Monday, August 16, 2010

Stress and the Modern Bookseller


Whenever we go to Michigan to see our little grandsons for the weekend there’s invariably a price to be paid on return. Mostly it’s a good one in the form of a large stack of books to wrap and many emails to send. Happily, the orders showed up in respectable numbers -- a minor miracle given the current state of things – but this time they were accompanied by Murphy and his stupid law about how if it CAN go wrong it will. In the end, after much gnashing and rending, it worked out about as well as it could given everything that transpired. But it did get me to thinking about that fine line between being a conscientious bookseller and a neurotic-bordering-on-psychotic one.

The first problem to emerge was an alibris order, which I couldn't fill because I didn't have the book. I very clearly remembered the circumstances, so there was no need to even embark on a treasure hunt. A couple weeks ago a woman from Canada had ordered it on ABE, but it was over-sized and required extra postage, so I had to send a request for additional shipping through ABE’s message system.Ever since the economy went south these requests are more frequently refused than they had been previously, so I’m always reluctant to remove the book elsewhere until I’m sure it’s actually sold, especially if it’s not a hot title, which this one definitely wasn’t. So – I’m sure you can see where this is headed – by the time she accepted the postage increase I’d forgotten I hadn’t deleted it which meant that I had to hit the cancel button on alibris. As if the cancellation itself doesn’t make you feel bad enough alibris tightens the screw by turning the order button from a bright cheerful green to failing red just so you get the picture of how badly you performed.

Next came problem two. The last thing I did Friday before leaving for the trip was send an upload of new titles to all my venues. One of these was a genealogy about a specific family with a most unusual name. No one had a copy for sale anywhere online, but it was possible to download it free as a PDF file, so it didn’t appear to be anything worth worrying about. Yep – you got it -- multiple orders for this one! I accepted the ABE order, canceled the Biblio, and marked up a second strike-out.

And then came problem three. This one was an order from ABE for a lovely little miniature, leatherbound The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam. I knew I had it, so no problem there – except that I couldn’t FIND it! We had taken all of our miniature books to the Akron Antiquarian Book Fair in April. All were in the same box, which meant that if there was no Rubiyat there were no minis PERIOD -- fifteen or twenty little charmers forever lost. That was it! Instantly I morphed from anxious, crabby bookseller into a basket case, convinced I had left the box at the show.

“No, you didn’t,” Eric reassured me. “I KNOW you didn’t. I went back and checked everything in our space before we left and there was nothing there. I also distinctly remember you holding the box in your lap on the way home.”

“Then why can’t I FIND it?” I wailed, tracing and retracing the same path through the stacks like an expectant father in a 1950’s maternity ward. My heart pounded, my stomach knotted like a macramé plant hanger from the 70’s, and I literally wrung my hands while Eric shined a bright light across every single shelf. But, alas,no box.

To put this anguish into perspective you have to know that I came down the chute at birth a classic Type A personality. I could rattle off enough instances to prove it your hair would stand on end, but I’ll keep it to a single example. Once in fifth grade the hateful Sister Ina informed me that I had not turned in a geography notebook. Not only I had I turned it in, but it was the Cadillac of geography notebooks! It was to geography what Chunky Monkey is to Ben and Jerry’s. Was she CRAZY? ME fail to deliver? Not a chance. But instead of risking failure, I went home, and turned out another one even better than the previous. By the time I got done the sun had risen on Kenyon Street and ravaged National Geographics lay strewn like dead bodies in a war zone around my small bedroom. Proudly, I bore it off to school, only to be told by the hateful Sister Ina that she’d found the first one yesterday after she’d talked to me. No apology, no marveling at the sight of a second one, nothing but a shrug and business as usual. Most people would have been filled with ten-year old self-righteousness. Me? I was very relieved.

Which brings me back to yesterday. Finally, Eric convinced me to pull all the other orders, have some dinner, and try looking for the box again when I’m calm (ha-ha). But it did sound like a reasonable plan, so I went to the children’s section and pulled a copy of Sorche Nic Leodhas’ 1965 Caldecott winner, Always Room For One More. And there, out of the corner of my eye, came a vision of such wonderfulness that I immediately ran upstairs and ate a celebratory bowl of ice cream right on the spot. After the book fair I’d put the box of miniature books on a shelf in the children's section. But after the book sale in Cincinnati in June I’d stacked a thick three volume set horizontally IN FRONT of it.

I have no explanation for this, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I wound up with two strikes from three crazy-making events and more anxiety than any of it was really worth. I’m sure every seller reading this can match this story and maybe even trump it – it’s certainly not unique. What MAY be unique is my extreme reaction. I admit I’m a slow learner, but at 59 I truly do intellectually know that all any of us can do is our best. We are not perfect. We are not going to be perfect. All, we can do is care passionately about our work and do it with care. After that, we have to let it go. Alibris and any other site on the net can pop up enough red buttons to make a clown suit, but in the end only WE can separate what we’re responsible for from what is clearly garden variety bad luck.

Which means, of course, that I really only struck out once because I had no control over a double order for the same book. I could live with an occasional mistake I think were I not also dogged by those pesky little yellow rating stars, which by their very nature are bad for the health and well being of Type A personalities. As it is, I'll probably remain neurotic-bordering-on-psychotic until the last book is sold.

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