Is a Small Business Best for Gift Giving?

Today is Small Business Saturday, a tradition that began several years ago to counteract the guerrilla-like shopping tactics of Black Friday. Small businesses can’t offer the deep discounts of most retailers, but they offer other perks you won’t find at the mêlée of the shopping mall.

My family never did the Black Friday thing. Maybe I was raised to be a bad capitalist, but even my sister-in-law, whose middle name is won’t-buy-it-without-a-coupon believes the discounts the day after Thanksgiving aren’t worth losing sleep over. Often if you wait a couple of weeks retailers will lower prices on comparable items.

After working on my manuscript, I only left my house yesterday to return books to the library and check my mailbox. No shopping was involved.

Today I had one trip: to the Edmonds Bookshop in Edmonds, WA to purchase a gift for one of the kids in my family. (We adults have resolved not to exchange presents as none of us needs ONE MORE THING in our homes. We donate to charities in one another’s names.) Even the kids have more than enough toys, so of course writer and former librarian me gives books as gifts.

Edmonds, a charming town on Puget Sound north of Seattle, was teeming with shoppers, yet I managed to find a parking space close to the store. It had a fifteen minute limit. For me shopping in a bookstore, 15 minutes is a good idea, otherwise I might buy more than I need. The bookshop was crowded, and I sidled my way to the Children’s book section. Within a few minutes, a young woman approached and asked if I needed any help.

In a giant retail store, it’s unlikely a clerk will wander through and offer help. My experience with chain bookstores is you wait at a counter to ask, and the under-appreciated clerk, who has just dealt with a gaggle of rude shoppers, will point to a section of books and turn to help the next customer.

Since I am unfamiliar with books for the age group (which I won't reveal since I don't want the recipient of my gift to know just yet,) I took advantage of browsing through the young woman’s several suggestions. I chose two.

Cognizant of my time limit, I glanced briefly at other shelves, and stood in line to pay. After the clerk rang me up, she asked if I wanted my items gift wrapped. No charge. “Sure. That’s one less present to wrap.” I was even able to choose from three paper patterns.

As I waited for my gift to be wrapped, the store’s proprietor handed out canvas tote bags with Shop Small imprinted on both sides.

Even you missed shopping today, make it a goal to buy at least one of your holiday gifts at small business. It will make a difference to the man or woman who owns the business and his or her employees. 

Happy shopping.

Clueless in Seattle

I came here nearly three weeks ago house sit for relatives while they travel in Germany and Austria. I came with the best of intentions: work on my novel in progress, read several books. I pictured myself like Hemingway, sans the cigarette and hangover, tapping away furiously at my cousin's dining room table, hammering out a nearly complete draft of my latest mediocre American novel. They don't have cable, so what could distract me?

(play doom music here)

They have Netflix.

Instead of being creative, or even useful, I've been binge watching Arrested Development and Louie, and when I ran out of episodes, started on Portlandia. (I watched a few episodes of Mad. Men, but it was like watching my parents’ generation devolve, and I don't Ike being reminded of the overt sexism of mid century office politics.

Here is what else I have been doing:

I drink a lot of coffee. Hey, it's Seattle. I think I know why this is such a coffee addicted city. It is nearly the end of June and it is 52 degrees outside. Coffee is a necessity to stay warm. Coffee is also needed to keep one awake. In between rare, gloriously sunny days, the skies vary in tone from sidewalk to slate gray.

I am house/ pet sitting, so I'm not totally useless. One of their three cats has bonded with me, and she sleeps with me, follows me around the house and even accompanies me partially on my daily walk. A second cat, Indy has been living up to his name; very independent. And the third cat, Negro (pronounced nay-gro) only approaches when he’s so hungry he will risk tipping past this foreign human. The first night, as I sat on the couch to binge watch Arrested Development season 1, the black cat approached, laid a paw on my thigh and studied my face, as if to say, wait, you're not Jena. He dashed off, and has been a phantom other than to dine and dash.

Jena has a lovely garden, and I have been tending it and even added a few plants to it.

I’m trying to keep the house clean. The housekeeper came the first week I was here, but she won’t be back until after I leave.

I’m also taking out the trash. So what? Everyone does that. In Seattle, trash day is an ordeal. *See notes on recycling Nazis for further explanation.

I went to the movies. Here's what a small world it is; one of my friends from high school, more than forty years ago, has been living in Seattle for twenty-five years. Her house is exactly twenty blocks south of my cousin's. Like most of us nowadays, we found one another on Facebook. The first time we met up, we walked the three miles around Green Lake. A few nights later she asked me to see The Lunchbox, a lovely independent film. See it.

