Hi, my name is Life, but you can just call me Distraction.

Ok, so I've been terrible at keeping up with my blog posts! So let me give you the run down.

We've been selling books!! In the past few weeks we have sold... well... a lot (in my personal opinion). We've listed 357 books, sold 53 (I think?) made almost $400 (and it hasn't even been a month! Now, this is total not deducting the money we put into the business), got 4 reviews, giving us a 100% positive feedback rating, had 1 issue with shipping and made 2 returns. It hasn't all been easy, and things have been frustrating. But I'll be honest, things are going better than I ever expected in the first month!

We have only sold on Amazon so far, so we have a couple boxes of books to list on Ebay still (Curious is doing research on the best way to photograph the books so our listings look nice). Our wonderful artist friend is working on our logo (and let me tell you, it is amazing. Wait until you see it). We've yet to set up a Facebook or Pinterest account (you have to have a Facebook in order to get a Pinterest). I'm waiting for the logo to be finished before starting to network and actually telling everyone about our business/blog.

We've learned a few things:
-Curious doesn't like going to hundreds of little yard sales hoping to find a few books...I do.
-Organizing items by author works great, except for those that don't have authors and non-book items. We're going to have to reorganize our stacks this week
-The best way to keep track of cool yard/book sales you find is actually putting a calender together.
-It's much easier to do Amazon than Ebay, Amazon has everything set up for you! All you have to add is how much you want to charge for it. Ebay actually requires you to take pictures and post a description. However, Ebay is required if you actually want to sell vintage or collectible books.
-Keeping up on blog posts isn't easy to do! At least not for me.

And now I have a glass of wine calling my name. As always, please feel free to comment with any questions/comments/quotes.

~Quaint

Oh! did I mention that Curious has never read Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass!? I have handed him the book and informed him that he needs to read it as soon as possible. I may have been a bit annoying in that I kept trying to read him passages from it in order to stress my point.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things: 
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.

Day 1: The Sale

Quaint has been listing items for almost six hours and shows no sign of stopping. She's at 120 items. I've been putting them in cabinets as she goes. Friends has been the fuel for this endeavor. Chandler really, really wants Joey's girlfriend and...

What's this? A SALE? WE SOLD A BOOK??

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.  The novel that Blade Runner is based on. Our first sale.

I'm glad Philip K. Dick was our first. Even though I like The Man in the High Castle better...

-Curious

Robot Carrots Unite

So the last month has been crazy. We’ve hit a few more sales and pulled more books out of our own personal collections to sell. The next step is actually getting the store set up, including paying sellers fees and posting the items online. After a lot of thought we’ve decided that we’re going to just try selling on Amazon and Ebay. (ABEbooks was our first choice, but then we realized that we don’t know anyone who uses that site. So we figured we’d stick with what we know.) We’ll be using Ebay mostly for auctions with the older or unique items, and Amazon will be the remainder (and currently the majority) of our books.

There’s a big step between talking about having a store and actually getting things active. But the hope is that we’ll take that step this week! We’re still getting our office set up, and haven’t put together the work computer yet. But we’re getting there! I’m really excited about selling books. I even told Curious that I thought it’d be fun to list them! He just looked at me like I was crazy. I’ve been scouting out more yard sales/thrift stores. (Although I have to admit. It’s hard for me to go out and not find something I want to buy for myself instead of the store! I’m gonna have to work on that or else this business is gonna end up costing me more than I’m making... ) and trying to plan for the weeks ahead. I actually start my new (official) job on Monday, so things will be a little busy this month. But I think that I can balance the job and the business. It’ll be a lot of work, but I think it will be really good.

In other news Curious just had his 30th birthday! So happy birthday to him :D I baked a carrot cake for him and decorated it to look like a robot. A friend mentioned that she thought it looked more like a carrot than a robot... maybe I’m out of practice with my cake decorating.


My Goals* for the week:
Get Books listed and selling
Organize the office
Start a Pinterest account for Quaint and Curious Books (I’ll post the information here so you can all follow it! I’ve already found a bunch of cute book related craft ideas and I’d love to share them with you all)

~Quaint

"We are the hero of our own story." 

-Mary McCarthy, Partisan Review (March/April 1961).

*Disclaimer, Goals may not actually be accomplished.