SHOP ONLINE! Used books, new books, CDs, and movies!

Hey all:

Looking for information on Avid Bookshop? Visit our website:  http://www.avidbookshop.com

We sell new and used books; links available at our home page.

Remember that when you buy from our new book webstore through Dec. 31, you get FREE SHIPPING on orders of $30 or more when you use the code FREEAVIDSHIP at checkout.  (Plus all hardcovers are 10% off.)

You may have noticed we don't post here very often--that's 'cause we write weekly about books, reading, and community at Athens publication Beyond the Trestle (search for entries by Janet Geddis). We also update our Facebook & Twitter pages pretty frequently.

Email Avid owner Janet Geddis if you have any questions or comments.

Thank you!

It's not too late to get your Unchained Tour books!

If you're like me, you're pretty bummed that the Unchained Tour of Georgia is over (for now, at least!).  Why not curl up with one of the storytellers' books and relive the magic, humor, and poignancy of that Moth-style storytelling tour?

There's been a lot of good press about this phenomenal tour, but author (and Moth podcast host) Dan Kennedy probably summed it up most beautifully here.

We ordered a lot of books to sell at the October 20th Athens event, but there are limited copies of some titles left. Before we return these books to the publisher, we want to give you a chance to buy them from Avid Bookshop, Athens's independent, neighborhood bookstore.

1. Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648683.html
2. You Know Better by Tina McElroy Ansa: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648687.html
3. Loser Goes First by Dan Kennedy: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648686.html
4. The Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648685.html
5. Ravens by George Dawes Green: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648688.html
6. The Border Will Be Soon by Chad Faries: http://www.biblio.com/books/367648684.html

If you're reading this after our quantities have sold out, worry not!  You can search for all these titles (and more) at our new books website:  http://avidbookshop.theretailerplace.com

Thanks!

I'm still blogging, I promise!

Hello there, avid Avid supporters. At least 30 times in the last couple of months, I've thought, "Eek! I have to update the Avid Blogger.com account so people know I've not fallen off the face of the earth."

And then I promptly forget to update the blog.

Things are still progressing rather swimmingly, if I do say so myself. I have been updating the Facebook fan page and the store's Twitter account frequently, and I've been work-work-working on getting more startup capital, doing bookstore internships, having meetings with folks from Athens-area nonprofits, chatting with local bankers, and more.

I've also been blogging about literature and reading on an Athens website called Beyond the Trestle. So far people have left encouraging and thought-provoking comments.  Check out my weekly entries here:  http://beyondthetrestle.com/blogs/janet-geddis

Of course I'll update you with any and all major developments. For now, rest assured that things are still moving along and we're on track toward opening in a few months' time.  As always, you can email me with any questions or comments. 

Take care, and happy reading!

summer's sweltering heat is here...

...and it's not even summer yet! 

Ah, Georgia.  I love you and your too-cozy, energy-zapping humidity, languid evenings on the porch, and early mornings walking as the sun burns the last of the cool air away.

Things have been busy as usual around here.  That 2-week turnaround time it takes to get one's sales and use tax certificate isn't exactly...um...accurate.  It's been 9 weeks for me, so I'm alternating between pestering the state of Georgia and trying to exercise patience.

I'm honored to be a regular contributor to the popular Athens website Beyond the Trestle.  Today the site published my inaugural post; look for me on Wednesdays to talk about literature and reading. This week's entry is called "A Literary Love Affair."  Please use the comments section to let me know what you think!

What I've been up to (or, Over the Moon Bookstore & Artisan Gallery opens soon in Crozet, VA)

Last week I flew to D.C., where my friend Anne DeVault picked me up and drove me back to her hometown of Charlottesville.  I'd met Anne and her sister Laura at Paz & Associates workshop retreat this past September ("How to Open a Bookstore:  The Business Essentials"), and we'd really hit it off.  Many emails and bookselling events later, here I was on their doorstep hoping to help them in any way they'd let me.  Sure, I sound very kind and good here--but consider what they were giving me.  The hands-on experience of preparing to open a bookstore is very different from reading about the same experience.  This week was invaluable, and I'm very grateful that these friends took me into their homes and bookstore.