My dearest friend Elizabeth has a friend here who I have met up with for lunch a couple of times. Elizabeth calls us her two favorite people in the world. Cat and I bonded right away, and we ended up spending the day together shopping, having coffee, and browsing Sky Nursery. I bought Jena another plant. Cat and I are now friends, too.

One morning I put on “my bus pants” (Big Bang Theory fans will understand the reference) and rode down to Pike Market to walk around in the rain. I discovered Left bank Books, bought an old copy of a book that beckoned me from the shelves. a thin volume called Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal. I recalled the author's name from something I read about Czech lit. The book is underlined with notes in the margins (my favorite type of book; proof someone else engaged with its text) and a bargain at $5. The woman at the counter remarked, "That’s my all time favorite book."

One cannot visit or live in Seattle without stumbling across bookstores. This is part of the reason I am moving here. Each store I ventured into displayed subtle anti-amazon signs. At Third. Place Books, a sign promised 20% off and free delivery on pre-orders of Robert Galbraith’s, (aka J. K. Rowling) latest Hachette title The Silkworm.

Each day I walk 1-3 miles, occasionally accompanied by the cat for the first few yards. The distance was dependent on weather and my right knee, which I sort of blew out on the flight here, and allergies. I'm kind of allergic to everything in the air here, so I blow my nose a lot. If I run out of tissues on a stroll, the walk is curtailed.

I met my brother and his wife for lunch in Centralia, which is a halfway point between Portland and Seattle, where they forced me to buy shoes at the Nike outlet. Okay, not forced, but their daughter-in-law’s 30% employee discount and the extra 20% sale enticed me to purchase a $100 pair for thirty bucks.

I've looked at properties. Housing is expensive here, so my standard of living will alter from a. Three bedroom house with an attached garage and large yard to a one bedroom condo half the square footage.

I drank coffee. Oh, I mentioned that already. I’ve only had two cups so far today.

I baked cookies and banana oat bread. My cousin Bob, Jena’s father, believes “buying in bulk saves you money,” and shortly before Jena and Scott left for Europe, he bought them fifty pounds of oats from Bob’s Red Mill. Guess what I eat for breakfast every morning?

I took the bus to Archie McPhee, a store where absolutely nothing is necessary. But maybe it is, because the store is filled with ridiculous items like a switch blade comb and rubber octopus appendages. I bought Shakespearean Insult Bandages.

Every day I drive Jena’s pickup truck and get lost, thus finding my way around. I know most of you rely on GPS devices to navigate new places, but I prefer the old fashioned way of getting lost and digging my way back home.

Here's what I love about Seattle so far:

Bookstores. They’re everywhere

Thus, a lot of writers live here.

People read for no reason. On the bus the other day coming back from Archie McPhee’s, I overhead a conversation between two young men about poet Charles Bukowski. We were not near a university.

Except maybe we were. There are several universities and college scattered throughout the city.

Community gardens abound. Near my cousin's house is a lot reserved for city gardeners. It's open for public browsing, but not picking. One shriveled mess of a garden had a sign posted “Please water my garden while I am out of town.” It was apparent this person had either been away for awhile, or nobody else had seen the sign. I fetched a watering can from someone else's garden plot, filled it, and drenched the thirsty patch of land. I was tempted to pick the ripe strawberries, but remembered this was not my garden.

In cafés and coffee houses, friends and strangers share tables, writing, conversing.

The city is socially and environmentally conscious.

*Some may consider Seattleites recycling Nazis, and it IS often confusing to figure out what's trash, what’s compostable and what’s recyclable. In Ohio we toss it all out. (Lately there has been a movement to recycle pop bottles and paper, but Ohio has yet to start charging for plastic bags or providing refunds on glass and plastic.) Here, one has to think about each item discarded.

People dress for comfort, not high fashion. Yes, I will admit, I have worn socks with sandals. A friend of mine recently sent me photographic proof. In Ohio, and most parts of the world, that attire is regarded with looks of derision. In Seattle? Normal.

Nobody has a tan. My ghostly skin looks normal here.

  

Close proximity to family who live in California, Oregon and Washington, but not so close any of them will drop over at all hours.

Jazz music. Instead of country music indigenous to where I currently live, cafes and bookshops play jazz or blues soundtracks.

No town is perfect, however. Here’s what I don't like:

Traffic. Listening to a book on CD keeps me from having road rage. I always have several handy in case I finish one.

