Breather between book fairs
In theory we had internet both at the hall and the hotel, but that would have required me to have a spare moment and mind share at the same time, which pretty much didn't happen. Unloading and setting up two vehicles worth of stock took longer than I had hoped, although B was a prince about not leaving the booth to scout until he'd found a place for all the extra material he had packed.
We were immensely lucky in our weather for the show weekend -- the heavy rains of the previous week were replaced by balmy sunshine and temperatures in the sixties (February in San Francisco tends to be so much nice than August). Since more rain is due tomorrow, I've been especially grateful. Even with all the buying we both did (B on the show floor, me at a customer's house in the city), plus the several boxes of sold books that have to be shipped to the buyers (Ireland, Maryland, southern California, etc.) I think we ended up with no more material than we started with, and we did record sales, so yay, team!
Staying in downtown SF has its drawbacks however. On Thursday and Friday nights we were located just above the end of the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market Streets, offering the combined benefits of loud street life and the echoing sirens of fire and police vehicles. On Friday, the hotel offered further excitement by losing the key to the Prius that we had to valet-park. We had dropped it (car and key)off at 9:30 after the show and staggered off to find food, only to be woken from a sound sleep at midnight-thirty telling us the car was still in the 5 minute zone awaiting a key for the valet. Luckily we had both keys with us; even luckier, it turned out that, as we had suspected, the night clerk had inadvertently put the key in his pocket and gone home with it, but since his phone had been disconnected, we didn't find this out until Sunday morning.
Now working on the slow unpacking/repacking process to prepare for next Thursday's return engagement in the City by the Bay. A completely different audience requires rethinking the inventory selections. The Prius is empty and the van is half unloaded; no more than 20 boxes yet to unpack, reshelve or repack, along with the new selections.
::limp hugs all around::
We were immensely lucky in our weather for the show weekend -- the heavy rains of the previous week were replaced by balmy sunshine and temperatures in the sixties (February in San Francisco tends to be so much nice than August). Since more rain is due tomorrow, I've been especially grateful. Even with all the buying we both did (B on the show floor, me at a customer's house in the city), plus the several boxes of sold books that have to be shipped to the buyers (Ireland, Maryland, southern California, etc.) I think we ended up with no more material than we started with, and we did record sales, so yay, team!
Staying in downtown SF has its drawbacks however. On Thursday and Friday nights we were located just above the end of the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market Streets, offering the combined benefits of loud street life and the echoing sirens of fire and police vehicles. On Friday, the hotel offered further excitement by losing the key to the Prius that we had to valet-park. We had dropped it (car and key)off at 9:30 after the show and staggered off to find food, only to be woken from a sound sleep at midnight-thirty telling us the car was still in the 5 minute zone awaiting a key for the valet. Luckily we had both keys with us; even luckier, it turned out that, as we had suspected, the night clerk had inadvertently put the key in his pocket and gone home with it, but since his phone had been disconnected, we didn't find this out until Sunday morning.
Now working on the slow unpacking/repacking process to prepare for next Thursday's return engagement in the City by the Bay. A completely different audience requires rethinking the inventory selections. The Prius is empty and the van is half unloaded; no more than 20 boxes yet to unpack, reshelve or repack, along with the new selections.
::limp hugs all around::