Special Report: Caught Beneath the Mudslide

In case you have missed our social media posts, a mudslide fell onto part of the shopping center where Booknotes is located.  The major impact occurred sometime around 1:00 am Thursday, February 21.  It crashed into the back of the section where CosmoProf is located.  Mud seeped into and through the store, oozing out of their doors.  The impact knocked down part of the access way to the upstairs apartments, making access to them almost impossible.  The electricity was cut off to make sure there were now secondary problems.  The mud blocked the drainage ditch behind the center, forcing the need for pumps and hoses to be brought in to help drain the ditch.  Unfortunately, the C + R Office Supply storeroom was the best location for these hoses.  Their doors have had to be kept open as the hoses sucked the excess water from behind the center, splashing it into the parking lot.  The electricity was allowed to be turned back on around 1:30 pm that Thursday.  We are open, but with some distractions.  In case something else happens, we have rearranged some of our products to offer some protection.  Some of the books and furniture have also be moved to aid in this.  The parking lot is going to covered with muddy water from both CosmoProf and the storeroom for the time being as cleaning up continues.  There is still parking, but it will be tougher to get to it.  We also suggest you call first, as weather changes could force us to not be open.  We would like to thank all of our customers and friends for your support in this troubled time.  Thank you.

When Will It Come Out?

One of the services Booknotes offers is notifying customers on when new books by their favorite authors come out.  However, few take us up on it.  Part of the reason is that they might already know about them.  Another reason might be because the information can change at a moment's notice.  We get our information from many sources.  Primarily, we use the catalogs from our distributors.  These monthly catalogs have a very long lead time and don't always cover an exact four week span.    Some books might arrive a week or two late or early, based on the actual month of title.  The long lead also means that a book's on-sale date will have changed since the issue is made.  That's one reason why we also use the online version of one of the catalogs.  Not only does it cover almost all of the title that are arriving for a particular month, but the information is updated to reflect a new ship to date, even if the title remains locked into its catalog month.  Unfortunately, there are thousands of titles in each online catalog.  We usually only look at about forty categories per month.  This can range from only one or two books to a few hundred, and we still can't seem to catch everything.  The final source is an actual listing of street dates that is updated every week.  However, we usually only double check it every month or so, as not many titles change dramatically.  Also, each list covers about three months worth of titles.  Again, this is in the thousands. Pouring over such a list is time consuming.  The first pass can take an hour per month.  Even then, titles slip through.  We usually can go online and check directly is a particular author has anything in the pipeline, regardless of format.  While things can still change, such listing can go up to a year or more ahead.  Pretty good odds, until something changes.  See you in two weeks.