Shelved more Signed Books - Jon Scieszka kids books, various other mostly unknowns...

Shelved a small stack of Aviation Commercial Aircraft Books that just came in today.

Culled the computer books, there's a big stack of them in $1.00 stuff now.

New arrivals:
003472 Boeing 727 (Airline Markings, Vol. 6) Adrian M. Balch; P. R. Smith Aircraft $13.00
003471 The Sting (Universal Legacy Series) DVDs $9.00
003470 Entourage - The Complete Second Season DVDs $11.00
003469 Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Third Season DVDs $13.00
003468 Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Second Season DVDs $13.00
003467 James Bond Deluxe Collection 16 movies Letterboxed +Behind the Scenes Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton VHS $45.00
003466 A Bountiful Harvest: The Midwestern Farm Photographs of Pete Wettach, 1925-1965 (Bur Oak Book) Leslie A. Loveless Photography & Art $25.00
003465 Lost in Place:: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia Mark Salzman Biography $15.00
003464 *Signed* Hillinger's California: Stories from All 58 Counties Charles Hillinger $10.00
003463 Lisa Jackson *Signed* Dark Jewels (Dark Ruby & Dark Sapphire) Romance $13.00
003462 *Signed* The Stolen Necklace (Reel Kids Adventures) Dave Gustaveson $19.00
003461 *Signed* Baloney (Henry P.) Jon Scieszka; Illustrator-Lane Smith Childrens Books $13.00
003460 Jon Scieszka & David Shannon *Signed* Smash! Crash! (Jon Scieszka's Trucktown) Jon Scieszka; Illustrator-David Shannon; Illustrator-Loren Long; Illustrator-David Gordon $30.00
003459 *Signed* Yesteryear's Love (Time Passages) Janet Quinn $13.00
003458 *Signed* Operation Rawhide: The Dramatic Emergency Surgery on President Reagan (Creation Adventure Series) Paul Thomsen $9.00

I'll get more pics up once the computer gets fixed, and I can download them off the camera...

Signed Books on the shelves by Walter Mosley, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Paul Conrad, Alice Hoffman, Irving Stone, more.

Fangoria Magazines - in the Horror section.

Archival plastic dustjacket cover protectors available 50 cents each, or $1.00 installed.


New Arrivals:
003457 *Signed* Drawn and Quartered Paul Conrad; Foreword-W.F. Thomas $35.00
003456 *Signed* Love & Rockets Sketchbook Vol. 2 Gilbert Hernandez; Jaime Hernandez $50.00
003455 *Signed* Maximum FF: A Visual Exegesis of Fantastic Four #1 Stan Lee; Jack Kirby; conceived and orchestrated by Walter Mosley $65.00
003454 *Signed* True Justice Robert K. Tanenbaum $17.00
003453 *Signed* Fear Itself: A Fearless Jones Novel Walter Mosley $25.00
003452 *Signed* A Darkness More Than Night Michael Connelly $17.00

Almost maybe sorta kinda slightly nearly got the computer working...

Los Angeles Festival of Books 2008

Bit of a disappointment right off when David Brin & Raymond E. Feist were no-shows. I hope whatever family emergency Feist had was not serious.
And boy was it HOT, more than previous years, and it's _always_ been hot.
Not really many big name A-list authors there this year, maybe it's just me but it just wasn't as exciting.
Still there were many great authors around, Stephen J. Cannell, Michael Connolly, Paul Conrad, Cornelia Funke, Walter Mosley, Alice Hoffman, Robert K. Tannenbaum, John Lescroart, Jon Scieszka, David Shannon, Jaime Hernandez. James Owen had been moved to Saturday - so I missed him, drat it. Julie Andrews was only doing 100 and only for ticket holders - so no chance there. It was a bit disappointing that my favorite 4 were unavailable. Bill Fitzhugh was actually doing some signings on Sunday, but I didn't bring anything since it had looked like he was only going to be there on Sat.
But overall it was a good event, not as great as last few years, but maybe I should have gone both days...

Computer's still down, guess I'll have to have someone else look at it.

Got the last things ready to go to LA Times Festival of Books tomorrow.

Free Comic Book Day is May 3rd at A Castle of Books - sent email - but formating was crud.

Packaged up the online orders for shipment on Monday.

Shelved a bunch of Hard Cover fiction, sf, fantasy, horror, a stack of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Bujold, Tim Powers, Terry Pratchett, some James Rollins 1st Editions.

Well the main computer's still out of it, so I'm stuck using the oldest one, but at least it can get on the internet without too much hassle, so things got done.
Paid BOE sales tax & sent property tax form in.

Hubbell was here.

6ish boxes of HBs & TPBs of various subjects, some modern lit fiction, history, cookbooks, music bios, and much more were shelved today.

Worked on those Dansk books some more.

