Hey, Folks!
Here we are ten days short of the big holiday and, well, it just doesn’t feel very holiday-like for me. You would suppose that working in a retail concern that I would end up being immersed in the holiday spirit, but no, I actually feel pretty far removed from it. I’m lucky that the comic industry has a built in weekly audience and that most of this material is made for serial enjoyment. As a result of this I have a pretty locked in audience and so the vagaries of traditional retail wisdom don’t always affect me the same way. I think that there is a lot less gift procuring traffic this season, but normal traffic seems unaffected. I don’t know if people have simply started ordering their comic related holiday gifts online or if I need to start doing different kind of promotions. We will, of course, have our annual post-holiday deep discount sale in January and February which never ceases to be popular so maybe I just need to wait until then for my holiday traffic. I will say that gift certificate purchases are up a bit this year and that I really need to get off of my duff and get some gift cards printed up by Square. Oh, well, something to look forward to next year.
I sold a few hundred books from the dollar boxes this week and now I have to get moving and do a cull of the overstock boxes in the back room as well as a cull of the back issue boxes on the floor. I have rather been enjoying Monarch’s foray into the back issue market after not really carrying much for years, but these collections tend to build up pretty quickly and I have to remember that we need to live within our space. I suppose I could squeeze a couple of more tables of back issue boxes into the area allocated for them, but that would a little monetary investment and a lot of shifting things around to really make it happen quickly. Plus, Brian has been at me to replace the tables that we’ve used for the back issues for over 30 years before they collapse on themselves and he’s not wrong. UGH…another issue for next year although it must be said that next year isn’t far off…lol.
I’ve finally gotten around to listening in to Part Three of the Sandman audio book series. I loved the Netflix miniseries adapting the first three trade paperbacks of the series, but I have to admit that I REALLY loved the audiobook presentation. I think at this point I actually love it more than the TV show. I’m currently listening to the end of Brief Lives and it just amazes how Neil Gaiman is a brilliant enough writer that he can once again rewrite and adapt his own material from 30 years ago and make it as interesting and involving as it was the first time around. Also, adapting a comic book into an audio book!?! What kind of sense does that even make? Well, I can tell you that it is a real pleasure and Gaiman has done a fantastic job with it. I’ve been listening to it via the Audible app, but if you have any friends or family who are Gaiman fans or, indeed, of good audiobooks then this would be an amazing present for them.
Okily Dokily…that’s it for me this week. I’ve really got to get this stuff ready to go live and get it posted. Thursdays are generally my “Quiet Day” and I use it to get caught up with all of my Lunar and PRH FOC orders and I really should be working a bit more on the Diamond December initial orders which are due next Thursday. One of these days I’m going to have to really dig in and show Brian how to manage these things, but at this point I am so used to be the person in charge of all of the ordering that I’m not sure I could handle someone else doing it…lol. I hope that everyone has a great week and if I don’t have a chance to see you before next weekend let me offer all of you a hearty HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Eddie