The proprietors of Over the Moon Bookstore & Artisan Gallery (opening next month in Crozet, Virginia) are these wonderfully smart, funny, clever women who are really going to do well.  They've been kind enough to let me look at their business plan, their bookstore layout plans, and more--I've been impressed with how well they already know their target market and how many connections they're making to the book and art worlds of their region.  On my end, I was pretty pleased to become more familiar with a bookstore point of sale (POS) system, the long spreadsheets of recommended opening store inventory, how many choices must be made before bookshelves and fixtures can be built, and more.  Living the professional lives of these enterprising sisters for just a week was really enlightening (and lots and lots of fun). 

On the Saturday I arrived, May 15th, Laura & Anne invited some folks over to their freshly-painted-but-bookshelfless space in Crozet, a beautiful and hilly town about twenty miles from Charlottesville.  Over and over I heard people expressing their excitement about the store, their happiness that someone had the guts to do this, and their belief that this place is going to be a hit.

Congratulations to my friends! Can't wait to visit the store once its doors are open. 

Avid earned another shot to win $50K!

Hi, you wonderful people.

Thanks to you guys, Avid has another chance to win a $50,000 grant. We made it among the top 100 runners-up for April in Pepsi's Refresh Everything! competition, which means we've earned a place in the May competition! Now if we want to win, we'll have to push push push to get in the top ten and stay there. Please be as obnoxious with this as is comfortable for you. :) Send the Pepsi link to friends and family. Know someone famous who likes to read? Ask them to tweet about it, share it on their website, or create a Facebook post encouraging fans to vote. My tip is to sign in first, THEN vote. When the "vote" button disappears, you know your vote has been counted. (At the end of April I found out that lots of people *thought* they were voting, but it turned out that for most of the month their votes weren't being counted due to the site's confusing nature.)
www.refresheverything.com/AvidforAthens

Take care, and thank you!

-Janet G.

(Donate in any amount here: http://indiegogo.com/AvidBookshop)

Nuci's Space Community Read: focus on depression & suicide

Last night I attended the book club meeting for the Nuci's Space Community Read. (Not familiar with Nuci's Space? You should be--it's an amazing, amazing place.)  Held upstairs at the Globe (where we met for our We Are Athens book club last month!), the meeting was well-attended and lively. 

Why did I resist book clubs for the first 28 years of my life?  Along with some friends I began a book club a couple of years ago, and it's brought me such joy and fulfillment to discuss books with smart people.  Since beginning that personal book club, I've taken part in several others (and even organized one).  I feel hooked! By now you probably realize I'm quite the reader, and for years I thought that I wouldn't want to hash apart a book with others (especially strangers, and especially after having done so in school for four years).  But having begun taking part in book clubs recently, I can't imagine what my old self was thinking!

I'm exposed to so many different points of view, so many interpretations that hadn't occurred to me.  Each reader comes from a background totally separate from everyone else, and that means each reading is unique.  When readers get together to share these perspectives, you can watch the faces of the group as they begin to understand the book and one another in unexpected ways.

The next Avid-hosted book club will meet Thursday, April 29th at 6 PM downtown (specific location TBD). We're reading The Better World Handbook.  Hope you can join even if you don't get a chance to read the book.

SIBA Book Award finalists

Today, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance announced the finalists in this year's SIBA Book Awards.  I've read a handful of these and am pleased to see that some of ones I voted for (ahem...Eli the Good by Silas House!) made it to the final round.

Winners will be chosen by a jury of SIBA booksellers and announced at the fall trade show in September.

In Which We Humbly Ask You to Help Avid in less than 5 minutes!

4 Quick Things to Help Avid 

Through free clicks, small donations, and formal investments, you'll help us get this project moving forward!

I humbly ask you to take a few minutes to explore the following ways to support Avid:
1. Vote for us in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project grant contest
...& then SPREAD THE WORD!

