Saturday Gift Post--New Arrivals, New Boswell Bags

Several reorders of gift product came in this week, including the plush we put on our "literary taxonomy" case. Since they are selling well enough, I brought in a few new items, including Queen Elizabeth, Abraham Lincoln, and to tie in with his bestselling Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters, Barack Obama. Regarding the book, the Loren Long illustrations are also wonderful; he was the guy behind last year's popular Otis. Every time a new assortment comes in, there's a little bit of buzz from booksellers, and that is not a bad thing. I'm straying away from my original idea to carry the authors, but there are books in our store about all our new subjects, lots of them.

We'll see how the book and plush's sales are affected by his break with his core over the tax compromise. I'm not too worried about the plush--the minimums are very good on this line at two. And I tell you this to say we will take special orders on any of their other plush items, as I think that I have a good chance to sell one of just about anything they carry. Yes can browse the catalog when you're next in the store.

We also got a restock of journals and boxed cards from several of our core vendors. With a lot of these vendors, its important to rotate through different items, to make sure the selection looks fresh, but if it sells quickly, I will restock it like a staple, like the folk art birds journal. I added this lark journal, which has a leather-like finish, and we sold one in less than an hour after putting it out. And I will let you in on a secret--if it's got hearts on it, I'm squirreling it away at this point for January, when I need stuff for our Valentine's table.

The nonbook news this week came more from the supply-buying department. Though we love the "Eat Sleep Read" generic ABA bags, we finally decided to make the commitment to Boswell plastic bags. We used our local printer, Brew City Promotions, and the bags, while not #8 biodegradable, are #4 recyclable. Of course the problem with that is that Milwaukee doesn't recycle #4 for residences, but some of the suburbs do, as do the private companies that service businesses and apartment buildings. It did turn out that the biodegradable label is a bit misleading--it was not 100% biodegradable--only parts of it were. Here's the code info from Daily Green on #1 through 7.

Of course our plastic bag use is way down from the past. We ask folks if they want a bag and put as much as we can in our two sizes of paper bags. I specifically chose a bag sturdy enough that it could be reused. Please reuse it--that's marketing for us*! We do still offer a Boswell cloth bag, which like our plastic bag, is made in the United States. Alas, once it rains or snows, concerns are outweighed by many customers over protecting their books, and plastic use goes way up.

*Please do not use our Boswell bag when you are doing evil things, like robbing convenience stores or kicking the elderly.