not too much to say

things are really clearing out here at the store and i've just been a bit sad over the past few days. it was wonderful to have ellen and her asisstant susan here and we had so so much fun with them at the boot yesterday. i am so glad that they came because it gave me two days of focusing on things that did not have to do with the store.

but the sadness is setting in now and i'm having more and more trouble being nice to anyone, including eleanor, chris and pete. i just want to bury my head and be sad, and don't have time for that. everything at the store is in a standstill until wednesday. there are still people coming in, which is great and i want them to buy up as many of these super duper discounted books as possible, but at the same time, i just want to lock the doors and get it over with already. we originally thought we'd do this through the 15th of april, and thank goodness we didn't because it would have been so difficult.

i'm gonna go back to sorting books.

-susie

been thinking...

five years ago i called my dad on the phone and told him that we wanted to open a bookstore. he simply said that was a great idea, because failing to try was worse than failing at trying. he also said, hey, you're young, you'll have tons of time to recover and even successful business men like donald trump have failed a few times before they got it right.

in this blog someone has decided to leave comments that i shouldn't have tried and that i should have been a librarian if i loved books. eleanor and i had a bit of a disagreement yesterday as to whether or not i should respond after much thought, i've decided that it's worth it.

you are right that librarians love books and in my opinion, there should be more libraries and more books. as important as librarians are to books, booksellers are too. bookstores that handsell titles successfully launch careers for some authors. both chains and indies succeed at doing this. but indies have to be there to counteract the way that chains buy. we care about different kinds of books. for this reason, i have stated over and over again (check the press coverage on folletts and b&n) that more bookstores in norfolk are necessary, and that we each fulfill a nitch.

but for goodness sakes, if all we have is chains it's going to be nearly impossible for less-known authors to become known and chains are going to push them around. i have an author friend that named the title of his book after his mother and when b&n asked harpecollins to change it or they would lower the number of books they ordered, harper wanted to. the author said no. b&n lowered their order. this type of bully tactic is "just business" to some, but not to me. it's his work, support it. it's good. but chains don't. if you go to b&n at the beach, you can't find his book, published by a national publisher that is SET in virginia beach. you can't find a book by sheri reynolds or michael pearson either. without the indies, these authors are forgotten and they shouldn't be. their work is important!

i went to business school and was not an english major. i chose books because i saw a need for a bookstore that was community oriented, and i lept. you can choose not to leap in your life, but don't judge me for deciding to in mine. simply because i made a very bad business decision in choosing location and rent price, doesn't mean i failed or my choice in opening a bookstore at all was the wrong one.

i'm proud of the store and what it was to both portsmouth and norfolk and whatever you say will not change that. on a side note, i have never not taken credit for my wrong choices. since you obviously visited the store in portsmouth and still felt it was unsuccessful, i think we will have to disagree as to what makes a bookstore a success. i feel that we did very well in portsmouth. there were many reasons we left portsmouth, many of which we have not discussed publicly, and i had poor judgment in deciding to move to this specific location. ghent residents came over to ask us to move here. i dreamed too big with this space and expected more in sales. i don't need you to point out that mistake to me, and i doubt the rest of the world does either.

as for your attack on the publicity that we get here at bsb, i think it's a business term you should maybe look up. i have worked hard making contacts with local media, of which i have had since we were in portsmouth. but so have the chain stores and you can't deny that they get as much coverage as we do when they open or close a store. it doesn't come easy for us, yet the chains have to make one phone call to say that they're opening and they're covered.

publicity is necessary for any business to be known in their community. i think it's ironic in your first comment that you post that i'm an attention whore but in your last that you state that nobody knew we were here. it's not my fault that people don't know we're here. advertising is expensive and pr isn't always easy. i worked in downtown norfolk for three years and never knew prince books was there. i don't blame sarah for that but myself. she does events that are listed in the paper, she has a website, she has been in norfolk for 25 years, she is active in the community and you see her name around town. by me having my head in the sand and not knowing she existed, i can't blame her. people who read the paper, walk around ghent or participate in it's activities like first friday's and the odu lit. fest or film fest would know we are here. we've been on the news several times. i don't know what else you would have expected me to do. (and i don't want to know it at this point!)