Gah! spent all morning building a computer system and installing programs so could get on the internet. Down to the oldest system an AMD K6-200 (Pentium 2 clone).
Had lunch.
Then spent the rest of the day since 4:00 trying to get it to print. Things would have been fine if the USPS hadn't insisted on printing using java.
Finally got things to work, and packaged up the online orders for shipment tomorrow.

3 boxes of paperbacks traded in, some classics, vintage fiction, sf & fantasy, should get them on the shelves soon.

Revamped the tri-fold flyer a bit.

Shelved 2 boxes of books, hardcover and TPBs - all sorts of non-fiction, a bunch of electronics, some business, history, travel, metaphysical, computer books, politics, and some childrens picture books.

Bunch of computer books, and political books went to the $1.00 section.

Computer's still not working right, but I'm just going to ignore it until it blows up.

Gathered things up and got ready to go to the LA Times Festival of Books this Sunday.

Bills, filing, accounting... managed to get a fair amount of it done.
Computer still a problem.

Maybe it's a virus?

Finally managed to get computer to boot up and did the online orders. Packaged and ready to shipment tomorrow.

Didn't get anything done, messed with computers all day.

Messed about with the computers all morning.

Hubbell was here.

2.5 boxes of paperbacks shelved, lots of Romance, plus some of everything else.

Free Comic Book Day comics arrived, plus Japanese Tatto Design Handbook

Managed to get at a few boxes of books in the evening.

Computers still not working well, but I did manage to get online long enough to process the orders and package them up for shipment tomorrow.

Computer problems - spent all day trying to get things fixed. Rebuilt 3 systems, and still no luck.

Shelved 1 box paperbacks.

MAY 3rd 2008 IS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY

A Castle of Books is proud to be one of thousands of stores around the world celebrating the comic book art form on Saturday, May 3rd. On Free Comic Book Day, over two million comic books will be given away by participating stores, introducing as many people as possible to the wonders of comic books! Stop by and get yours! (max 2 per person, while supplies last)

$@%# computer now won't start or shut down correctly.
Had to re-setup DSL after switching phone lines.

Shelved 2 boxes of paperbacks, pretty much a smattering of everything, from all types of genre fiction to a few military & philosophy books.

$@%# computer being a pain all D@#$ day. Ah well.

6 boxes of mostly junk old business books came in, but there's a few military and some mysteries and some good kids books in there.

Mailed tax returns.

Computer problems...

Shelved 2 boxes of paperbacks - general fiction, mystery, romance, few sf & fantasy.

Reloaded Craigslist ads, and BackPage ads (which someone had canceled on me, annoying).

Computer is horribly slow, and won't shut down. Defrag didn't seem to do anything.

Had to call AT&T back and get it straightened out all over again.

Shelved a box of non-collectible Card Games SF, Fantasy, and kids stuff.

Packaged up the online orders for shipment tomorrow.

Shelved 2 boxes of RPG fiction, Horror, Fantasy & SF, Hardcover & TPB's.

Had the AC on most the afternoon.

Taxes & Bills.

More Signed SF on the shelves.

Shelved 2 boxes of Role Playing Games mostly filled in things that had sold with duplicates - but if it wasn't there when you were in it's new to you...

Added pictures to online listings - especially to the signed books.

Hubbell was here.

Purchased 6 boxes of books - art, history, Football, cartoons, comic books.

'Ice-tea' lady came in, and could hardly have mixed up the romance section more if she's been doing it on purpose.

Packaged online orders for shipment tomorrow.

Answered emails.

Finished the Signed Hardcovers from the show, put protective covers on the dustjackets, lots of Harry Turtledove, David Gerrold, Peter S. Beagle, Larry Niven, more.

Packaged online orders for shipment tomorrow.

Shelved Signed Paperbacks from the show, mostly SF, lots of Lupoff, Gerrold, Turtledove.

Ordered more business cards.

Straightened up behind the counter a bit.

Balancing checkbooks, finagling of credit cards.

Some paperbacks traded in.

Answered emails and sent people pictures of books and things.

A Vance-fan stopped in.

Gone Fencin'

Sorted signed books from the show last week, managed to get a few of them on the shelf.

Working on accounting all morning.

Someone recently found a Signed C.S. Lewis at Once Read Books - priced $6.95!

Sorted some of the recent loads.

Shelved some more SF Hardcovers.

Renewed & adjusted phone service. Called starting at 11:00am was routed to at least 7 different departments, ended 3:00 pm! Yikes! But at least it got done.

Packed 11 online orders for shipment tomorrow.

Attempted to balance paypal account, that'll need more work...

March sales numbers. 79%. Better than Feb, not quite as good as Jan.

Shelved some SF & Fantasy HB's.

5 boxes of Civil War & other history came in.

Credit card finagling.

Sorted some of the several loads that have come in over the last week, shelved more VHS - lots of kids movies.

Packaged up online orders for shipment tomorrow.

Shelved the majority of the Vintage Paperbacks, many Mystery, and SF, some Fantasy, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Frank Yerby, and all the rest.