Long ago when my children were young, I was reading them the story of Pinocchio in a Walt Disney book. I started telling them about the Italian who had written it so long ago, but couldn’t remember his name. I looked all over that book. Carlo Collodi was not mentioned. It was ‘Walt Disney’s Pinocchio.” What would it have cost them to give credit to the creator? Were they afraid that people might seek out the original and realize that Disney’s version was a mere shadow of what Collodi had written? How many people today believe that Pinocchio is a Disney creation? That experience and, later, some reading of Joseph Campbell made me realize that Disney takes the great myths and the great literature and
Author Archive
We all know that we need to advertise, and we all know that it’s very difficult to know how and where to advertise. It tends to be expensive, and so often it doesn’t work. We know that people aren’t going to come to our book store if they don’t know we are there. I’ve given this a lot of thought. In my previous piece – ‘The Second Renaissance’ – I wrote about the internet and how it is changing communication and attitudes. It would seem that the internet is a good place to advertise. Websites are neither difficult nor expensive to set up and maintain. The downside is that there are, literally, billions of websites so the book buyers aren’t likely to find your website
When books become available and affordable, the value of reading and writing became apparent. Ideas could be spread rapidly. When people could read they could learn more from others and from the past. Things started to change very rapidly (for the times). Can you imagine how exciting it would have been to live during the renaissance
Have you read all these books? I have several answers, including: – “I’m working on it.” or “Yup. Twice.” Another one: “Do you read much?” Me: “Four or five books a week.” “I wish I had the time to read that much.” Me: “It’s just a matter of priorities. I wish I had time to tidy the store and clean my house.” ——————————— Priorities are important, but often get forgotten. Or they change but we don’t notice – and sometimes the new priorities aren’t really ours. We’ve been sidetracked. It’s a good idea, occasionally, to stop and think about what you’re doing and why. I think most of us used book sellers got into the business because we love books: surely not for the money,
With so many transactions happening on the internet, it has become increasingly important to pay attention when buying, to track your purchases, and to monitor your credit card bills, debit card transactions, etc. There are so many scams going on out there that I wouldn’t bother to write about any particular one, except that this one is by a well-known company that friends of mine have used, and that I was going to use, but, fortunately, had not got around to. You will occasionally see ads on the web, or in your junk mail box, offering free business cards. At the site below you can read over 200 posts from people who have had bad experiences over the past 18 months. http://www.thegeneva.com/vistaprint-scamvprewards-scam-warning/#comment-17802 If you
- 1
- 2