Hillbilly Daze

As we mentioned last week, Booknotes will be closed on Saturday, April 22, because of Hillbilly Days in Pikeville.  Don't worry though, the website, including this blog, will be updated on Saturday as regularly scheduled, just at a slightly different time.  That being said, we are not against things regional or local.  In fact, we are currently involved in two projects with high local interest.  The first is our attempts to get a very popular-selling book at our store back in print.  A Pictorial History of Eastern Kentucky was one of our biggest sellers when we first opened the store.  In fact, we sold more copies of the book then anyone else.  Too many, as the supply quickly sold out and the book went out of print.  We have been in contact with a publisher to try and gain the permission to reprint the book and possibly update it with new photos and information.  Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the current copyright holder that are still being ironed out.  We initially contacted this publisher for another reason.  The other co-owner of the store has been trying to get a pictorial history of the Wheelwright and Weeksbury area based on the old Inland Steel magazines published in the last century.  The main problem we are facing here is that no one can seem to determine who currently holds the copyright on said photos because of all the mergers that have taken place over the decades.  All of this is being done without the help of other organizations that might hold similar goals, but any assistance would be grateful.  There is much that could be done here with the right connections, so contact us if you have any clues.  That is all for this week.  See you here next week, just not at the store.

Managing the Campaign

This week featured the debut of our new as campaign in various local newspapers.  We were a little wary of starting a new campaign so soon after our last one, especially since it did not work out too well.  We never did get to place our book review pieces back in.  However, with so much happening in town for April, we thought it would be a good idea to get a lot of publicity out .  (Personal aside:  This also macks the first time I have ever allowed my image to be used in any advertising.  All previous newspaper ads/pieces have either used the other co-owner or no image at all.  I also have never been in the radio ads/call-ins or on television, save for a few quick clips in the background.)  Since so many people will be in town soon for Hillbilly Days, we thought we should get the word out.  There will be at least three more ads that will be running, each one might be different -- we aren't sure yet what they will be.  The odd thing is, we won't even be open for all of the event.  We usually close early that Friday and not re-open until the following Monday.  While we are just far away from the main action that our business isn't disrupted, we aren't close enough to benefit greatly from the extra crowds.  People just park in the lot and walk to downtown and ignore the local businesses.  Oh well, maybe this can help us out after all anyway.

When Is a Box Really a Book

When coming up for the titles for the Upcoming Releases board at the store and the Upcoming Titles page on the website, we create a list of promising books and then narrow down the field to the best candidates.  However, sometimes mistakes are made, and this isn't an April Fool's Day joke either.  When making out the list for March, we mistakenly listed the James Patterson novel The Black Book as The Black Box instead.  This probably happened because the previous title on the master list was Vicious Circle by C. J. Box and the words got transposed somehow.  For almost the entire month of March, the book was incorrectly listed on the board.  It was only corrected when we (and in this case I mean me)  saw the actual book cover.  What is worse is that the title had also been incorrectly listed on the website since it was updated last Saturday.  Well, the website was also corrected as soon as possible, but not as soon as was liked.  Sometimes mistakes like this do occur, usually when a book gets delayed after we check the on sale date lists to make our list.  We do try to correct this type of error, but they can slip through.  In fact, we have been trying to correct some other errors on the site since we changed the color pallet.  We are still finding some even after a month.  Well, that is all for today.  Goodbye until next week.

Frustration Is Setting In

While preparing for today's post, we just noticed that the app for setting up a Blogger blog for our website doesn't really allow for comments.  We never noticed that until today.  We knew that the app didn't have access to everything a full fledged Blogger blog has, but we just never looked over all of the options before now.  The good news is that we have enabled the social bar aspect at least.  Now you can like the blog directly to Facebook.  It also has a Twitter button.  The store is not on Twitter at the moment, and we are unsure if we can remove the button yet to avoid any confusion.  Still, tweet about us anyway.  There won't be anyway we will be able to interact, but the publicity will be nice.  In all honesty, we didn't have an idea for today's post.  None at all.  It was totally random that we noticed this little mishap, or there might not have been a new post at all today.  Just some rambling topics that don't mean anything, but there should be something else to say.  Well, nothing else today.  Really.  See you next week, hopefully with something more prepared.

Adventures in Old-School Advertizing

So, our most recent attempt at publicity did not go over as well as it could have.  Therefore, we are trying something different for the next round of ads, and it will have something that we have never done before.  What that is will have to be a surprise, especially since we don't know if we will be actually able to do it.  Still, it could possibly be different than anything that we have done before.  On a related front, we have been thinking about expanding our product lines.  While we never have sold just books, we are thinking about having some related products to go with them for awhile now.  We are welcome to any and all suggestions.  The thing is no one wants just to have books at a book store anymore.  Customers want an experience, one we need help in creating.  What should we do to make BookNotes a destination people need to come to and not just check in when they want a particular title they want us to order?  There is an audience out there that is not being fulfilled, and we aim to target them.  For that, we need suggestions from you, our former, current, and potential customers.  Throw any ideas out there.  We cannot do everything, but we will try to consider as many ideas as possible.  The store is starting to look a little empty since the makeover and we need to fill it back up again.  This post is going live as soon as it is done, so you can comment as soon as possible.   That is all for this week.  Maybe next week there will be more to say.

Sychronize Your Connections

In case you have missed it, we have finally linked up the store's Facebook page to the website.  Now we can connect our social media output more closely to our, uh, something.  For some reason, today's post is difficult to write.  But anyway.  It will now be easier to see the capsule reviews we have been posting on our Facebook page, without having to go back and forth as much.  Also, we just posted a 360 degree video of how the store looks now after the recent remodeling.  It is our first video post ever, so it isn't as clean as it could have been.  Still, we finally put the digital camera to work and it only took two years to use that function for something.  As you can see, we didn't change that much.  We moved some of the shelves around.  We moved some of the books to better feature some of them.  The local pamphlets and Will Moses materials are now featured in new spots.  Some of the clutter has finally been dealt with.  We hope you like what we have done.  We are still looking more your input on how we can make Booknotes the best independent general purpose book store in a twenty-mile radius, so don't be afraid to offer suggestions.  It is probably a good time to finish, so see you soon.

It's Time for a Spring Makeover

This year, apart from the usual change of seasonal decorations, we are doing a little remodeling of the store as well.  Many of our shelves and display areas have been moved to provide a new flow through the store.  We have moved our discounted hardcovers to a more prominent shelf.  Much of the clutter has also been removed.  A few categories are in different spots, so fell free to ask if you cannot find what you are looking for.  This is all in keeping with our new direction, also represented on our website, with its new color schemes and features.  We are having some problems with our search engine listings, as well as our ties to social media.  We hope to have these problems cleared up soon.  One thing we are most anxious to do is have this blog posted directly to our Facebook page.  We are still trying to find the correct app for that, and figure out how to install it properly.  That is all for today,  not too much to say.  Hopefully, we will have a lot more to do next week.  Bye.