Hi Friday Friends, we’re back in the bookshop for the next episode of the on-going romantic saga, Will they? Won’t they? It’s all about a dusty bookshop and some soggy passsers-by. Will they come into the bookshop? Won’t they notice the step? Will they buy a book? Won’t they for the love of god please just buy a book?
Covert Rain again today, which is probably better than the Obnoxious Rain we had yesterday. At least people will be fooled into still going out in this, even if they will be damp and furious by the time they get to the bookshop.
Went to the coffee shop before I opened as per, and because the cinnamon swirl looked like it had already given up on life I went rogue and ordered a Rice Krispie square for my elevenses - I’ve never ordered this before so expect a review further down the bulletin BUT let me tell you that my order totalled the exact money I had in coins on my person which meant I could pay cash, which of course means it was essentially free. The worst part of this story is that when I was skipping back to the bookshop in the covert rain feeling like I’d robbed the coffee shop I was already excited to tell you about it. Christ, it’s a good job you don’t pay for this…
A quick hello to one of my latest paid subscribers, Amy, who left this message, which I enjoyed singing to the tune of ‘November Rain’.
*Axl Rose voice* nnnnNothin’ lasts foreverrr, and we both know weather can change! Couldn’t bear to think of youuu… in the cold, cold, Co-vert Rain.
(And if you want to pay me, then darlin’, don’t refrain… or I’ll just end up walkin’ in the cold, cold, Co-vert Rain.)
Well the first person in the shop this morning is a teacher who is coming to collect a school order and she had the brilliant idea to come out early this morning and park her car right outside the shop, so that when I arrived we only had to lug the boxes a few mere steps to her vehicle, instead of round the corner and down a hill, which is as close as I can ever park when I’ve got a delivery to collect. What foresight! Will I learn from this example? I’m betting I won’t, but I am (easily) impressed by it.
There’s a kid in a bow-tie and a trilby looking in the window and I’m really hoping he comes into the shop because I feel like he might tell me some jokes or perform a magic trick. It takes a lot of confidence to wear a trilby when you’re ten years old; that kid is going places. The places just don’t include this bookshop.
Customer just came to pick up this - did we all know there was a book with the tagline - He's a detective, a dancer, he has no respect for authority - and he's the best hope Blackpool has for keeping criminals off the streets - out there? Of course, in St. Annes, this is practically a local interest book.
Next sale is this, which personally, I might have gone for on audio book if it was read by the author. Oh my god, I just searched and it is and it’s included with Spotify Premium!
Some children spend their Christmas book tokens. As they have £10 each to spend and their respective choices cost less than that, each token goes away again with a really annoying amount left on it that is definitely going to make Business Mum groan when they come back to spend the rest, using £1.01 on one token and £2.01 on another. Even though it is literally nothing to be mad about, it’s the sort of thing that might really annoy her on a boring day when she’s already feeling grumpy.
I just got a call from someone who claimed they were calling from ‘The Low Bills Department’ which can’t be real, because all bills are high.
Thumbs up for the Rice Krispie square at Cafe Nero, by the way, it had a surprise layer of (covert) caramel in it which was a nice surprise on a wet Friday.
Bookshop! You don’t see many of them!
Will they come in? (No)
Some very ordinary sales. Few order collections. Chat about the weather. One £7.99 book scans through at £6.99 and because a little girl is paying with her own ten pound note I let her have the old price because an extra quid in your purse is exciting at any age, isn’t it?
A dad treats a daughter. A grandmother treats her grandchildren.
A customer can’t put her purchase into her bag because it will crush the cream cakes she’s bought. She’s got some bits from the local bakery for an afternoon tea with her grandchildren and I convince her that she should go home and get out the real china tea service, even though it won’t go into the dishwasher, because if not now, when!?
Book club is currently reading this and paid subs can join the online discussion here.
A man comes in looking for a book ‘about the Richardsons’ because he ‘used to know them’ about ‘thirty years ago’ and someone told him there was a book about them. Hm. Ok. Any more info for me to go on? “It’s a red book.” Excellent. I type in The Richardsons, anyway, and then he mentions a ‘Charlie’, so I search that name and find this. This the fella? Yep, that’s the one - rival to the Krays. The man didn’t know the Dad of course, because he was inside, but he knew the kids - “nice family”, he said, even though they were “naughty boys”. Anyway, he didn’t order the book because it wasn’t red.
