After a long layoff I’m back. I had deliberated a while on whether I wanted to keep this blog going or not. The main reason both for the deliberation and my recent absence is due to my moving our neighborhood bookshop from Bricks and Clicks to Clicks only. Some of you may know that I own Zeeba Books in Montreal. It was a tough decision but after nearly four years of having a terrific little Internet/Cafe/Bookstore I made the decision to return to the corporate world. On the surface it may make you shudder but to be honest I am very much enjoying my new job, certainly enjoying the new checks and still love selling books, though on a much smaller scale. We trimmed our stock down from 15 000 to a comfortable 5 000, moved them all to my house then wen looking for a job. With my background in IT it didn’t take very long; three interviews and a couple of weeks later I was hired by SirsiDynix. The funny thing is that they are a Integrated Library System software company. I troubleshoot fairly complex library setups.
There’s my story. Some plans for the next few weeks include writing a post on my own hindsight and what I could/should have done differently to ensure the prosperity of my shop. I could have made some better decisions but I couldn’t control the slumping economy and rising rent. I also plan on encouraging you all to continue submitting stories. Most of the content for this site has come from you guys and together we have created a nice depository of information that would be a pity to loose. Hope to hear from you, please feel free to comment and if you are not already in our list of Sellers by Specialty list then please send me your coordinates along with your specialty and we’ll add your shop.
One other note, I’ve started up a more personal blog called The Big Desk, feel free to check that one out as well. It will have daily updates on personal opinion, travel tips, recipes, humour and great thinkers.
It is always difficult making these types of decisions. I wish you the best with your new job and with your bookselling. I hope you keep this blog going, as I have found it very informative and helpful.
I understand your situation and wish you the best of luck with the new job. I would hate to see the blog go away because I do enjoy it but I know that it cannot be a priority. Post when you can.
Rhonda
Wishing you the best Bruce! I know how difficult it can be to juggle time. I hope to send you an article now and then and I certainly hope others do to. This blog is one of my favorites but I have not been doing much blogging on my own site lately. Caught up in the U.S. elections and now that they are over I’ll probably set a new block of time for blog posting.
Good luck with your job, hopefully you can keep posting to this blog.
Thanks for the nice remarks everyone, it’s greatly appreciated.
I’ll do my best to keep this going, I know times are tough in the used book world. I just read a nice piece on Americana Exchange about the potential difficulties in the used book market. If I can help anyone via this site i will try. Let me know if you have a post you’d like to put up or if you have some info to pass along.
Good luck with everything Bruce and give my very best to the wee one and the Mrs. I think if we hadn’t been able to move and get our rent down to a manageable level, we might have done the same (I’m probably jinxing myself speaking in the past tense here).