Uncategorized « Robin Writes

I’ve noticed that I tend to write a lot about the future when it comes t o these blog posts. What I’m going to do with my life in ten years from now, or even what I’m doing in one year from now. Or even what I plan on doing tomorrow. But the one thing that I never thought would happen within a year from now, or especially in a week from Saturday, is my own book signing.

When Robin first mentioned the idea of me having my own book signing, I didn’t understand. I thought she meant that I was running another book signing, like the launch of PAWS, but no. It wasn’t until the second time she mentioned it that I realized she was talking about my own book. She laughed at my face of complete and utter shock, let alone confusion. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would get a book signing for a “silly” chapbook. I don’t even have my own ISBN, and here I am preparing for my own book signing. I have so many friends and family who are asking me for copies of these handmade books. It’s quite liberating. I never thought this simple idea of throwing a chapbook together would lead to this.

I first created a chapbook in my Small Press Publishing class. Our final project was to make a chapbook. Without that class, I never thought making this book would be possible. After my first internship working with SEMO’s small press and taking various classes, I knew I was ready to make my own book, but of course with no inclination that it would lead to this.

Many of the poems in the book are ones that I wrote back in high school. At the time, I was overwhelmed with inspiration. I wrote nearly every day and I never felt the need to go back and edit. I was told that I was a decent writer throughout the years, and the poems in “Enigma” are many of the best I wrote during that time period of my life. There are two published pieces in “Enigma”, the poems “Bluebirds” and “Undertaker”. Both were published with Scapegoat Review back in December of 2012, and ironically unlike the rest of the book, they were written after high school. “Bluebirds” is about an abusive family and the effects it has on each member, while “Undertaker” is about love consuming a person much like death can. “Undertaker” was originally a prose poem I wrote for class. I remember my friend reading it out loud and thinking to myself: “Wow, I write some strange things.” The overall themes of “Enigma” are sex, love, and death, and how the three are connected to one another. According to me, they all influence each other equally and I think that my poems can do the rest of the explaining.

But before I sign off, I just wanted to give a big thanks to Robin for giving me this opportunity. I’ve really enjoyed working with her this summer and this internship has given me some of the best experiences to look forward to in my own publishing career.

My book signing of “Enigma” will be on August 3^rd at 1:00PM at All on the Same Page Bookstore in Creve Coeur, MO. Hope to see you there!

Oh, yes, this blog post is indeed running late today – by about eight hours! I intended to write about something entirely different but, in light of today’s designated “thinking day,” my new topic just barged right on in here.

And yes, it’s about bookstores. I worked on the accounts today, out of necessity; not to pay bills, just to see where we sit.

And we seem to be sitting in a deep, dark hole. Surrounded by a musty scent of decay. There used to be a rope dangling from the top, but what’s left is broken and frayed and just out of reach. So here we sit.

The last time I blogged about this, in a different venue, I was called “whiny.” I’m not whining, and I’m not asking for a handout. I didn’t do that the other time either. What I did do was ask people to support local businesses, and I pointed out that if one person from each household purchased one $3 used book from us, each month, we could pay those bills I mentioned earlier.

How many books does the average household purchase in a month’s time? I couldn’t find that, doing a quick search, but in 2009 this average household spent about $118 in a year on books. So, with 5K homes in our city, that comes out to over half a million dollars each year. I guarantee you that that is so far from our annual sales that there is NO COMPARISON!

Where are these books coming from? Amazon? Probably. I don’t really care, I just know that either my city is illiterate or they’re going elsewhere to buy books. Other indie stores? Maybe. Most of them have been in business longer than we have and many of them have much bigger budgets for advertising.

On the other hand, when I’ve mentioned how odd it is that we STILL have people coming in almost two years after our grand opening, asking how long we’ve been here, other booksellers have told me that they have that problem too. I mean, my city is roughly ten square miles in size and our store is on the main drag, so to speak. Is everyone who lives here homebound?

Funny story, and yes, I’m going to mention it. I met our mayor last month, introduced myself. He said he knew who I was, had seen me online, etc., THEN – he asked if our bookstore was IN HIS CITY. My tongue is still sore from clamping down on it to keep from doing ANYthing but smiling and nodding.

Maybe it’s E-readers – is that the problem? Do people just talk about how much they love “real” books, but secretly just put them on their Kindles?

I don’t have any other answers, but again, let me stress that I’m not whining – we took a big risk, and if it all goes under, it goes under. And if that happens, I wonder how many people are going to say, oh, there was a bookstore there? I wish we’d KNOWN.

Bottom line: come into the damn bookstore already. Buy a book. Three bucks. It won’t kill you. I promise. We’d like to be here so you can do that. In ten years. Or two. Or in six months. Or, hey, we might end up living there – we’d be open 24/7, just like Amazon.