I’ve been working my too-substantial posterior off all day, trying to get ready for the launch of my online bookstore by the end of August. This means sorting through the used books I’ve bought over the past several months, researching to determine what (if anything) each volume is worth, assessing the condition of each book, taking photographs, uploading and color-correcting and cropping those photographs, and setting up webpages and buttons and links. I’m exhausted, a condition probably compounded by the fact that I’ve been working too intently to stop and eat anything except WeightWatchers ice cream bars since lunch. (This forgetting-to-eat thing is an extremely rare occurrence these days.) I’m reheating leftover lasagna right now.

The perk to this whole process is that I get to work with books, which I love. Love looking at them, assessing them, having my hands all over them, photographing them.

The downside is that I am more allergic to the type of mold that grows in old books than I am to anything else in the universe. It drains my energy like a psychic vampire. If I did not have this allergy, I likely would have gone into library science and/or worked in secondhand bookstores. I am quite careful–increasingly so–when I purchase books to resell, trying to ensure that they aren’t moldy, but sometimes they slip through or seem valuable enough even with the mold smell that I buy them anyway.

The other downside is the fear that this may all be for naught. I’ve sold one book via the three other sites on which I’ve listed products, and with that site’s cut, I ended up losing money. This is a significant reason I decided to launch the store on my own website. On Amazon and Alibris, it’s nearly impossible to have the lowest price for a book because of the “penny sellers”–the people who list books at the minimal price permitted by the sites (one cent for Amazon, 99 cents for Alibris). I suppose they do this for certain titles as loss leaders, but it doesn’t make much sense to me for an online venue. And I can’t possibly afford to do it. Also, there’s some ambiguity, deliberate or not, with sellers claiming (and charging for) first editions that are actually book club editions (which are far less valuable). So I decided it made more sense to strike out on my own, post photos, and be very clear in the descriptions about what exactly I’m offering. I think once I have the bulk of my inventory listed, it won’t be a terribly high-maintenance venture, but we’ll see.

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This weekend I’m on my own, with Bishop and Chief for company. They’re quite amiable and affectionate. My parents are camping in Ouray, and tomorrow on the way back, they’ll stop to pick up Zach, who is spending another week here while his parents lead a mission trip. Sometime, preferably before he arrives, I have to read final papers and tally grades for my summer class.

I saw Zach, Dez, and their parents yesterday: they stopped here overnight on their way home from Indiana. In little more than a week, Zach had picked up new words (“plob’ly”), improved his grammar (“I’m wake!”, my two least favorite words in his lexicon, had evolved to “I’m awake!”), and appeared to have grown physically. When my parents asked him if he’d been cute in Auntie Amber’s wedding (he was a flower boy in a little pin-striped vest and pants), he regarded them somberly and announced, “I look handsome.” Such gravitas!