Back to Bookselling
Although I love to write, the books in the stacks and on the shelves surrounding me– remnants of my past as a bookseller — nagged me to present them to the public again. It’s not easy to return to online bookselling after several years of inactivity. My favorite online marketplace for independent booksellers before my leave of absence was Tomfolio.com. When the site had to close, all the links on my website were dead, since they all pointed there. I didn’t want to redo 600 pages, especially since the software I’d used to build my site was now obsolete. I also needed a new place to host my online store. I finally chose Biblio.com. I liked the way it supports the needs of independent booksellers, its concern for the environment, and the way it gives back to communities.
So I’ve gone back to trying to clear my remaining book inventory out of my house. I’d like my hall, my living room, my garage, and the storage space on our property that houses my book “warehouse” back. I may not have enough years left to accomplish all that, but I would like to at least make an attempt. I’ve already donated about all the local reading room in Templeton (preparation for the future library there) can handle. I have the thrift shops pretty well stocked, too. I started active selling on Instagram last summer. I moved on to Homeschool Used Books, a marketplace for home educators a few weeks later. Then I opened my more general Biblio store for both new and used books on a wide variety of family interests and plenty of resources for educators of all kinds.
Blogging Has Now Taken Second Place to Bookselling
And my own blogs are now taking second place to my writing on Medium. Why? because on Medium I can write on anything that interests me without having it fit one of my blogging niches. Please check out my Medium profile to see some of those interests. I’m writing less there now than I did before I went back to selling books, and I’m not keeping track of my statistics anymore. I feel fortunate if I have time to publish twice a month. Here are some of the articles I’ve most enjoyed writing during the past year. I hope you will sample one or two of them. Please comment on which title most tempted you to click. That helps me to analyze my titles. You can see why I don’t want to have to post each of my topics into a separate blog.
The story of a marriage that survived despite the odds against it
It’s not every day you find a black widow hanging from your favorite chair
Aren’t all religions just different roads to the same destination?
Spring still brings flowers, babies, and a message of hope
If you have alcoholics in your family, deciding not to drink may be the wisest decision you can make
Or one woman’s trash is another’s soup ingredient
How I Won the Affection of My Neighbor’s Cat
She ran away whenever I got too close
Logan and the Catmint: A Photography Surprise
Sometimes we miss what we should be focused on
The personal stories of three who made the choice to die
End Note: Another Reason I Prefer Medium to WordPress
As I was putting the finishing touches on this post, each preview pointed out some inconsistency in formatting. WordPress offers too many choices to someone like me who just wants to write and not worry about how to straighten out glitches in the code. So far Medium offers a simple interface so that all I have to think about is getting my words and images into a post. I shudder to think the new changes coming soon might make them more like WordPress. Bells and whistles are wonderful for those who need them and are more interested in design than words. That’s not me.
Do you like having to work with code to try to straighten out some of the surprises in your WordPress previews? Or do you prefer a simple editor that doesn’t make such surprises frequent? I admit I’m approaching 80 and having to relearn my interface every time the powers that be decide to “improve” what I’d finally learned to navigate is frustrating. So far Medium provides the simplest editor for those who want to sell words rather than products. Even Blogger had to go “improve” their editor so that I can no longer use it.