To Keep Sane
So after the giant shipping extravaganza (and consequent set-to with the post office), it became clear that I needed to come up with a streamlined way to take care of shipping out books if I was to stay sane. Now, most books I’ll never lay eyes (much less hands) on. The books generally go from the printer straight to Unicorn (my distributor). Then Unicorn takes care of sending them out to stores. Some go on to Amazon, who takes care of sending them out to individuals. But I do ship some.
If you buy from the book’s website, I generally take care of those. Folks like to buy it there because if they do, they get a free e copy of the book for their ravelry library. I like it when folks buy there, because it means I get to keep the money they spend on the book (Amazon or Unicorn get somewhere just over half the book’s price when you buy from them…which is totally fair given how they help facilitate the process…but does always feel a tiny bit surprising when I get the accounting statement at the end of the month). I figure having the more direct option is a good addition for folks who like the idea of the e version. But, it does mean that I need to keep some books on hand.
So this weekend, we created the Pantsville Press shipping annex. This is the amusing (at least to me, and that’s all I’m really going for here) new name for what used to be known as the spare closet in the family room. Now, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, my house is old and my closets odd. They’re long and narrow and the ceiling slopes down rather sharply. Despite this, we managed to get a huge amount of stuff in there.
When you open the door, just to the right, there’s a small bucket with a handful of books and envelopes. These are the ones I’ll use over the next day or two. Then on the left, there’s a shiny new wire shelf. The printer is on the top, and the magical gizmo with the all-important job ‘make wireless go‘ lives behind it. The next shelf down holds buckets. Buckets play an important role in all my organizational tasks. Right now they hold (from right to left) extra printer paper (and the Indie Socks book is sitting there to stay safe until I mail it to the winner of the giveaway later this week), all the small pieces that would otherwise get lost (customs labels, rolls of tape, scissors, markers), and flat rate priority envelopes. The next shelf holds extra address label stickers (they’re so much cheaper if you buy them a thousand at a time…that just means you have to store a thousand at a time) and flat rate boxes (for those rare occasions when I need to mail large numbers of books at once). Finally, all the way at the bottom are lots and lots of extra regular envelopes. These, also, are cheaper when you buy them a zillion at a time, but they do tend to get a bit bulky.
Then, if you lean way in, you can see the back of the closet. That’s where the spare cases of books live (I know it looks like a lot, but I’m going through them alarmingly quickly…and of course it’s only going to get more packed when the mini book gets here next month). The thing on top and the thing peeking out on the far left of the picture are posters of the book cover used at events like TNNA and book signings. The closet seemed as good a place as any to keep them.
So far, it seems to be keeping everything tidy and organized. That, in turn, keeps me from turning into a raving lunatic and burning the place down in a fit of rage at having stuff everywhere. Now, the real question becomes, am I totally crazy for wanting to paint the whole thing bright orange and hang pictures in there?
I think a coat of paint would be great – and some artwork or perhaps stencil or wallpaper one wall. I like to look at pretty things.
The fact that you got it all set up and beautiful and THEN decided to paint? yea, that sounds a wee bit crazy to me…but I’m not really in a place to judge. You could just hang bright orange pictures!
Well, for what it’s worth, I’m impressed! I ordered ‘The Cabinet’ Friday – and had it in my anxious little hands today, Tuesday….AND I live in Denmark!!!
That’s pretty d… quick service, and the book is yummy!
PS: Sorry for all the exclamation marks – and no, I don’t think you’re crazy.
Holy wow, that is quick! For some reason, the post office is taking WEEKS to get it to Canada (which is about a 3 hour drive from here) and getting it across oceans in mere days. The logic of the post office will forever elude me. So glad it made it safely!
I think painting it bright orange is a fabulous idea!
Bright paint is cheery and lifts the spirits. I painted my kitchen “green apple” and my livingroom “Pooh Bear yellow”. I painted the framework and washboards white. When I tell people this, they look at me strange. Once they see it, I hear comments like, “I wish my husband would let me paint my kitchen bright green.”
No, you’re not crazy. Go for it!
I think the color ‘pooh bear yellow’ might be the best demonstration ever of why the order of words matters…try switching those first two words around and it is no longer nearly as appealing!
But yes, I’m a fan of paint. My office is dark dark red, and my kitchen desk area is school bus yellow. I’m just also very very lazy. Someone needs to invent color changing paint so I can just dial in the color I want!
You can put in a color changing LED bulb and change the color based on your mood using the remote.
“Pooh Bear Yellow” makes a lovely G-rated curse phrase and green apple with white trim sounds very pretty!
Well, like Katie said, the ordering of events could have been better planned, but sometimes you just don’t know things in the right order. And I think an orange shipping center would be just the same. I love organizational things. It just feels SO good to get things all in their proper places.