Category Archives: bookstore management

Two Lovely Things

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This fine Saturday morning I am sitting in my friend’s house in Glen Ariff, N Ireland, drinking tea and valuing books. Liz runs a camping and ceilidh barn, but is rarely here because she’s trotting the world as a storyteller. I think she’s in England today.

The view from my bedroom window this morning

Sitting in Liz’s space surrounded by bookshelves, I’m going through her rather extensive collection. As a former librarian, Liz received a lot of books as presents over the years from places where she’s told stories.Some of them are worth quite a bit, and I am having fun plying my old trade as a bookslinger.

Liz is eyeing a bit of downsizing for her caretakers’ flat at the barn. The barn is divided into three bits: Liz’s private space, the dorm and services for the guests, and a studio for ceilidhs and workshops, sessions, etc. You have to go outside to get between the three.

Of course it’s drizzling today, so I made myself a cuppa tea from the ceilidh barn stash, carried it over to the flat, and changed into my comfy slipper socks. It took this PhD with two master’s degrees about an hour to realize that, instead of changing to shoes and dashing through the rain to make another cuppa each time, I could bring the milk and sugar to Liz’s place and use her kettle. Not much gets by me. I think I’m on my ninth cup of tea, so perhaps my brain is sloshing.

One shelf done, 27 to go….
When I lived in Scotland I wrote a column for a US paper about life overseas and they were collected into this sweet little book, my first. I’ve written nine since then with some major publishers even, but the first is always special!

Some amazing titles live on these crowded bookshelves. And of course there’s the lovely moment when I found one of the books I’d written. Pride filled my heart – until I valued it online. We won’t talk about that.

If you want to be in on the book sale once it starts, leave a comment on this blog post and we will contact you when the time comes. Some books will be listed on eBay, plus there will be a barn sale and possibly an online FB Marketplace sale as well. We will let you know.

The lucky tomes that may get to travel the world via eBay, based on their desirability and value

Now, a quick dash to the toilet and back to the bookshelves with cup number ten.

Destined for FB Marketplace, or perhaps a nice ‘buns and books’ barn sale?

Writers, Editors and Books equal Genius!

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Jack’s Wednesday guest blog is late again – –

Wendy and I watched a movie last week that brought back a lot of memories. The film was called ‘Genius’ and starred Colin Firth and Jude Law.

The movie opens with a view of the Scribners building in New York and that brought back the first memory. When we owned a bookstore in Big Stone Gap we always had to have some first editions of ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’ (published by Scribners). My job was to find good first editions cheap so we always had them in stock.

The film then moves to a nondescript guy coming into one of Scribners’ editor’s offices holding a handwritten manuscript. This turns out to be Thomas Wolfe! I knew the name but not much more. The movie then continues to cover their work and personal relationships.

When Wendy’s book ‘The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap’ was accepted by St Martins she was allocated an editor (the lovely Nichole) and we made a number of journeys to the ‘flat iron’ building in New York. So I was able to observe the relationship between an editor and author close up, and that was fascinating. Of course technology has moved on since the days of Thomas Wolfe, so instead of a handwritten pile of pages it all went back and forward over the internet. Also, there were many others involved – not just proof readers, but legal experts, folk checking references and even the designer of the cover!

And yet, the conversation was very much the same: it is YOUR book; I am here to help you make it as strong as possible. Cut this. Yes, I mean it. Of course I want to hear why you don’t want to cut it. Yes, okay, we’re still going to cut it.

When Wendy laughed at some point in the dialogue between editor and writer, I asked her why. She said, “this is an old dance. The editor is paid to have opinions; that’s what Nichole always said. And then they have to second guess themselves all the way, while the writer wants to do the right thing but doesn’t want to admit they might not have done it right in the first place. In the end, all you can do is what you did and launch the thing and let it go.”

Fair enough…..