Time: 2 minutes/day throughout April; Cost: $0

Pepsi is giving grants to individuals, businesses, and nonprofits once a month--we're up for a $50,000 grant that would (obviously) help us immensely! Throughout April, you can vote once a day. If our Facebook fans voted once a day all month, we'd exceed 16,000 votes! There's strength in numbers, and every little bit counts.

Don't feel like signing up through the Pepsi site? No problem. You can log in through your Facebook page by using this application: http://apps.facebook.com/pepsirefresh/

2. Say something nice about Avid Bookshop on Intuit's "Love a Local Business Page"
...& then SPREAD THE WORD!

Time: 3 minutes; Cost: $0

Intuit is choosing 5 small businesses per month to receive grants; the grand-prize winner will win a $30,000 grant! The more folks who nominate Avid by saying a couple of nice things, the more chances we have to win a grant.  For details, visit the Intuit site at http://lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/fan?b_id=17114. (You can log in via Facebook by exploring the links in the bottom, right-hand corner of the Intuit page.)

3. Make a donation to us on IndieGoGo.com
...& then SPREAD THE WORD!

Time: 2 minutes; Cost: $1 - ? (any amount appreciated!)

IndieGoGo is a site where creators and entrepreneurs make project profiles explaining their vision, set a fundraising goal, and then raise money to help reach that goal.  There is no minimum donation!   Visit http://www.indiegogo.com/AvidBookshop and check out our amazing VIP perks.  Thanks to numerous friends and Athens businesses who've contributed great prizes for our donors at every level!

4. Let me know if you're interested in making a formal investment rather than (or in addition to) a donation.

Time to email: 2 minutes; Cost: TBD

I'm working with a local bank to create a community lending program whereby individuals can lend money to Avid Bookshop with the bank's help. (Entrepreneurs from Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn did this and I'm hoping to emulate them.) If you're interested in learning more, send me an email.

As always, THANK YOU. It's not the most comfortable thing to ask for assistance and money, but, as my writer friend Laurel Snyder says, "Everyone here wants to see new indies succeed. We understand you gotta work it."  Here's hoping you understand.

Have a lovely month of April--I hope that 30 days from now we'll be able to announce some very good news.

patience pays (we hope)

Hello all!  March has been a very busy month for me so far, bookstore- and life-wise.  My lovely mother and sister came to town for a nice visit, I hosted the first-ever Avid-affiliated book club, I cancelled two lunches with two author friends due to busy-ness or sickness (blargh--sorry Laurel & Jessica!), and I reestablished myself as a self-proclaimed iMovie guru.  It's true.

The month kicked off with an hour of utter frustration.  In the two years I've been planning this business, I've encountered many a setback, and I know there'll be many more.  So far I've proven to be resilient, so I'm not too daunted.  But man--if you had seen me at 12:22 AM on March 1, 2010, you would have encountered an angry, teary-eyed, unable-to-sleep entrepreneur.  Due to website issues, the Pepsi Refresh Project application grant I'd been working on for days simply disappeared the moment I logged into submit it for a grant.  Boo.

But guess what?  Pepsi has graciously fixed the situation, and I'm pretty happy with the solution:  they apologized for the system having lost my application and said that if I'd be willing to start the process all over again, they'd submit my project on April 1 at midnight.  (May I also say I was super-impressed with the customer service I received during my multiple troubleshooting calls? I don't drink much soda these days and of course am a born-and-bred Coca-Cola girl, but Pepsi's making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside of late.  Heresy, I know!)

Yippee.  I hesitate to celebrate too much over this small victory, but I'm pretty confident I'll start harrassing you for vote-clicks starting on April Fools Day.  SERIOUSLY.

