Magazines and Baskets = BUSY!

As it turned out, I had no time to play with the basket stuff at all yesterday, as I had to get the 26 Spur magazines ready to ship. This meant pressing a few creased corners, cleaning them all with Clean Cover gel, and writing a detailed invoice because their prices ranged from $20 to $16 each. All told, they added up to around $500, but I discounted to $400, then added Ohio sales tax and shipping. They’re very large magazines, so they weighed in at around 25 pounds. I had sixty-five of them to begin with, but I sold fifteen from my ebay store back when it was fun to sell there, plus seven more on ABE. I also sold six to this same collector online and a dozen to him in person. A couple summers ago he passed through the area on business and stopped at our store to pick them up after we’d discussed them over the phone. I still have nine left after giving one to a blog reader yesterday.

Anyway, it ended up being quite a job, but of course it was worth it. I know a lot of sellers hate magazines because they take up a lot of room, require more work to sell, and can be slow to move. But I love them – if they’re the right ones – and am willing to go the extra mile because it’s a such pleasure to handle them. I bought the Spurs at auction in 2006 for $150 for the lot, got my money back in six months, and made a very nice profit. Would I buy them again? You bet I would, but I doubt I will ever see that kind of quantity again. Most sellers who list magazines online haven’t a clue how to do it which is why the myth that you can’t sell magazines on the book sites persists. The truth is you CAN, but only if you’re willing to do the work.

The next thing I need to do today is get the mall books ready, so I can drop them off tomorrow before we go the NOBS board meeting. I planned to do it this morning, but then I sold over the phone (no commission – YAY! ) the R.E. Lee Pultizer Prize Edition set I showed you last week and was so downright tickled over it that I decided I needed a reward. So I got out all the basket stuff and my art supplies and made a grand mess all over my wrapping bench. But the good news is the basket’s done and I even made a card which is pictured below. It’s constructed from yellow cardstock, art paper, tissue and a napkin. The portion to the left is raised due to layers and layers of paper, but the whole thing is very textural overall. After finishing it it struck me that I can make something to frame for my office. When I tried before I somehow got intimidated and decided I could only work on a bandbox, but now I think I can do it. Maybe …

So that’s what’s going on here today. If you would like to talk about selling magazines we can do it – just let me know, either here, at my website http://www.garrisonhousebooks.com/  , or at my email address tessk@zoominternet.net. If I don’t hear from anybody on the subject I’ll assume you either know or don’t care about it. I do have something else to tell you, so it won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t share my passion for paper.

Either way, we’ll talk.