liking a local bookstore and pointing out their faults is fine, but not necessary when they're down and out. not here. this is not a forum discussion. it was a personal space that i was simply devoting to talking to the people that loved me and the store and my dreams. it's not a space for you to bash me or my choices. from this point on, all negative comments will be deleted, so you might as well not leave them.

finally, you said i should examine if i'm ready for the struggles of small business. again, thanks for your judgement but i'm not sure i'm going to listen to it or consider it. you supported your community by shopping locally, and i appreciate that. i supported mine by investing my time and money into a business that you could shop at. i waited tables for nearly 7 months to try and sustain that, funneling all income back into the business to make rent. i spent all my spare time either here or there. not being here during those hours was the only thing that made sense at the time, because i could make money to put into the store. i ran this store for five years, and believe that i know exactly that YES!, i am ready for the struggles of a small business. and you're negativity will not ever keep me from trying again, and again, and again, until i get it right. just like my dad said.

-susie

this weekend is the last weekend.....

i didn't write yesterday because i was a little overwhelmed by some comments that someone wrote in response to my blogging. it's interesting, i started this blog to really "talk" to my family and friends because they all call and want to talk about how i'm doing, and somehow, someone out there is reading it who doesn't think i should be talking at all. at first, i thought that meant i should stop writing, but this morning woke up and remembered why i was writing. so i wouldn't forget important things about the store and how i was feeling and to communicate with the people that love the store and eleanor and i.

i warned chris not to let his daughter ellie read the blog because of this particular story. so...chris don't let ellie read this blog.....

shortly after we moved the store from portsmouth to norfolk, we started to see some regular customers immediately. one guy came in on a sunday when it was just me working, and the store was pretty full. there were maybe 8 people in there, all at the front of the store. he looked around, was always really pleasant and always carried a backpack. he always asked us to hold the backpack so that we didn't have to worry about him stealing. we always told him we didn't care, and he always insisted.

that sunday, this dude asks to use the restroom. i send him back to the dungeon of a restroom and he goes back there for probably half an hour. i didn't check on him that day, at some point i thought that he had left because it was a long long time and there were lots of customers in and out.

the next morning chris and i opened the store. the guy comes back as soon as we open and in a rush asks if he can use the restroom again. we understand the idea that you really have to pee in the early morning because chris and i routinely finish off a pot of coffee between the two of us in an hour. he goes back there and is gone for twenty minutes.

chris has to pee. i have to pee. we argue over whether we have missed him leave. we want to check on him but it might not be pretty back there and we might embarrass him and ourselves. finally, it's agreed that i will go back and see if he's still there. i get in my office and notice that the bathroom door is ajar. not totally open though. so i go back and chris and i debate some more whether or not he has left.

by this point, we both really really have to pee. we don't want to go to anyone else's bathroom because we have ours and generally, we know that the people peeing in there are friends, good customers, ect. i go back again.

he hadn't left. he had left the door open though. he had proceeded to strip down to buck naked, no socks, no shoes, no shirt, and was sitting in the bathroom masturbating! the best part is that when he looked up at me from where he was sitting, and when i shut the door and said i thought it was time for him to leave the bookstore, he calmly said, "oh, sorry it took me so long."

i instantly went and told chris what i had seen and what had happened, and we were both totally confused as to what to do next. we called the police department of course, considering the proximity of the restroom to the kids room. we waited for him to leave and a detective to call us back. he strolled out about three or four minutes later, raised his hand on the way out and said again, "sorry it took me so long."

this guy we affectionately call Mr. Bates at bsb. a few months after the incident the detective assigned to the case called and asked if i thought i could identify the guy in a photo line up. it seems that they had caught a guy in northern virginia masturbating in a bookstore...he told them that he had traveled the state by bus and stopped at small bookstore's along the route and did his thing. it's an interesting story... i thought i was excited by books!

-susie

comments on our blog

dear readers,

just to let you know, we will be monitoring your comments on our blog. if you disagree with me, think i've made bad choices and want to discuss these things with me, that's fine. if you attack me in any way, call me any sort of name and don't even identify yourself, your comments will be erased.

