Tuesday, April 05, 2011

The Book Fair Effect



Well, I think Leo the cat has decided he’s moving in. Not only does he hang out in places where you can see him, but he’s eating more (though more is relative) and is even engaging in unbecoming behavior. First I found him sitting on top of he kitchen island and then caught him just as he was about to exercise his claws on the slipcase of a Limited Editions title signed by THORNTON WILDER!! But to balance the scorecard, he has also made us laugh. Catnip to this guy is like a reefer dream in Technicolor. He squirms, he rolls, he flips in circles – can’t get enough of the weed. But the funniest thing is what we’ve taken to calling “wacko-wacko hour.” Around five or six p.m. an astonishing force takes him over. He stands at the corner of a wall and leaps wildly into the air, a mind-blowing three quarters of the way up, then lands back on the ground, only to repeat the performance. Catie says he does this many times in a row, but so far we’ve been treated to just two magnificent jumps and a mad lap around the kitchen before he collapsed in his (my) favorite chair for the rest of the evening.

But this post isn’t about Leo, cute though he is. It’s about another mysterious force known as the Book Fair Effect. I’m sure that somewhere along the line I mentioned that last year, our first to exhibit at the Akron Antiquarian Book Fair, I began to notice a strange phenomenon just as soon as I began to pack. Books that had languished all year long on their shelves suddenly developed an aura that made them irresistible. One by one they departed like jet-setters from the wooden boxes I’d placed them in, headed for parts all over the globe. While I haven’t as yet filled the wooden boxes Eric built for shows, I have been pulling out titles I know I want to take. Apparently that’s enough to fully activate the Book Fair Effect because this morning one antiquarian book and four not- small- enough-to-quality-as-miniature, but still pretty small books of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales were ordered within the same hour. The book is The Soldier's Story of His Captivity at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and Other Rebel Prisons published in 1871 (and later rebound oibviously) which I bought last fall at the fancy estate sale where they not only served food and hot drinks, but provided fires for warmth. It’s a great book and I expected it to disappear fast, but it did not until I decided it should go to the fair. As for the fairy tales, they’ve been hanging around over a year.

I love those little books though and this is the third time I’ve had them, but this particular set is less desirable than the sets I had prior. The first was best – all four books with dustjackets and their golden award winner seals attached to the ends of their red ribbon markers, nestled like babies in their very rare original box. The second time there was no box, but I had the jackets and the seals. This time I just had the books without any additional accoutrements. But STILL, they are very cute and need a home, so I figured off to the fair with them too and if they ddidn’t sell they could take up residence afterward at the antiques mall. Instead they are off to New York tomorrow morning.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, or maybe even gloating, I am -- both things. I love, love, love that the books found homes, but there is a problem here that scares me to death. I have had, as you know and are probably sick to death of hearing about, a year-long acquisition problem. I did just get in a lot of books from the dealer at the show Eric was at in Kalamazoo and from our long-lost picker, but, remember, all those books are about weapons. I am not a gun book specialist and if I was the fair would probably be a bust, so I cannot haul in boxes and boxes of gun books. I will have one box out of sixteen, but that’s it. So, I need the goodies to hang around awhile. Fortunately, a large pile of them has not ever been listed, and will not BE listed, until the fair ends, so that much at least is protected. I could also retrieve some stuff from the antiques mall if needed, but a lot of the good stuff has disappeared from there too. Last week alone I sold a record 19 books in one day, a good half of which were fair material. Of course I loved that too, but nibbling around the edges of my elation was anxiety – LOTS of anxiety which is building as we speak. In fact, last night I dreamed that my teeth fell out. For me this is classic. Push up the anxiety meter high enough and invariably my dreams focus on teeth. Don’t ask why because I don’t know. It just works that way.

Wait a minute – I just realized something! I’m always talking about book magic and how all you have to do is touch a book, think about a book, change something in its description and suddenly it will sell. The Book Fair Effect isn’t a mysterious force at all. Or no more so than plain old book magic is because it IS plain old book magic. By taking them to the fair I focus on these books, I touch them, I pencil in their prices, and I pack them up in boxes. Of COURSE they sell. But here’s the rub – how can I get ready for both the show and Easter unless I start pricing and packing? I could temporarily take my inventory offline of course, but there’s one small problem -- no sales, no money.

So I will keep packing and just try to have a little faith. There’s time – three weeks – and one book sale for sure coming up and maybe a second. Last year I did buy a first edition Twain a week before the sale, so anything is possible. There could also be an estate sale, an auction, a phone call, a – something.

And if not, I can always climb the walls. Seems to ease the tension for Leo.

2 comments:

sundaymornancy said...

I'm thinking Wacko-wacko is the next Zumba dance craze. Leo, you little trend setter, you!

tess said...

Yeah, he's a cool guy. Consider who he lives with (not us) -- his REAL home. They put the pop in pop culture.