Notes From the Book Trail

Easter is already a passing memory, a blur of plastic eggs, baskets, cooking, birthday celebrations and little boys racing around the football field in post-rain wildness. Reality showed up bright and early Monday morning with big demands and no mercy. By 7 a.m. we were on the road headed toward Cleveland to retrieve the books Eric bought late last week. Our friend’s son helped, which was great – I shudder to think what time we’d have gotten home had he not. The problem is that even though we packed one hundred boxes a quarter of the books require a second trip. The store’s enormous cube van is roomy, but Eric feared we might be exceeding the weight limit, so we stopped at the hundred mark (we also ran out of boxes!). We do, however, deserve straight A’s for efficiency. I packed the boxes, Eric put them on the dolly and took them outside, and Andy hefted them onto the truck. Once we got them home the guys unloaded them into the garage and stacked them neatly against one wall.

Today every muscle in my back keens like a hired mourner at an Irish wake. If I’d had the sense God gave a gnat I would have gone inside and worked on something else when we got home, but did I? Of course I didn’t. Within five minutes of Andy’s departure I was out there rifling through the boxes in search of buried treasure. I wish I could say I found a lot of it, but I didn’t.  As I had guessed and Eric confirmed, most of the books dropped in online value. In fact, had I gone along to see them I may not have bought them, or at least offered less for them. We’ll do okay – it’s not that -- but it’s a lot of work for what it is, despite the fact that the lawyer seems to think we got  the Crown Jewels.

The best book so far is the 1933 signed limited first edition of Ohio Indian Trails by Frank Wilcox which I’ve had  twice before. It sells in the three figure range, but I’m not putting it online this time. Last weekend at the antiques mall I sold that beautiful Ohio book I told you I bought at the book fair, so I’m thinking I might haul the Indian Trails over there too and save some on the commission. As I’ve mentioned at least two billion times, my love affair with online selling has drifted so far south it’s been sighted somewhere off the coast of Georgia.

I did, however, find a lot of stuff for the mall already, which is good, because even with all the books we’ve gotten in here in the last few months my stash isn’t looking all that “stashy” these days. So far I also found eleven titles to list online (see photo below), so that’s good too. As much as I would like to pull the plug on the internet of course I can’t really do it. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

Here’s a jaw-dropping statistic for you though. In the last month I uploaded a grand total of ten books to my various sites – that’s right, TEN books – primarily because of the cold and the book fair. Why I have sold anything at all is anybody’s guess, but it’s certainly been nothing to write home about. So today there’s no choice but to hunker down and do some serious listing. In addition to the new books from yesterday I have quite a lot that I’d been hoarding for the book fair. I actually like to list – it’s what comes with it that I’m not so crazy about. But I’ll make a pot of dark roast coffee and lose myself in the process, which should make for a satisfying day even if I do mutter endless curses at what I see on the screen.

Then come tomorrow morning we’ll hit the road again in search of yet more books. Believe it or not, we have another lead in Cleveland.