Any fool can sell books.

The molecatcher has just been in with a Mormon Bible he hoped I'd make an offer for. It was a very smart one in a leather case with a zip and a little handle that turned it into a sort of handbag with an outside pocket, presumably for putting ones notes in. I showed him how to create a listing for it on Amazon. It would stay on the shelves here for ever. He told me that trade had been 'steady' at the indoor mart this morning and he had scored £60. That is a lot more than I have scored sitting here all day and underlines my urge to get out of this shop, at least by next year. What with one thing and another I feel that anyone can sell books and there is absolutely no sense of achievement any more. In a different location things might be better. I am not the bad workman who blames his tools, but it does seem that this town isn't the best place for a bookshop. Last year I was getting an average of £450 a week from the High Street throughout the year, a great deal deal less than Bryn in Ballater but enough to keep me happy when another third-to-a-half of that was added by internet sales and there was the occasional boost from the proceeds from Fairs. This year it has been consistently worse on the High Street. I have had other factors to buoy the takings but, well, it's getting to be dull work ducking and diving!
Charles Leakey, the bookseller in Inverness who has an enormous converted church for his shop, started with a tiny shop and was of the opinion that as long as he had the right books people would come. Times have changed. That might not be altogether true nowadays. The internet has moved the goalposts.

There is a certain skill in buying the right books and paying the right price for them. I think I'm getting quite proficient at that now and maybe that is the problem. There's no edge to it.

I need a new challenge.