I've also created a fundraising page on IndieGoGo.com!  I'll make the big push for that starting April 1st, too, but thought I'd plug it here first (which gives YOU the chance to be our official first donor!).  Due to sheer inventiveness and kindness from Avid supporters, we have a bevy of awesome "VIP perks" at every donation level.  Signed books, handcrafted stationery, free coffee for a year, original artwork, bookmarks, autographed CDs, and more, more, more are yours for the taking once you donate.  I've looked at other IndieGoGo project pages and, while some VIP perks are certainly exciting, NOTHING beats the lineup Avid has for you. (There is no minimum donation, though, so even pitching in a buck would be great!  Perks start at the  $10 donation level.)   Check out the page here: http://www.indiegogo.com/avidbookshop

Back to work now. Thanks as always for reading, and stay tuned for specific information on how to employ free mouse clicks, small donations, and even big investments to help Avid open its doors.

a diverse group at our first book club meeting!

As you may suspect, Avid will eventually play host to a variety of book clubs (and will aim to have a space set aside for any area book clubs to meet, even if an Avid bookseller is not involved in the discussion).  For now we're starting modestly, with just one book club I've talked a lot about on this blog.

The inaugural meeting of our Buy Local Book Club/We Are Athens Book Club/Insert-More-Clever-Name-Here-About-Localism-&-Sustainability-&-Community-Book-Club Here went really well.  We met at the Globe, a longtime downtown Athens pub and restaurant and had a couple of hours of good discussion, meeting new friends, and even a little bit of networking.

Catrina Cook (J House Media) and I were there to informally and unofficially represent We Are Athens.  The rest of the 13-person group was made up of people with a variety of backgrounds.  We had a couple of folks who are new to Athens as well as 20+ year veterans; we had one out of towner who wanted to learn about the club and a handful of small business owners who want to see some changes in the Athens community landscape.  We had one neighborhood-conscious fellow who's spearheading the new Barber Street Park Project--surely something the Project for Public Spaces would be excited about.  The variety of attendees was refreshing and people gave me perspective on things I hadn't thought about before.

In the interest of brevity, I'll mention a few things here that we mentioned LOVING about Athens.
1. music
2. approachability/friendliness of citizens and local government
3. open-mindedness
4. dynamic, ever-changing nature of the city
5. all the green space
6. gardens (personal, community, and even large-scale ones)
7. our thriving downtown
8. the sense of hope & optimism among many citizens
9. people's willingness to change
10. architecture
11. vibrant arts scene
12. creative enclave that is Athens
13. tourism is always improving

And here are a handful of things we'd like to see for Athens.  Ones with asterisks (*) are already in the works, as far as I know!
1. edible schoolyards*
2. music programming in schools (Athfest InSchool, for example)*
3. more family-oriented activities*
4. free public transportation
5. more frequent bus service/more extensive transit area
6. pedestrian-only areas of downtown
7. trolley/streetcar on Boulevard
8. require students to live on campus for at least a year
9. a UGA campus that is open to the downtown rather than closed off and separated
10. more bike-friendly routes & amenities*
11. We Are Athens (Buy Local Athens)*
12. a "playborhood"

Your turn:  what would YOU add to this list?

We've selected our next book, and I hope to see you at the next meeting (date & time TBA) so we can discuss The Better World Handbook:  Small Changes That Make a Big Difference.

Buy Local Book Club is tomorrow!

(...and we need a more fitting name.  We'll discuss this at our meeting tomorrow!)

BUY LOCAL BOOK CLUB MEETING

When:  Thursday, March 18th from 6 PM - 9 PMish

Where: UPSTAIRS at The Globe(199 N. Lumpkin St., 30601 - downtown Athens, GA)

Why:  To discuss Athens and ways to nurture it; to talk about localism, sustainability, "place-making," and community enrichment.

The Book:  The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper

(As of 3/17, our local library branch has one copy in!) 

Walljasper's book focuses heavily on the concept of place-making as envisioned by the Project for Public Spaces.  If you haven't acquired a copy of the book, no worries--your comments and insights will still be quite valuable!  For a crash course in place-making, check out PPS's website.

At the meeting, we'll select what our next book club choice will be--the next meeting will be in about three months, as the club aims to meet quarterly.

