Two Weeks Before the Opening of Swan’s Fine Books… It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Sound familiar? Have you ever heard the old saying, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans? I’d worked hard to draw up a wonderful timeline of everything that needed to be done to open the store, as planned, on May 1. Oh, it was a thing of beauty: a lovely outline, with all sorts and manner of indents, radio buttons, and highlighting. Everything neatly laid out with a day, time, name, desired outcome. I knew that if I only followed THE PLAN, the month of April would be smooth sailing and May 1 would arrive without a hitch. Well, God
Opening a Bookstore Archive
a new bookstore is getting ready to open. We join Laurelle Swan and her weeks leading up to the big day. Four Weeks Before Opening… While brodarting at 5:30 am this morning, already well into my second cup of coffee, I found myself thinking – what HAVE I gotten myself into? I’m a rational person. I’ve always played it safe, taken minimal risks, paid my bills on time, put some money aside. Raised in New England I’ve absorbed the puritanical notion that fun must be bad, hard work is its own reward, and you shouldn’t expect to enjoy work, after all, then it wouldn’t be work, right? My last day at my paying job – in a career I’ve had for 30 years – is
Tomorrow begins the second month of Circle City Books’ existence. That’s the day on which I change the coding that I assign to every book when I price it. Until now, I’ve coded all my books “CC1” indicating that the book went on the shelf during the store’s first month. Starting tomorrow, and lasting for another month, the coding will be “CC2.” At some point I suppose, books that have been on the shelf too long will be sentenced to some kind of punishment: the bargain bin, execution, maybe a pep talk. In any case, the end of my first month finds the store still in business, and doing better than I expected. (I admit to low expectations.) The time change has revealed to me
Daniel Wallace arrived at Circle City Books Saturday afternoon and kept an audience spellbound with an artful reading of the first chapter of his new book, The Kings and Queens of Roam. Wallace’s appearance as the chief feature of our Grand Opening was a complete sensation for several reasons. First of all, if an author has a distinctive voice, and Wallace does, he can suffuse a reading with the inflection and tone the story requires. Second, he has a gift for inviting an audience into his world and making it feel welcome. And third, his writing, wry and ironic, smoothly unfolding in bold, picturesque sentences, sparkles when read aloud. The result was an audience eager for more but facing a six-month wait until the book
I finished my first week as a bookseller by closing up and dashing to a wedding, late of course, but there, nonetheless. Instead of disapproving looks from the on-time guests, and censure from the bride, I was welcomed with understanding and enthusiasm. I am the Quixotic bookman, tilting at windmills and Nooks and iPads, and slack must be cut. I get the same treatment in the store. I can’t count how many people told me this week how happy they are that there’s finally a bookstore in Pittsboro. It’s as if I’d opened the only health clinic in a remote wilderness. The customers are thanking me for opening my store as sincerely as I thank them for stopping by. But they also note how “brave”