-susie

winding down...

isn't it funny how some songs you hear take you back, make you smile instantly and somehow make you take a big breath, sigh and your heart feel lighter?

this morning i couldn't sleep so at 5:45 i got up and walked rufus and made coffee and ran some laundry and cleaned my kitchen. then i got in the car to run and get some supplies from the grocery store and heard julie clark singing from my ipod, her song gettin' there specifically, i just sat back in my seat and listened. and listened again. and remembered. (www.julieclark.net)

we opened the store in portsmouth in 2002 and in 2004 we went to our very first bookexpo which was in LA. instead of taking plain business cards with us we made a power point presentation about the store, put it on a cd and set it to julie's song, gettin' there. the song was fitting, my thoughts were that we were getting there, we were getting to know authors, publishing people and having fun. that trip was my favorite bookexpo. it was in LA where there is both a flower district and a garment district, this girl couldn't be happier!

but it was more than that. tim farrington was there signing his book the monk downstairs and we surprised him by being the first in his line. we had dinner with tom doherty, the founder of TOR publishing along with his daughters and kevin anderson and brian herbert (frank herbert's son). we were awarded a trip to NYC from random house, which included meeting the staff of crown publishing, eating at Craft and Balthazar and walking for miles throughout the city. we wowed people, and we were on top of the world. i never wanted to do anything other than spend time with these kind of book people again. that song will always take me back there.

so, eleanor just called and gave me some news that a friend who started as a good customer has a bit of a crush on another friend that started as a good customer. if via the store these two have met and become an item, or just remain super good friends forever, i will always remember that the store did achieve what it was supposed to. bringing people together. it was a great conversation to start the day with!

i have to go in early today to speak with chris dinsmore, the asst. business editor at the virginian pilot. for some reason they want to feature me in their "career highlight" section tomorrow so i've got to try and dress a little more appropriately for a photo than i did for port folio. i didn't remind chris that in just 11 days i won't have a career because frankly the store needs the publicity. we still have books to sell.

i'm listening to a mix cd that eleanor once made for sad days. she told me if i was going to be sad to at least listen to somewhat decent sad music. sometimes she can be so so bossy! the song playing right now is "where does the good go" by Tegan and Sarah. i really like this song.

it starts out like this....

Where do you go with your broken heart in tow?
What do you do with the left over you?
And how do you know, when to let go?
Where does the good go? Where does the good go?

it really is a sad song but it always leaves me wanting to shout that there is good still. it is still here. sometimes, well, sometimes you just have to dig to find it.

last night we went shopping for something for me to wear to ellen's event on saturday that wasn't too nice since i'll be lugging books but was nice enough to fit in with everyone else. you can't help but see the enormous signs for barnes and noble throughout the mall, they'll be there in just a few more months.

i get this newsletter each day, shelf awareness, about bookselling and noticed that borders is looking to close four stores in chicago. they're trying to sublet their space before they close their doors. they are struggling because the neighborhoods are struggling. it's an interesting thought about chains filling up our storefronts, here and throughout the country...you won't ever see the manager of these companies out waiting tables to try and keep their doors open in order to fulfill the needs of the community.

gotta go get ready for my picture day!

-susie

ellen burstyn back in ghent!

the last few days have been consumed by not only activities having to do with closing the store but preparing for our events with ellen burstyn. i think i noted yesterday that the event with ellen had been moved the day before to prince books, as we were told that ellen didn't want to do an event in a bookstore that was going out of business. although that was understandable, we were saddened. really sad actually, i can admit now that i cried in my wine glass and bugged all of my friends with half-drunken phone calls stating just, "i feel sad".

but yesterday was better and after speaking with susan at ellen's office (who is WONDERFUL, if ellen is anything at all like this woman, it is going to be the best weekend!) we have decided to move the event back to ghent and to The Boot. it will be at one pm there and josh and dave are going to hook us up with some great food and maybe some wine! i think everyone could use a little wine these days.