Thanks for your time, and I really hope to see you there tomorrow evening.  Email me with any questions, and contact The Globe at (706) 353-4721 if you need specific directions.
 

website update

Remember all that talk about my wanting to start a website months before the store opened?  A site where you could buy lots and lots of in-print titles through me and have them shipped to you directly from the wholesaler? Well, I'm having second thoughts about when I'll establish the website.

I'm going to create this type of site no matter what, but now I'm rethinking the timeline--think it'll probably be best to launch the site 1-3 months before opening instead of 6+ months before opening.

I had a phone meeting with ABA IndieCommerce web guru Matt Supko this afternoon, and he gave me a lot of good, 100% solicited advice.  I'll still use funds generated from the photo show to go toward the website--I'll just launch the website a little later than planned.  (My reasons for this are myriad--if you want to know more details or want to argue with me about it, I welcome your thoughts.)

Will anyone out there raise a fuss or be mad at me for delaying the site launch?  Bring it!  Please let me know what you're thinking.


One of my alternative plans is to let you contact me with a list of books you want; I'd get them from a publisher or wholesaler & then send them to you--heck, I'll even hand-deliver if you're in Athens.  The shipping time would be longer than if you were to buy them through another website (ahhemm...non-sales-tax-paying Amazon), but you'd be buying locally and getting some good books!

some ideas for spring - please share your feedback!

I have a few ideas (and some official plans) for spring 2010.  Now that it's snowed twice (!) in Athens in 2010, I'm definitely ready for warmer temperatures to hit!

1. Thursday, March 18th at 6PM at The Globe:  Buy Local Book Club
I've written extensively about this already, but if you've missed details, check out our Facebook invitation and this blog post on We Are Athens (the Buy Local Athens initiative).

2. Saturday, April 17th all over the US (and in ATHENS, if you join me!):  "E-Free Day"

I'll be at a wedding most of the day, so I am unable to organize any in-person, formal event on this day.  But we have a Facebook event where you can pledge to be e-free on 4/17, no matter where you live.   I hope the weather is beautiful so that it makes it easier for us technology addicts to take a complete break from everything electronic.  That's right:  no TV, no computer, no cell phones, no e-readers!  Read more here.

3. A Saturday or Sunday, sometime in April or early May:  SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT!
This event, another in the series of community-focused fundraisers for Avid, will be held at a locally-owned venue large enough to accommodate however many people sign up! To make the tournament more fun, we'll (perhaps) be looking for food and/or drink donations and a place that will host us out of the goodness of their hearts (fingers crossed).  We also need folks to lend us their Scrabble game sets (complete with a board and all the tiles!) for the day.  As I'm a word nerd, you probably won't be surprised to learn that there are 3 Scrabble sets in my house as we speak.  Please contact me if you have venue ideas, a Scrabble game to lend, some swag to throw into the prize packages, or any other thoughts on the matter.

Most likely the tournament sign-up fee would be between $5 & $15.  Top 3 or 5 winners would receive some good prizes!

4.  Another book sale, date & place TBD.  Several of you made it out to our holiday book sale in December 2009.  I sold a lot that day, but as more and more folks have dropped off boxes of wonderful books, my shelves are filling up again and I've got to sell these before my house collapses under their weight!  :)  If you have any ideas regarding a book sale date, venue, etc., please email me.

Thanks, and let me hear from you!

-Janet G.

GA Historical Society could use your used books!

(Thanks to Christa from primo Atlanta blog pecannelog for the heads-up. I've cut and pasted the Georgia Historical Society's email below.)


Georgia Historical Society Book Sale in Jeopardy! 

The Georgia Historical Society needs your used books for its Annual Book Sale to be held April 23-24, 2010. Based on the current level of donations, this year's sale will be cancelled due to the low volume of books. Clean out your closets and clear away your clutter to support this annual fund-raising event!

This popular annual event raises greatly-needed funds for GHS's library and archives. Faced with more budget cuts from the State, the revenue from the Book Sale is needed more than ever. Proceeds from the sale are used to purchase new library materials and to care for the oldest collection of Georgia history in existence.