Cost of living. I will be living in less than half the space of my current home for the same amount of money. Today I bought a book called The Cheap Bastard's Guide to Seattle. Since I am one. Retirement income, this may just come in handy.

Most of my friends don’t live here. This will be the hardest part of moving. (That, and driving two cats across the country in the back seat of a Honda Civic.) I have many treasured friends back in Ohio, relationships that have been tendered for years, so I’ll be lonely for awhile once I hit the highway. Yes, I have blood relatives here, but friends are the chosen family.

Overall my list of likes out-measures the dislikes, and Seattle feels like the place I need to live. It feels like home.

Happy Writing.

The Weight of Blood: Gone Girl Meets Winter's Bone

The tale opens with a body, or rather body parts, of a young woman found in a tree. The victim, Cheri Stoddard, friend of protagonist Lucy Dane, had been missing for a year. Where Cheri spent her last few months and how she ended up dead becomes an obsession for Lucy because the circumstances of Cheri’s disappearance echo how Lucy's own mother Lila vanished more than a decade ago. Orphaned Lila, a relative stranger to the small Ozark community of Henbane Missouri, comes to town to work as a farm worker for Crete Dane. Crete has paid for her journey from Iowa and provides room and board on his farm where she is supervised by Ransome Crowley, a weathered woman who maintains a cool distance from the lovely Lila. Meanwhile Lila quickly falls for Crete’s younger brother Carl, but Crete has other plans for lovely Lila. Even though Carl and Lila marry and produce Lucy, Crete maintains a looming presence in her life. One afternoon when Lucy is still a toddler, Lila leaves her child with her friend gabby to run an errand and is never seen again.

Lucy Dane believes there is a connection to Cheri’s murder and her mother’s disappearance, and in her free time from working in her uncle Crete’s cafe and general store, she initiates help from Daniel, her secret crush who is now her co-worker, to help find out what happened to her murdered friend and missing mother. Henbane is a small community, so someone has to know. The narrative weaves between Lucy, Lila, Ransome and other characters' viewpoints, and the reader gradually learns the whole story through their eyes.

The taut, elegant writing and well paced narrative kept me engaged all the way through. The Weight of Blood reinforces the notion that every community and family, no matter how small and seemingly benign, contains dark secrets.

This is Laura McHugh’s first novel, and I hope she is working on a second one.

Look for the book in bookstores on March 11, 2014. Happy Reading

Love That New Book Smell

Recently I read a blog post by a writer
 Jill Smolinki,  who says she does not keep many books in her house. I’m stymied. I have never met a writer who wasn’t a bit of a book hoarder.

 http://www.jillsmolinski.com/heythere/2012/9/14/do-you-hoard-books.html

Granted some of us now use e readers. I read in any format: books, e books, clay tablets. When I was in college, living in a small apartment, I had stacks of books under my bed and inside my kitchen cabinets. Later, when my then boyfriend moved in, he explained the kitchen was for cooking; it was not a branch of the Columbus Public Library. He insisted we place food and dishes in the cupboards. But he and I were both big readers, so the stacks of books doubled. The only solution was to give some of them away.

I often reread books, so I tend to hold onto them. You can tell my favorites by the post-its sticking out from the pages, and the underlined passages. Being in the company of paper books soothes me the way others might be placated by sitting on a park bench on a sunny afternoon. Granted I love that, too, but nothing beats a rainy Saturday in a bookstore, relaxing in an overstuffed chair, poring through a stack of books to choose which will go home with you. But as the photo on Jill’s blog shows, one’s attachment to books can get out of hand without sufficient space.

On a design show once I saw how books can be used a decor by arranging them on the shelves by color. One of my living room shelves has books arranged by tones.

Don't they have a nice aesthetic? They blend well with the family photos. Books are family.

I recently spent ten days on business/vacation in Seattle, where I set aside time to visit Elliot Bay Books.  http://www.elliottbaybook.com/ I entered Nirvana: rows and rows of books, real ones, not a dressed up toy shop like Barnes & Noble. Call me old school, but this is what a bookstore is supposed to look like. I was on my way to SEA TAC and had dragged my rolling carry-on bag with me. A bookseller offered to hold it for me at the counter as I browsed. I looked for staff recommendations, and someone named Kenny has similar taste in books, so I picked up a few he liked. (I was hoping to meet him and talk books, but he was off that day.)