12 days to go

today is just another day working towards the goal of closing. it's always good to spring clean and i've just brought in the trash cans from outside and started filling them. with all the junk that i keep for no apparent reason, we'll probably need to go and get the truck and just fill up the bed and take it to the dump. i was thinking of offering things for free, like fake flowers, just for people to take, but really, how many people want fake flowers and how many people want USED fake flowers? it's easier to just throw them out.

maggie and colin, two of the kids chris has read stories to for a few months now, are in right now to "say goodbye to the bookstore". colin got mad when his mom told him it was time to go and ran back to what is now a vacant kids room. it was kinda sad. he's still back there. they baked chris some going away cookies and they're sitting right in front of me right now and i really want to just rip into the bag and eat all of them but i should let chris have one first and it really looks like she's too preoccupied working for that.

yesterday was a super super sad day. i had to meet with an attorney in the morning to go over all of the things that you have to do when closing a store permanently, and although stephen is one of my closest friends, it was depressing. he was actually my very first customer in portsmouth to spend more than fifty dollars in one sitting. i remember he had on a white button down shirt, blue trousers and i think red suspenders. i know he had on suspenders. he looked like a perfect stereotype of an attorney. he bought some history books. he browsed. i knew he would be our friend. he later ran for city council and we did everything we could to help him get elected, and he won, and he doesn't hold that against us (which he should because it's about all he has time to do). we share the same birthday and yesterday i told him that i was gonna be broke so the cost of the booze this year is on him and steph. he didn't seem to mind.

after i got back from the meeting, we found out from odu that ellen burstyn doesn't want to come to the store next sunday. she is going to be signing at prince books instead. we'll be there selling the books though. it is very nice of sarah to let us come into her store and sell the books there.

YAY! chris just offered a cookie. gotta go. cleaning and eating to do.

susie

happy birthday bsb!

i didn't write yesterday for two reasons. one is easy to explain, i was at cogans all day serving up pizza pie, from 11:30 until 9:00 and it was exhausting. i fell asleep in the leather chair brought home from the store almost before i was done eating. that chair was the closest i came to the store yesterday, i couldn't go anywhere near it.

on march 18th, 2002, we first opened the store in port norfolk. it was wonderful. we had friends there helping us unload boxes and really just finally flung open the doors at about 5:30 at night, to a group of neighborhood customers that had been waiting for us to open. they had been stopping by every day watching since December when we'd begun working on the space. my favorite customers of that day were miriam and her son, james, who would walk in the afternoons after she got done with work. james was still in his stroller and would dance and bob around as soon as he heard the music on in the store. he loved to dance.

their family would become extra special to us. matt and i had tried to decide between two houses when we moved to port norfolk, getting attached to each. matt wanted what we referred to as "the big house" and i wanted the little house. miriam and her husband james and her son james moved into the big house. her parents would come up from georgia and visit and bruiser, her dad, became one of the store's biggest fans. he would come in and visit, gave donations to organizations in our name, bought Louis L'Amour books, took amazing pictures of the store and framed them, and called often from georgia to order books for little james and even to be sent down to georgia. he was a retired doctor and i could easily say is one of the people that i value most in meeting in my entire life.

miriam and james and james moved away and we haven't heard from them in about a year and a half, but once bruiser sent me a family christmas card with all of their pictures on it, and i'll keep that forever.

now i'm totally off subject. our first day, five years ago yesterday. it was pretty, walking weather. our first customer was a friend of ours, Zeke, a sergeant that was on the ship with matt, otherwise known as gunny. he bought a book by Guy Friddell about Virginia, photography book with a little bit of text. a beautiful book. we sold around $280 in books that day, in about an hour and a half and we went to eat at Kotobuki afterwards to celebrate. we thought that if in just a few hours we could sell that much in books (rent was only $300 then...almost paid on the first day!) then we were so right for opening the store. we never had a zero dollar day, not in 5 years. when businesses around us didn't have visitors for days in a week, we were lucky and fortunate to have found a such a great place to grow wings.

after we had dinner, matt and i drove back past the store, all lit up with our cheap little lamp set that we'd bought at home depot or somewhere like that. once a reporter described our store as something out of a normal rockwell book, and i think she was right. we have had three different storefronts, and they fit. they fit the community and they were beautiful and for five years they were home.

