Sold a “Pirates and the Mouse.”
Faithful readers will recall the gentleman (See “Adventure” 454) to whom I had promised to sell a copy for $10, half my former asking price, because he could pick one up on-line, used, for about $8. He had never reappeared, but a café friend/customer had spotted it and said she would buy it once she had the cash on hand.
That moment having arrived, she handed me a $20. But I felt I should give her the same deal as the other guy, so I gave her back $10. However, when I checked on-line, I learned that the least expensive copy available now cost $15. (Had the scoundrel – see above bought it himself?) My friend gave me another $5. Then I saw I had neglected to figure in the sales tax, so I returned the $5 to her and she the $20 to me.
Business has been slow. Not only am I selling few books, I am attracting few interesting conversationalists. Not that the café has been interesting conversation-free. It is that generally they do not directly involve me, often by my choice.
Take the fellow who caught my ear by telling the barista he had been dropping by the café for decades (though not recently), and was startled to learn it shared space with a hotel, which it had since the 1980s. He had many questions, including the cost of a room ($175), whether he could see them (no), where the entrance was (same as the café’s), how many people were on duty at night (one), whether it would be a good place for he and his girl to spend a “night of passion.” I didn’t know whether he was planning a hoist or was just out of his mind.
He then reported a memorable morning when he had arrived and seen a dead body lying in the street with no one around it. He must have been first upon the scene and the most striking thing he recalled was that the victim was shoeless and wore blue socks.
In other news…
Much progress on “Messiahs…” Gary (the publisher) sent me the revised pdf (interior pages only). I caught one minor problem (I can live with it) and a significant one I had pointed out before, which didn’t seem to have been addressed. (An illustration had been selected for a chapter which didn’t seem to be from the book under discussion.) However, a terrific illustration had been selected for a chapter, replacing one which had been a mere space-holder.)
Also I would like to see the covers. Given that one misspelled my name and another omitted a key word from the title this is not a minor matter.
But otherwise, we are ready to ship to the printer. Which is thrilling and exciting.
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.