Weekend Update: Book Sale Closing
Officially, as of today, I am "closing" the book sale. I've been considering this since late last year, and there's a few reasons going into this decision:
1) My post office is getting really busy during my lunch break, which is when I go to price everything and ship everything. This eats up time I'd rather be relaxing at home, and the act of waiting in line at the post office rather raises my blood pressure.
2) The post office has become unreliable. When I take a package to get a quote, I write it down, invoice the buyer, and then once I'm paid, I go to the post office and send it. Only the past few times, the shipping price has been off. Once it was by quite a few dollars. The other time was by a few cents. Mind you, I'm not making anything resembling a profit here, because I'm selling these books super-cheap, but being reimbursed for shipping was always a must, and now I can't rely on it.
3) When I get an "order," I kind of groan and drag my feet about it. Before, I was super-excited and would get everything ready that instant. The dread comes from the above, but also because I've had some cases in recently where someone wants something, and I get it quoted, and then they never, ever respond. Which is frustrating, because I've already spent the time to get the quote, you know?
It's not to say the book sale will never come back. It might. I do have quite a few books I still need to clear out. But the thought of doing so in bulk and taking them to a used book store is getting more and more tempting. We'll see. So much of this depends on my mood, and I may re-open the sale later in the year. You never know! But if I do bring it back, I need to come up with a different shipping process, because the way I've set it up now, I'm going twice for every order. That's draining.
For anyone who was ever a customer (especially my regular ones), thank you. I hope the books I've sent have found wonderful homes and enjoyable reading hours! I'm glad these old books of mine have found new homes, and I'm grateful I could spread the reading love!
1) My post office is getting really busy during my lunch break, which is when I go to price everything and ship everything. This eats up time I'd rather be relaxing at home, and the act of waiting in line at the post office rather raises my blood pressure.
2) The post office has become unreliable. When I take a package to get a quote, I write it down, invoice the buyer, and then once I'm paid, I go to the post office and send it. Only the past few times, the shipping price has been off. Once it was by quite a few dollars. The other time was by a few cents. Mind you, I'm not making anything resembling a profit here, because I'm selling these books super-cheap, but being reimbursed for shipping was always a must, and now I can't rely on it.
3) When I get an "order," I kind of groan and drag my feet about it. Before, I was super-excited and would get everything ready that instant. The dread comes from the above, but also because I've had some cases in recently where someone wants something, and I get it quoted, and then they never, ever respond. Which is frustrating, because I've already spent the time to get the quote, you know?
It's not to say the book sale will never come back. It might. I do have quite a few books I still need to clear out. But the thought of doing so in bulk and taking them to a used book store is getting more and more tempting. We'll see. So much of this depends on my mood, and I may re-open the sale later in the year. You never know! But if I do bring it back, I need to come up with a different shipping process, because the way I've set it up now, I'm going twice for every order. That's draining.
For anyone who was ever a customer (especially my regular ones), thank you. I hope the books I've sent have found wonderful homes and enjoyable reading hours! I'm glad these old books of mine have found new homes, and I'm grateful I could spread the reading love!