Donations, of all sizes, can include rare and non-rare: fiction, poetry, children's, and all non-fiction subjects including history, biography, current events, how-to, religion, business, self-help, cooking, gardening, etc.

Magazines/journals, obsolete audio/video, and games donations will not be accepted.

Donations to the Book Sale are tax deductible. For more information or to volunteer, contact GHS at 912-651-2128 or email us at library@georgiahistory.com.

 The Georgia Historical Society, headquartered in Savannah with offices in Atlanta and Affiliate Chapters in 80 counties, is the oldest cultural institution in the state and one of the oldest historical organizations in the nation. It is the first and only statewide historical society in Georgia. For nearly 175 years, GHS has collected, preserved, and shared Georgia and American history through a variety of educational outreach programs, publications, and research services. For more information visit:   www.georgiahistory.com.

We Are Athens (Buy Local Athens) update (& more links than you'll know what to do with!)

I've mentioned the Buy Local Athens initiative a couple of times on this blog (here and here, for example) but haven't given too much away yet, as we're hoping to stage a fun launch event where we'll spill all the beans.  So many people (Athens residents, business owners, and more) are interested in being a part of the movement--it's quite inspiring, and we on the board are happy to be working for such a great cause.  For now I'll encourage you to visit our Facebook page and become a fan there.  Once our website is ready to launch, believe you me:  you'll hear about it on this blog, on Facebook, in the local newspapers, and more!

Let me outline a few details about the project so far, just to let you get your bearings.

1. After toying with several ideas, we the board voted on the name We Are Athens.  (Special thanks to Alicia Nickles of Flagpole Magazine, Satisfactory Printing, and others for that idea.)

2. We established a Facebook page not long ago and have already surpassed ONE THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED FANS. As I suggested above, the response has been phenomenal.

3. We're gathering funds so we can formally affiliate with the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and become an independent business alliance. 

4. Once we affiliate with AMIBA, we'll register our organization as a 501(c)3 nonprofit.  Once we're registered as a nonprofit with the state of Georgia and once we have formally announced the project, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals will be able to become members of We Are Athens.

5. And once we're off the ground, we'll be able to provide lots of services to the community.  Later we'll make a formal announcement of the ways in which We Are Athens aims to help Athens, but you can expect to see a directory of locally-owned businesses, resources for buying locally, lists of benefits for buying locally, and some members-only perks (to name just a few things!).

Now let me introduce to you the Buy Local Athens/We Are Athens Board.

Officers:

Catrina Cook (J House Media), Chair
Angi Harben (Classic Center), Co-Chair
Janet Geddis (Avid Bookshop), Secretary
Fausto Sarmiento (Banco de la Oportunidad/First American Bank & Trust), Treasurer
Chris Blackmon (ATLAS Real Estate Advisors) and Sam Drennen (First American Bank & Trust), Planning Committee
Alicia Nickles (Flagpole), Marketing Chair
Candice Courcey (Urban Sanctuary Day Spa), Membership Chair


Whether or not you're in Athens, I encourage you to look around and discover (or rediscover) the true gems of your town:  locally-owned, independent businesses that enhance your community.

If you're new to the "buy local" movement, look around at these resources that explain the ways your community can be enhanced through a focus on local businesses:

Good place to start:  Why Buy Local?
"New Study Shows Power of "Buy Local" campaigns
IndieBound.org
Chris Wyrick's article in the ABH about why buying local makes sense
Buying Local is a Growing Trend (Bookselling This Week article)

Our Buy Local Book Club is getting some good attention.  Please consider stopping by!  The book we chose is really great, but if you can't get your hands on a copy before the meeting, that's okay--we'll be able to have a good conversation all the same. I hope you'll join us.

Have a lovely (snowy) day!

the grant that almost was...

For quite awhile now, I've been gearing up to submit a grant application to Pepsi's Refresh Everything program.  To make a long story short, Pepsi is giving away lots of monthly grants in various amounts (smallest grant is $5,000; biggest one is $250,000).  I was pretty proud of the application I put together, complete with my second-ever iMovie.

