Jellybeans for Breakfast

So I'm getting bored (well, not exactly bored, but restless) of constant data entry today so I thought I'd check out a few of the titles that I had bought, but not looked up and stacked in a slithering pile by my desk (you remember the desk... well, the box piles are somewhat smaller, but then other piles start to emerge like creatures from the Black Lagoon).


The book pictured above is one of those I just looked up. I knew of Miriam Young from her Miss Suzy series (terminally cute and fun-- and collectable) so I picked up this title, which I hadn't seen before, but had a vague recollection of anyway. Turns out, this particular title is one of the most sought after of her books. Prices online are STRANGE and basically overpriced, but then there are a couple of other books like this that have weird collectability. Gator Pie (by Louise Mathews) is one of them.

The book itself is cute. It's illustrations are generally nice, but, to my eye, nothing overly special and the story is about friendship and friends doing all sorts of crazy, fun stuff (without their parents or school to hinder them). But the PRICES.... man.... $100 is minimum and one strange soul has the book listed for $600.00. As if he's EVER going to get that for a picture book like this!

I'm taking a more moderate approach to my pricing, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face either. Right at the moment, I finished entering the data for it, but I'm not listing it on line until after this weekend, just in case someone at the Book Fair interested.

Now I'm not putting the book, the illustrations or the prices down -- in fact, if I can send this book to someone who fondly remembers it & wants to pass it on to a loved one, that's GREAT. That's one of my favorite ways to sell books -- to people who really CARE about the book, the story, the illustrator, etc.

Still, the PRICES.....

WOW!

In other news, I'm down to the day before launch to the Gold Rush Book fair. I've got 18 boxes packed (WAY down from the last time... when I took 33 boxes). I'm hoping that less crowded, more front facing books will help. Also, I'm doing this because I'm getting older and my knee is already protesting the work it's going to have to do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be buyers out there and that I've got what they want. On the good news side, I heard from a former customer of mine today who is going to the fair & asked me to bring a couple of books for her... that's GOOD news!

On the bad news side, my allergies are not getting better & my head is fuzzy and achy most of the time and I'm feeling draggy and rather grouchy. Not a good combination when you have to be sparkly and on your toes (and can add & subtract without making mistakes) for the entire weekend.

I'll try to post tomorrow, but this might have to hold you through until Monday (or Tuesday....)

Field Trip Number Two in two days...

Well -- The thing in the middle of the picture is an Australian Skink (on the small side). The fuzzy stuff at the bottom of the picture is someone's hair and then there's the pair of knees at the top of the picture.

This is one of the very few photos that came out (I keep telling you, my skills with the camera are shaky at best) of the first part of a two part field trip last Friday. We visited a local natural history museum where there were mock-ups of different California habitats (with real stuffed animals staring nose to nose at you -- including a full sized Puma / Mountain Lion / Cougar..).

The second portion of the trip was a nature walk in a semi-local State park with a guide. It was GREAT! Unfortunately, many of the kids were either unimpressed or spent their entire time worring about dirt getting on them. Rather sad. Most of the parents enjoyed it, and number two son (who had come last year to the same park with the same guide for a walk for cub scouts) was having a great time getting more detail than he had absorbed last time. Too cool.

Yesterday I tried to get a picture of the large black carpenter Bee that was buzzing around the mock sweet pea (I think) bush in front of the house yesterday, but again.... my skills with a moving object...

here's the best shot:




The plant is the one with purple flowers. The bee.. well even as big as it is to my eye, you can hardly see it here... it's to the right of the plant and it's the black flapping thing on the underside of one of the flowers. Boy do I wish I had a real camera with a telephoto lens and some real skills. Nice plant though.

Yesterday was supposed to be a finishing day to get the books covered and boxed for the Book Fair this coming weekend. Well, I spent two hours covering, but not boxing and the bookcases which were supposed to come down & get stacked ready for the van haven't been. I'll try and get some more done after this. Right now I'm sending out my monthly newsletter with a note about the fair. Probably way too late, but that's the way it's going around here this month.

Hopefully, I'll spend more time tomorrow boxing and preparing than trying to enter new books into the database. At least, that's what I NEED to be doing.

Now it's off to baseball.

Really Rosie... Maurice Sendak

Oops, another sideways picture. I need the pictures for my descriptions, but I just can't seem to take the time to do them perfectly -- also sometimes I think the frame is straight, but can't tell til after I put the card into the computer if it really is or not.

(PS: most... well, actually, 99% of the books pictured on my blog are available on my website -- I don't know how long some of them will last, but if you see something you like, find the link off to the side of this blog and have at it!)

I LOVE Children's picture books. It was late coming, as I've already mentioned (my first loves were youth chapter books and then science fiction-- both genres where you see the picture in your mind's eye, not on the page). However, after son number one was born, I started noticing more things I liked about children's books -- and it went downhill (or uphill depending on how you look at it) from there.

Every time I went out book hunting, I'd find MORE children's picture books than what I was seriously searching for. Pretty soon I found that I had a knack for finding good titles... and then...


There's a lot of "and then...." in my life.

Currently, I'm sure I've mentioned that I'm trying to log more non-fiction work into my database to see if I can jumpstart sales.

--- You know, life would be breeze if I could do the job I love without having to worry about paying those pesky bills! ---

So far, it's been working, but I miss entering the children's books. I'll probably pull out a box of them soon and dig in. But this next week or so, I'm going to start frantically searching through my boxes for the last few books I want to take to my next book fair. The book fair is in Grass Valley, CA (up the road about two+ hours) and is one of my favorites. It's a small fair, but very friendly and relaxed.

The thing is, BEFORE the weekend at the fair, there are three to four weeks where I panic and try to figure out what I'm taking, what my focus is, why I'm going, how stupid I'm going to look, am I going to take books that will sell --- oh, the list could go on for days, weeks... don't get me started.

So now it's getting to be crunch time. I need to start mentally preparing and deciding. And then I have to check everything, poke around, pull the boxes out for transportation & start filling them, etc. etc.


NONE of which has anything to do with the beginning of my post about Children's books -- except that I'm currently trying to decide if I should take a bunch of picture books to the fair, or if I need to leave them home in favor of the non-fiction new stuff....


If you have an opinion -- especially if you're going to the fair -- let me know.

(PS: I'll post a link to the Gold Rush Fair information another day. Today I have to run & take my son to the Dr. for his yearly physical)