I spent two hours (and seventy dollars) inside the bookshop.  I picked out five books (one was a gift for Elizabeth.) Since my bag was full, I had to choose which books to ship home and allow myself one to read on the plane, and had the rest mailed home.

A few days after I got back from the Northwest, the package arrived from Elliot Bay. Inside were two carefully bundles wrapped in craft paper.. I took the parcels out of the box and set them on a bureau in my living room, where they sat for a day before I opened one. The other still remains an anticipated gift. Yes, it’s silly. I know which book is in there, but because it’s still wrapped, I look forward to the jolt I will get from studying its cover and contents.

There is an aesthetic to a paper book not found in digital format. I like the rough hewn paper, the fresh inky aroma of a new book. I like to flip back to the cover and study the cover art, or gaze at the author’s picture. Which can be done with an e reader, but not without jumping though a few fiery hoops. I kept forgetting the title of the book I just finished reading last night on my kindle, so each time I turned the device on I had to hit the home key to see which title appeared at the top. And forget about trying to find the cover illustration or the author pic.

All my kindle book smell the same.

Perhaps instead of new car smell, someone will come out with a fragrance of ‘new book smell’ we can spray around us as we clutch our e readers in our hands in bed at night.

For more on this see related post; http://bit.ly/12b77I1

Happy Writing ( and Reading).

The Odds Are Not Great Either Way

Recently my friend Thomas, a fellow librarian, posted this comic on Face book. I usually laugh heartily at Thomas’s postings, but this one is too true to be funny.

Given the ease and speed of e publishing, more “books" are being published than ever. A recent article by Mike Shatzkin points out, http://bit.ly/MW2knf ”half of the bookstore shelves that were available in the US in 2007 are gone by now.”

Handwritten letters are gifts; someone cared enough to sit down and share words of comfort, congratulations, birthday wishes, family news, or mail a postcard from Europe.  Who does that anymore?

Is print media dead?

I'm as guilty as the rest of you. I download books on my Kindle, and use Kindle and Nook apps on my phone and PC. But the nearest physical bookstore is an hour‘s drive from my house and sometimes I don’t want to wait two or three days to get a book in the mail from amazon, Powells or Barnes and Noble.

It's easy and fast to send e mail and catch up through social networking, yet it saddens me how the art of letter writing, handwritten cards and stamped paper envelopes may someday disappear.

Biographers often use old letters to carve out written portraits of their subjects. Through letters, authors are able to reproduce a subject’s voice, and recreate possible dialogue accurately. Imagine trying to track down electronic messages. For the past twenty years I have had numerous email accounts through my university days and several service providers. In the early days of the internet, service providers cropped up and disappeared with the seasons, so thousands of my communications are somewhere in cyberspace under addresses I no longer recall. Not that I will someday be worthy of a biography, but given the magnitude of social media, what will be worthy of existing in posterity?

Interesting how brick and mortar bookstores and libraries stores have only recently changed how they operate. While libraries still boast books as a major source of information, the shift toward multi media has not only oncreased circulation statistics, patrons expect to be able to find moivies, magazines, and music at the library. Similarly, patrons use library spaces for computer space.

For decades, books were the thrust of book stores. In the past few years I have noticed a trend toward games and gifts at the forefront and books displayed almost as an afterthought.

Books are my passion, one of the considerations for where to retire in three years is how many extant bookstores are nearby, yet

According yo Shatzkin, “One thing that will be different but similar in the rest of the world will be the decline of bookstores.”

Linda, another library colleague, suggested that maybe bookstores and/or libraries should have post offices and coffee shops in their lobbies. I love the idea of entities struggling to survive forge a symbiotic relationship. It happens in the natural worls all the time.

Meanwhile, the you can find world’s most interesting bookstores this site. They also sell hand crafted metal bookmarks and have links to lot of bookstore and library related stuff:

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/index.html

Your writing assignment this time is to write someone a letter or a card and mail it using snail mail. Then go visit the library.

Feel free to weigh in on this issue. Of course, you'll have to do it electronically, but there is room for multiple versions of comunication. When TV came out, people predicted it was the death of radio....

Happy Writing

@LauraMoewriter

Monopoly Is a Dangerous Game

I have a love-hate relationship with the whole eBook thing; I love that I can instantly download a book on my kindle, yet I also feel a little ashamed. Yet now that my city no longer has a physical bookstore, and the selection at Walmart is limited, downloading and purchasing from Amazon has become a near necessity. However, those of us who love books and bookstores have an obligation to support independent stores and the remaining chains like Barnes & Noble. Otherwise, Amazon will monopolize the industry and deplete our choices.

