Reporting on the State of the Store for Publishing Trends, Our Current Email Newsletter, Plus We Get a New Hand Cart

Back at Schwartz, Publishing Trends would ask us to do something every year. I can't even remember what it was, but since David told me to do it, I did it. Last month Amy Rhodes, long-time publisharista and new partner at PT, bounced the idea of me writing a state of the business from a bookseller's perspective. The piece would be alongside one publishing person and one agent.

If you read this blog, there's little that I say that will be news to you. But who knows? Maybe I came up with a revelation while I was writing.

"In my twenty-fifth season as a bookseller, and my second as a bookseller-proprietor, I’ve come to believe that the only constant is change. When I started, the local department store still had a book department, and our fiercest competitors were other independents. Since then I’ve dealt with the rise of book superstores, the growth of mass merchant book departments, the push of book publishers into nontraditional retail (cooking stores, home improvement, craft stores, etc), internet sales, and now e-books. So what else is new?"
Continue reading on the PT website.

The other columnists are perspectives from editor/publisher David Rosenthal and agent Jacqueline Murphy. You'll find links to their columns on the left hand of the website.

Speaking of links, for those of you who don't get our email newsletter, here's a link to it in the Constant Contact Archive. In addition to event info, we've got some takes on some fresh Boswell's Best titles. I'm not sure how it happened, but it's a lotta Scribner.

And finally, because what is a blog post without a photo, here's a picture of our new hand truck. Unlike the old one, it's convertible. I do a lot of offsite events and it's been very difficult to set up. I also broke our only moving dolly--it collapsed from the weight.

This new cart should work better. It's also green. We got it from Demco, which is actually a privately owned business out of Madison. They actually also own Gaylord of Syracuse, which is where I did price comparison.