Day #274 Elegy on a Country Bookstore

Honey bees are in trouble. Everybody knows that. But there is at least one thing we can do about it. We can stop buying mass-produced honey. Most of the honey that people buy in supermarkets has been heated, filtered, and—in some cases—has had other products (such as cane sugar) added to it. We can pay a little more to buy from local beekeepers. And don’t argue that you can’t find one. They’re around. It may be a little less convenient than pulling a honey jar off a grocery store shelf, but the power of the marketplace is impressive.

I just learned of the passing of one of my favorite bookstores. I met its owner, Melinda Cowan, when I attended a booksellers’ convention the year my first mystery was published. Melinda was one of the people to whom I gave a complimentary copy of Orange as Marmalade. The following year, when Yellow as Legal Pads came out, I did a wildly successful book signing at Cowan's Book Nook. Melinda’s enthusiasm for my writing steered customers in my direction. Since then, the Book Nook has hosted the launch of every single one of my books. And I’ve driven the ninety or so miles up there for book-signings at least three times each year. But that store has folded.

Bookstores, like honeybees, are in trouble. Everybody knows that. But there is at least one thing we can do about it. We can stop buying books from that certain on-line bookseller. You know perfectly well who I’m talking about. It is not e-book sales that are hurting bookstores. It is the people who walk into a bookstore, listen to the recommendations of the knowledgeable people who work there, find books they like, and then proceed to go home and buy those books online. They pay a little less (the way they do for honey produced by companies that regularly medicate their bees). But most people have no clue what’s happening behind the bookselling scenes, the same way most people don’t know how honey is produced and mass marketed.

Let me tell you something that most people don’t know about that A company. Most bookstore owners won’t tell you, because if they do, it sounds like they’re bad-mouthing the competition. Complaining leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many people. Well, today I’m not complaining. I’m stating facts.

When you buy a book from a bookstore, the bookstore gets 40%. Out of that, they have to pay their overhead (salaries, rent, the cost of shipping books in or out, and so on). The 60% that goes to the publisher (and which the bookstore has already paid to that publisher) gets divided between the publisher’s overhead and, at the bottom of the list, the author. On hard-cover books, depending on who the publisher is, the author may get as much as $5. On trade paperbacks, maybe a dollar or two. On the mass-market paperbacks, usually around a quarter or maybe 30 cents.

Amazon, on the other hand, takes a cut of 55%. And they never pay anything for shipping. The publisher is never reimbursed for shipping costs when they send books that Amazon orders, and you know darn well that you pay for the shipping when Amazon sends books to you. Publishers, with their fixed costs of doing business (salaries, office costs, printing prices, and so on) have to make do on that 45% they receive. And the author’s royalties are proportionally lower as a result.

My father always told me, “You get what you pay for.” When we buy cheap, we get cheap. With honey we can taste the difference. With books, we may not realize what we’ve done until our favorite bookstore closes its doors.

The people who used to kill whales gradually found different lines of work when the U.S. put a moratorium on the use of whale products in this country. The bee industry is eventually going to have to change too. And I certainly hope that independent bookstores are still around when my grandchildren have grandkids of their own.

We can make a difference. I’m just so sorry that it is too late to save Cowan’s Book Nook.

BEEattitude for Day # 274:

       Blessed are those who eat good honey, for they shall glow with goodness from their tummies.

_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com  Please buy them from an independent bookstore or directly from my website.
my eBooks for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Fran+Stewart

Day #204 Still a Lot to Learn

Tuesday I spent some time with my friend Geri, who has a 10-frame hive.

She knew as little about hers as I knew about mine. I’d told her I’d help her open it up for the first check since she brought it home last week.

Guess what? I hadn’t a clue whether I was looking at something positive or something negative. So she called Tommy, who—bless him indeed—stopped by and set her mind at rest. It seems the hive is working just fine. All that comb built between the frames is to be expected (I’d thought it was only in MY hive!)

This just goes to prove that I still don’t know nearly enough about bees. Of course, Tommy’s been around bees for 40 years, since his grandpa and dad had hives. So maybe Geri and I aren’t doing too badly with our less-than-a-month of experience…

BEEattitude for Day # 204:

       Blessed are those who take time to practice, for they shall gradually get better at what they do.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My knees that still work

Check out my ebooks on Amazon and Smashwords!

Day #146 Thoughts on Immortality

My thoughts have been all over the road map recently. Miss Polly, my 14-year-old cat, woke me as usual the other morning, and I got to thinking about mortality—hers and my own.

People, and cats too, live as individuals. When we see a friend walking down the street, we don’t say, “Oh, there goes another member of my part of the human race.” No, we call that person by name and recognize her individuality. Ditto with cats, friendly dogs, even the possum who cleans up around the bottom of my bird feeder and turns on my motion-sensor light each night.

Honeybees, on the other hand, live their short lives (six weeks for a worker bee) as simply a part of a larger unit, the hive – the way individual cells in our body do their work for a short time and then die off, to be replaced by new ones.

Eventually, our human cells—all of them—run out of gas, and we die. But think about a hive. There could conceivably be a hive somewhere in the world that is still making honey after, say, a thousand years of being in that same place. Or maybe a million or two. As the hive population grows, half the bees take off somewhere else (that’s called “swarming”), but the other half stays behind and builds up their numbers and their honey and pollen stores all over again.

Isn’t this a kind of immortality? I’d like to think it is. You see, when I’m no longer around, my bees will be able to keep going without me. They may move to a new location, but they’ll still be the hive that grew and flourished on my back deck.

Come to think of it, as long as my books last, my first cat is immortalized, because she served as the model for "Marmalade."

BEEattitude for Day # 146:

       Blessed are those who take good care of themselves, for they shall live long and prosper.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Romeo and Juliet, which I saw last night at the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta with my granddaughter. Four hundred years, and the story is still fresh. Hey! That’s immortality, too, isn’t it?   

p.s. It’s official: this is “National Read an eBook Week.”

You can find my Biscuit McKee Mysteries on Amazon or Smashwords for only $3.99. These links will take you straight to my eBook pages.

Day #123 Liquid Wax, Great Big Mess

Friday I melted beeswax that I had ordered from one of the supply companies. To minimize the danger of fire, I did it over a pan of boiling water. Once it was liquid, I poured a thin bead along the top bars to give the bees a line to follow when they’re building their comb.

Or, that was the idea. Do you know how messy it is trying to dribble hot wax in a thin line? I have no idea what the bees will make of the mess I created. I hope it doesn’t confuse them too much, or the honeycomb will end up being ohembycno.

BEEattitude for Day # 123:

       Blessed are those who try new skills, for they shall eventually succeed.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The recorded book I listened to while I struggled with the wax. It’s called Captive Queen, the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II. I’m glad I didn’t live in the 12^th century.   

http://www.franstewart.com

All my mysteries are available as e-books now on Amazon and Smashwords.