing about book collecting.  I didn't think I would become a collector store, so it wasn't important to me.  He did.  So he started stopping by a couple times a week and I would show him the hardcover books that were traded in and would explain the diferences in book club editions and trade editions and the finer points of collecting.
    Did you know "Life on the Mississippi" by Mark Twain has 3 first Editions?  As it was printed Twain saw a picture in it he didn't like and stopped the presses to change it.  Then it was stopped again for more changes.  Therefore, that First Edition has 3 states.
    Every day I would learn a bit more and am still learning today.  I owe a lot to Hack Heenan.

    People love to collect stuff.  Just look in our basements, garages and closets.  We have stuff everywhere.  If you are a reader it's a natural move to fall into the collecting mode.  We love our books and love to have books around us.  That's one of the key ingredients of how to start.  Collect what you love.  If you find a favorite author or title, hunt for a first edition or a signed copy.  Due to budget constraints you may have to start with a nice hardcover and work your way up later.
    Some authors have first books that never made it to hardcover.  John D. MacDonald is an example.  His Travis McGee mysteries began as small paperbacks.  Travis was a talented PI living on a boat in Florida.  All the books that feature him have colors in the titles.  The Quick Red Fox or The Brass Cupcake, which is the author's first book.  There are nice first edition paperbacks of Brass on the net right now for $100 or more.
    Some people like to collect treasures that are not necessarily valuable, but add an ambiance to their shelf.  Decorator books are making a comeback due to building homes with built in bookcases.  In the early days of amassing private libraries in Europe, books came without covers and the owner would have them bound especially to match his library collection even down to the inside plates.  These were elaborate leather covers with gilt lettering and marbled endpapers.
   In America, around 1900 Elbert Hubbard was writing Emerson-like books.  What made these extra special was his publishing company called Roycroft  Press.  You might say he was one of the early self published authors of his day.  Many of the books were bound in a soft suede cover.  The printing on the inside was exquisite.  The artisans who worked for him became known as Roycrofters.
    Another interesting style are the old fashioned decorated embossed covers.  These appeared in the late 1800's and were usually used on a reprinted classic of the time as gift books.  The decoration would have colors and gilt and flower designs.  Some of these have held up well and can be found just about anywhere.
    Just some fun notes on book collecting.  More to come.
Gloria

    Morning.  oh the joys of owning a bookstore.  Gearing up to work all day Saturday.  Thank goodness for crock pots.  I love coming home to a prepared meal and this takes the burden off of Jim, my husband to have dinner ready.  Actually, Jim is our IT specialist.  A big part of the business is our internet sales.  He got us set up in 1997 when there weren't many books out there.  Now, every book you look up is out there someplace and many have dropped prices. 
    Collectibles that use to be hard to find are a dime a dozen.  It's part of doing business, but people putting items on the internet for a penny are duping the customer.  Check out the extra high shipping costs.  These penny items are usually beat up and barely in readable condition.  Pay an extra dollar, less shipping and get a better book.
     I really pay attention to the ratings these days too.  When we order a book for our customer, they want it "as described" and shipped promptly.  Basement internetors who check their mail every couple of days and only ship once a week don't work for us.
    Don't you just love the generic descriptions.  "Acceptable"  seems to be making the rounds currently.  I don't know about you, but my idea of acceptable is a bit more than what these books represent.  Also, have you tried to talk to some of these sellers?  If they have a phone number it's buried, or they don't have one at all.  It takes weeks for them to respond.  I might as well go back to the old days when we use to use postcards. 
    Really, we would join together with a mailed out newspaper with all our ads, then we would get responses on postcards or we could send a postcard asking for the book.  Then you mail a check and the check clears, then you get the book.  Sounds ridiculous, but the system worked and people were very ethical.
    Times change and systems change, but I still believe that there are still honest, ethical people in this business.
Gloria