The Last Roundup

I linked to the Journal Sentinel story on the closing earlier, but there are a couple of more interesting pieces you might not have read that might fill in any gaps you have about Schwartz closing and the new stores opening afterwards. I’m not going to spend a lot of posts doing this. But I need at least one so a bunch of pieces are all in one place; then my sister can take her laptop to my mom’s apartment and show them to her.

The On Milwaukee piece from Bobby Tanzilo, who has been a great supporter. I use their daily update feature, by the way, and it’s quite informative. I believe you need to create an account to do this. By the way, the secret to leaving comments (for those people who asked, and believe it or not, there was more than one) is to open a Google account. You can turn it on and off, so Google doesn’t always track every click you make (yes, a Police remake), but only some of them.

Here’s the piece in our free weekly, the Shepherd Express, whose online presence leaves the shepherding to the print staff. It was done after a bank approved me, so I’m cockier.

Here’s what the trade is saying. Surprise! It’s pretty similar. Once again, my years of not being an ass paid off (to be argued later) in some nice words from John Mutter. This newsletter is targeted to booksellers, though it’s read heavily everywhere in the book business. Publishers Weekly and Bookselling this Week are pretty similar, and I seem to always have trouble getting Publishers Lunch (perhaps because I mooch at their free edition) so one link seems to suffice.

You can navigate blogs better than I can. And at this point, there are a lot of them so my head would spin linking to them all. I’m only linking to a couple of other bookstore blogs because they were particularly nice. You can find all the mean blogs on your own.

Vromans in Pasadena implies that I might be hip. I don’t think they were referring to me, but perhaps this is from me waxing that we contemplated taking light rail to the store. We didn't. FYI, we first saw those great Mon Key plastic key covers there and we’ve since sold a ton of them. You can't order them on our web site, but we supposedly have a few left in our Shorewood shop. Their email is shorewood@schwartzbooks.com and their phone is 414-931-3111.

Here’s Downer Avenue bookseller Justin Riley’s take. It’s tear-inducing and likely to be widely quoted when his graphic novel hits bestseller lists.

And a little audio clip for you (alas, difficult to dance to) from WUWM’s Lake Effect. It was only after the interview that I found out the name of the series is “Trashed” but once you explain that it’s about moving ahead in a midst of a bad economy, it all comes together.

My voice is very nasal. Not quite Fran Drescher and with a slightly toned down accent, but be forewarned.

Enough of that. Here’s what’s happening in the next week:
1. I’m doing all my Schwartz work, as always.
2. I’m talking to lawyers for some opening store projects.
3. I’m off to Winter Institute in Salt Lake City. It’s a bookstore meeting from by the ABA where we are inundated with ideas, workshops, speakers, and authors for two and half days, and if we’re lucky, one or two things stick. The publishers and especially our wholesalers, Ingram and Baker and Taylor, foot much of the bill, so it’s hard to pass up. And there’s a feeling that Water for Elephants broke out of the first one in 2006.