Amazon, which opened its e doors in the 1990s, quickly became the world’s largest retailer due to its expert marketing strategies. Products are readily available, shipped with astonishing speed, and available worldwide. Recently, Amazon accommodated independent authors through its create space and KDP services, thus opening publishing venues to books the “big” publishers and agents refuse to look at. No matter how much or little an independent author sells his or her title, Amazon will provide a market, encourage options for marketing such as a free author page, open your title for reviews, all the while happily accepting its cut.

All is not rosy with Amazon. Recent issues of Harpers and The Writer have noted how Amazon openly acknowledges its goal is to create a publishing monopoly. They succeeded in helping Borders’s demise. Is Barnes & Noble next?

The benefit Barnes & Noble-and any independent bookstore- has over Amazon is human; you can walk into an actual store and get customer service. Try contacting a human at Amazon; it’s easier to break into Fort Knox. While Amazon customers can sit and browse, albeit online, the aesthetic of browsing quietly in a brick and mortar bookshop is missing. We mortals are social beings, and sometimes we crave the company of like minded people, people who love books and the stuff in bookstores. [see http://laura-moe.blogspot.com/2011/12/bookstore-is-wounded-not-dead.html]

Barnes & Noble now refuses to carry Amazon titles, which seems a little petty. But the book business has become like David and Goliath.
I was somewhat encouraged today when I visited a Barnes & Noble an hour’s drive from my house. It was crowded, and I had to wait in line.

Shop at Amazon. They provide remarkable access to an almost unlimited number of products. But also shop at independent bookstores (like Malaprops in Ashevile, NC or The Tattered Cover in Denver) and the extant chains. All of them have web sites. Yes, you’ll pay a little more, but those small shops also encourage independent authors to promote their books with readings and author talks in the store. Most of all, they provide personal service.



Happy writing and book shopping.

The Bookstore is Wounded, Not Dead

I am reading the most delightful book called The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee. Part memoir, part history of bookstores, the book confirms the existence of bibliophiles through the ages and the need to preserve extant book stores. True book lovers want more than just the book in our hands; we crave the entire experience of being surrounded by books and other book people. It’s so easy to download a book, but the aesthetic is thin and unsatisfying. Many writers were fostered by the presence of bound volumes, their heft and aroma, and the texture of words and illustrations on a page. Printed books have existed since ancient times, and these were not limited to religious texts and intellectual treatises. Even in ancient times, book buyers wanted romance and mystery. More evidence for the power of story and its place in human nature. Cave men craved story enough to carve into cave walls.

With the advent of e books and digitized media, story is not lost. The form has changed, just like we no longer carry clay tablets. Our tablets are bright, colorful and interactive, yet something feels lost. Reading on a tablet is a bit like dating a string of attractive people with whom you have little in common, but holding a book is coming back to an old lover with whom you have an enduring history.

I wonder about future generations, and how they will forge a bond with story that lingers. As much as the paperless society has been predicted, books published in paper form are tangible.

The publishing world is changing so fast even the “experts” don’t know what to expect. Independent authors are finding cheaper and easier means to get their work published and purchased. With KDP and Pubit and other e publishing venues, writers can upload text, design a cover, answer a few questions, and make their books available throughout the world. Granted, most self published writers should let their works simmer awhile and revise them before offering them up to a buying public. Do the ten thousand hours. But society is in a hurry, and the pursuit of instant fame and fortune is prevalent. Writers will never have a reality show, (though there is plenty of drama among writers). Perhaps readers want the illusion that the story writes itself and the writer and his/her life is secondary. A writer can be famous and anonymous at the same time. Other than Stephen King, can you picture your favorite author’s face?

There is room for multiple platforms, and my guess is kids reading stories on e books now will one day want to own a precious bound and illustrated volume of their favorite tale. The radio didn’t die when TV came out, and we though there is a junk food restaurant on every block, we still like a home cooked meal. Nothing feels like a book store. Other than the library, which is free, other stores will not let you hang out for hours and buy nothing. A coffee shop is close, but it’s missing books.

“When exploration and trade brought far corners of the world closer together-The Age of Exploration, The Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Rail, etc- there was a sharp rise in literacy. The ability to read was needed to keep up with the new technologies and business practices. And mandatory reading is always followed by elective reading. The more readers, the more books needed; more books, more bookstores.” (p.55, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop)

Happy holidays, everyone. Yes, it is Christmas Day, but a writer never sleeps.


Happy Writing.