I’ve been sent a book in the post this week and it’s Where is the Cat? by Eva Eland which is very cute and has an absolutely gorgeous palette with a fabulously intense pink that I love and want to wear. This sweet picture book is about a little girl desperate to find her Auntie’s cat, who is always evading her (but hiding on the page for little readers to find!). Cat doesn’t really want to be found, until the little girl lies down for a nap…
Sometimes I’m not sure if I should include some transactions in the Receipt, or it’s overstepping somehow. I hope this customer won’t mind that I include this story. I could separate and anonymise the parts to tell you that a beloved customer stopped by to give me a box of miniature chocolate brownie hearts that she’d baked (with an instruction to leave some for BM!), and then tell you that a reader sent me a hand-written card, to thank me for my novel Three Girls, which she’d just read because she was looking for some distraction during a difficult time, and wanted to read something that wouldn’t be sad, or cruel or upsetting, and that my book provided the perfect escape. But the reader and the baking customer were the same person, and I’m very touched by it, and so pleased that my happy little book is out there in the world doing exactly what I wanted it to do. Sometimes books are so marvellous, you can forget how they can touch people. I think, perhaps, especially when it’s one you’ve written, but it just goes on about its business, even when you’re not holding its hand anymore.
Just tried to type the word ‘Eighth’ into the search engine with a customer watching and I simply could not get it right. Eitghth. Eighth. Eigth. Eghth. Eiighthth. Anyway, turns out the book he was looking for is actually called this.
‘The Bookseller’ (the book industry’s trade magazine) ran an article this week about Substack! Weirdly, it mainly focussed on traditionally published authors finding new/additional success on Substack and not booksellers whinging about their empty bookshops on Substack, because they did not interview me even though I am the most famous successful consistent at that. Actually, I’m really glad it wasn’t a feature on Booksellers on Substack because I’m terrified that another bookseller is going to steal my format and then be better at it than me because they have more interactions with actual customers than I do. Show-offs. Anyway, I did write a piece a long time ago for ‘The Bookseller’ on how selling books during Covid renewed my enthusiasm for bookselling, and actually, writing these Receipts for the past 30 weeks has had a similar effect in some ways. So thank you, readers, for indulging me here.
Blimey, it’s 4pm and I didn’t even notice because it’s still BROAD DAYLIGHT outside.
Me: “Spring? …Is that you?”
Covert Rain and Baltic Temperatures: “No, you twit, of course it isn’t, get away with you.”
Two small children in colourful rainsuits and wellington boots charge around the bookshop shaking their maracas. They brought the maracas with them, of course, one maraca for each child. Which seems fair.
Really trying not to buy a book today that I don’t have time to read but there is this new collection of stories from Laird Hunt in and when was the last time I read something by Laird Hunt that wasn’t phenomenal? The tenth of Never Happened, in the year Nope, Never. So maybe I have to buy this.
That’s all for today, folks. I’m going to see if I can get a new electric toothbrush because mine has died and the dentist told me off for going too hard with the manual. Let’s hope my local Boots stock some that are reasonably priced because I honestly don’t see why I would ever need anything other than an On/Off button. As always, any books you purchase through any of the links on this newsletter directly support my independent bookshop, and we love you for it. See you next week!
I feel incredibly gushy about your Substack today. It feels like you're writing it, especially for me. That is a unique skill—I’m confident I am not the only reader who feels this way.
On the one hand, I can fantasize about having my bookshop. On the other hand, it makes me very nostalgic for a bookstore I used to go to in the ‘80s on the coast here (in Half Moon Bay, California.)
The store owner would make recommendations to me from the new crop of fiction hardcovers. We would talk about the books we were reading—it was just a lovely oasis for me.
Re the Mark Billingham book, I was tickled when I read this blurb:
'Readers rejoice! A captivating new series from Mark Billingham, the very best in the business' --- RICHARD OSMAN
Richard Osman hosts The Rest Is Entertainment podcast with Marina Hyde and recently they answered a question about blurbs on books. He admitted that semi recently he hadn’t had time to read a new Mark Billingham book that he’d been asked to blurb but had told the publishers they could use ‘the very best in the business’ (and presumably the rest of that quote above!) as a blurb from him rather than something specific to the book.
And there it is, spotted in the wild!!