12:01 AM EST today, March 1st, the voting opened.  And I could not log in correctly.  I kept getting a welcome screen for a 50-year-old named Stacey.  (I'm not Stacey, and I'm not 50.  I'm Janet, and I'm 30.) When they finally did recognize me as Janet Geddis of Avid Bookshop, they had no application on file for me.  Frustrating to say the least!

As of 12:22 AM, 1000 ideas had been submitted and the submission process was closed.  Alas. Sorry, Avid wallet.

It's not much of a consolation to know that hundreds of others had similar difficulties.  I applaud Pepsi's willingness to donate grant money to causes that will effect positive change in the world, but I do wish they'd anticipated the turnout a bit more and been able to handle the traffic.

Because you are an Avid blog reader, you get to watch the video that was part of my seemingly lost application!  Lucky, lucky you. 

I can't embed the video because it's wide-screen, so click here to view it.

Photo show & informal Avid fundraiser this Monday, Feb. 1st

Throughout February, some of my photographs will be on display at the Flicker Theatre & Bar. This photo show opening night get-together will also serve as a casual fundraiser for Avid Bookshop, as all proceeds from photo sales will go directly to our online bookstore funds.

DONATIONS* will be gratefully accepted whether or not you choose to buy a photograph. I'm currently saving up some money so that I may open an online store that will allow customers worldwide to have access to over 1.1 million titles. It is my hope that money I make from this photo show will allow me to establish the full-service Avid website sooner than later. (We'll keep our already-established book inventory through Biblio.com as well.)




On Facebook?  RSVP here!

Thank you, and please spread the word if you feel so inclined!




*Avid Bookshop is not a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit, so donations made to the bookstore cannot be used as tax write-offs. All donations will be given and gratefully accepted in good faith to support this community-focused center.

Inaugural Buy Local Athens book club book chosen!

The results are in! For our first-ever Buy Local Athens book club, we'll be reading The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper. Athens-Clarke County Library's website shows 10 copies available in Georgia, none checked out.  (You can put any of these ten copies on hold and they'll be sent to our local branch within days!) If you'd like to own a copy of the book, use Indiebound.org to find an independent bookstore to buy it from. We'll meet in mid-March 2010--details on when and where exactly will be forthcoming.

Find at a Georgia LIBRARY
Buy a copy from an independent store using INDIEBOUND

We're on Facebook!

Most of you already know this, but I'll say it here for good measure:  Avid now has a Facebook fan page!  Please consider becoming a fan, and if your business has a Facebook page, please spread the word so that I may check it out!

Buy Local Book Club

As some of you already know, some of us Athenians are working together to create an Athens Buy Local initiative.  Our Facebook page already has well over one thousand fans, which bodes very well for our city's future. There will be a formal launch of the program this year.  As a new small business owner (and child of parents who've had a small business for over 30 years), it's both invigorating and heartwarming to see so much support for our independent-minded, eclectic community.

Recently I posted a link (on Facebook) to the American Booksellers Association's Indie Local First Reading List, a collection of books about "making and keeping local communities vibrant." I asked fans of Avid Bookshop and fans of Buy Local Athens if they'd be interested in participating in a book club focused on buying and sourcing locally.  The response was immediate and strong, so here I am to share with you a few books for us to choose from.   Vote below in the comments section or via email. (I'm sure there'll be some debate and discussion on the Buy Local Facebook page and the Avid Bookshop Facebook page as well.  Worry not--I'll find a way to combine all this feedback in order to pick the book most people wanted to read.)

We'll plan to meet in mid-March to discuss the book together at some locally-owned, independent business (to be chosen later).

Here are three books to choose from.  Click on the titles for more information, courtesy of Indiebound.org. Let me know which one you're most interested in! Voting deadline is Friday, January 15th.

1. The Better World Handbook (2007 edition) by Ellis Jones, Ross Haenfler, and Brett Johnson
2. The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper and Benjamin Fried
3. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Economies and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben