Bookstore Opening Soon Approaching

As I write this on Sunday night, there are now just 20 days until the bookstore’s opening, Oct 20. I don’t know if I’ll be ready or not, but I am determined to open regardless. It’s time to start selling some of the astounding mountains of books that continue to grow around me. This week was the Chatham Community Library book sale, and somehow I managed to find room in my store for 500 more books. On Saturday, bag day ($5 per bag) I packed 430 books into 20 bags. These were books that had not sold the day before for $1 per trade paperback or $1.50 per hardback. Yet, there were many great books left, and other buyers found as many or more than I did. My wife keeps telling me “we don’t need any more books,” and she’s right – in the abstract. But need isn’t really the point. I don’t need a copy of the “Essays of Montaigne,” even if it’s 1947 edition illustrated in color by Salvador Dali. Or the luxuriously illustrated 1958 “History of Paris and the Parisians.” Or Ezra Pound’s “Personae” (1956 edition) with a nice dust jacket. And those are just three of the interesting, if unnecessary, volumes I unearthed for less than 25 cents per book.

The library sale is also worthwhile because I get to meet some of my fellow book dealers. On the first day I would guess there were 30 dealers of one kind or another lined up before the doors opened. Most, I gather, are internet dealers, identifiable by the hand held scanners they brandish like gunslingers. Someday I may join their ranks, but first I have to learn what I can sell in my store; the internet and the rest of the whole wide world will have to wait.

I got confirmation today that for our grand opening, now set for Nov. 3, novelist and local-hero Daniel Wallace will attend and do a reading. Daniel has a book forthcoming entitled “The Kings and Queens of Roam,” due in May. Perhaps he will give us a sneak preview of that, or maybe he’ll read from “Big Fish,” for which he is, justly, revered in North Carolina. I should mention also that my store does not have a meeting space large enough to accommodate a celebrity of his magnitude so we will meet across the street at Pittsboro’s most renowned steampunk coffeehouse, followed by book signing in the bookstore.

With an opening to promote and a date to work with, I have started to think about advertising and publicity. It happens that my daughter has a friend who is a marketing major at UNC-Chapel Hill and she has taken on Circle City Books as her class project. Since I am still working under the inflexible strictures of the 24-hour day, I don’t have time to think about marketing, so this is a great help. She has a media list and press releases and other novel approaches to the generation of publicity, and I think she is certainly deserving of an “A” in this class, even if there are still more than two months left in the semester.

And speaking of help, my wife is organizing a community work day for some of our friends to stop by, look the place over and put in a few hours sorting books, painting and finishing up some shelf-building projects. As I get closer to October 20, I become more aware of how much help I need, and how I especially need a little help from my friends.