my struggle yesterday with going by the store or thinking of the anniversary was simply that...where will home be now? who wants to go to work other than a place that they love more than anywhere else on earth? your spirit resides somewhere there, at home, and i feel restless now. unsure. empty and sad.

but so so so so lucky. how many people get to walk away with the knowledge that their work changed them. the bookstore changed how i look at things economically (did i admit that i bought things from home depot...we changed that after learning about how important small businesses were to communities and only bought wood and and as many supplies as we could for future stores from Robbie's Hardware and Portsmouth Lumber). it changed how i look at work, giving meaning to my career-life. it helped me meet hundreds of wonderful people from customers to authors to local media to publishers. it made me immensely stressed out, but so so happy. it made me feel important. not everyone is so lucky.

-susie

comments that might drive you crazy

1 - "we were actually looking for better bargains" (we're selling things for less than we paid for them, is there a better bargain than that?!)

2 - "when are you actually closing so i can come back when things are cheaper?" (things aren't going to get much cheaper)

3 - "i've never been in here before, what do you have on sale?" (EVERYTHING, we're going out of business)

4 - "when will it end, the world is going to be just wal-marts?" - quoted from the same lady that stated comment number three. (when you stop shopping at wal-marts and start shopping at indy businesses BEFORE their going out of business sales!)

5 - woman to her daughter, "isn't it neat honey, you're birthday is on the same day that they're closing the store here forever?" (i can't comment, my stomach is turning)

6 - "i got some great deals when waldenbooks was going out of business too"

7 - "there's more people in here today than i've ever seen"

8 - "it's the big box store's fault, isn't it?" - i have to comment on this because no, it is not the big box store's fault. it's the fault of the people who spend the time and money to drive to virginia beach and SHOP at the big box store when they have a community bookstore a few blocks from their house.

day three of actually getting organized

it seems like i should have a plan of attack. i really don't, and we're going to be closing and have to have every stick of anything to do with bsb completely out of this building by april 1st. it seems like i ought to have some sort of plan. i also should have a plan as to what i'm going to do on april 2nd for a job and i don't have a plan for that yet either.

i have started a timeline this morning, a mental and physical checklist of "if i do this by this date then i can have everything out in time", and there are just days in the middle where i'm not sure what i'll be doing other than hoping you all come an buy tons and tons of books so that i don't have to box them up and send them back. there are those books, lots of them left, that i want (need!) someone to have in their home because i have loved them so much, or colston and eleanor have loved them so much, or they are just THAT good that it will break my heart to send back. i want to say that what we don't sell i can just take home and, i don't know, get rid of everything else in my apartment (although it is an old building and on the second floor and the floors already tilt...), but i can't afford that either.

my plan of action thus far is this:

1 - sell as many books as possible and hope that the story that tom writes in port folio weekly on monday will get even more people in the store

2 - sell all the furniture and bookshelves possible so that i don't have to move them personally, they are enourmous!

3 - clean, clean, clean (my least favorite thing to do at the store for some reason, shouldn't i get to read instead if i have spare time for cleaning?)

4 - cry a little, laugh a lot (hopefully in that order and not crying a lot and laughing a little)

5 - have fun with ellen burstyn on the 24th and 25th at our events with her. talk books, movies and life with her.

6 - mark everything that's left down to practically nothing on the 26th because i really just want people to have books to read at this point!

7 - move out on the 30th and 31st, clean. whine a little maybe. WINE a lot maybe.

8 - enjoy the irony on friday the 23rd that at the ODU film fest i get to present "you've got mail" the movie about meg ryan's bookstore that is put out of business.

9 - visit with old friends who come in to say they're sorry we're leaving

10 - sleep. sleep. sleep. it sounds like a good idea but i'm not really sure how much i'll get.

eleanor called from charlottesville this morning and it snowed on them yesterday. they're going into town this morning for book and knitting crap hunting. i'm glad to be here because i've already seen people this morning that i'll miss when we close, but gees...i wish i were there too.

-susie