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)

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.

Cheap books could lead to fewer books - the book price war

If you keep up with big retail news stories (or even book industry news briefs), you probably have heard about the recent price-gauging fight among Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target, and now Sears.  The New York Times had a feature on this battle today.  In an attempt to control bestseller market share and bring more folks to their superstores (where, inevitably, more items will be purchased), these retailers are cutting down prices on books to the point where they're taking a hit.

Perhaps you read bestsellers exclusively and drool at the thought of a new hardback book that's less than half the cost it'd be if you bought it at a brick and mortar store (chain or indie)--but think again before you rush off to Wal-Mart with your $10 bill in hand.  There's something afoot here, and it has nothing to do with the love of books, the love of reading, or the love of you--the customer.

The folks at WORD Brooklyn sent out a link to this piece about this week's price war and what it could mean for readers.  This price-gauging should frighten you and make you think again about where you buy books and the effect of your shopping choices.  Here's a quote from the above-mentioned New York Times article:

It’s a contest “that has no end in sight,” said Michael Norris, a consultant with Simba Information, which provides research and advice to publishers. Mr. Norris said the price war could be particularly damaging to the publishing industry and booksellers because the retailers who were currently slashing prices “don’t need to sell books in order to stay in business” and therefore can sell the books at a loss.

Please do take the time to read up on the issue, and feel free to leave any feedback here on the blog.

Thanks!

more behind the scenes info: getting finances organized with help from a new book

It goes without saying I don't have enough cash in my account to open and fund Avid--I'll be applying for several loans, grants, and investments to add on to the savings I've already accumulated.  But before I could even think about acquiring a loan, I needed to get a better handle on my personal budget.

That's where this book comes in:  I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I don't know that I should be recommending the book just yet, as I'm only done with a couple of chapters and have many pages to go.  But hey--I can at least wholeheartedly recommend the first two chapters, right? 

Let's get this out on the table right away:  I am not someone who's fixated on money or even particularly amazing at managing finances.  Yes, I pay off my credit card every month.  Yes, I have a job with a salary.  Yes, I am good at math. But no, I don't ever look more deeply to find out what my exact credit situation is and how this could affect my personal and professional projects. 

Until today.

I read this book and immediately felt called to action.  This is pretty special for me, as most books I read that are billed as self-help don't make me get up and move.  (I especially like reading about yoga, exercise, and meditation while lying in bed doing none of those three things.)  Something about Sethi's tone (which can be obnoxious but is, in general, encouraging and genuine) drives me to work.  He said I'd feel empowered if I started working on my finances one little bit at a time instead of having the big bulk of them looming over my head forever in one scary thunderhead.  So today I found out my credit score (good), composed a letter to the credit reporting agency asking that some erroneous information be fixed (which will help improve my score), paid off this month's credit card bill, set up some autopay bills (which helps keep your accounts active, something that's very important), and applied for another part-time job.  KAPOW!

My true inspiration for all this movement is my goal of opening Avid Bookshop as soon as possible, first as an online store, then as a book fair operation, and finally as a brick and mortar storefront. 

What have you done in recent months to jump-start your professional or personal life?

(Thanks to someone at Workman Publishing who was kind enough to send me a complimentary copy of this book the moment I mentioned on Twitter that I wanted to read it! Now THAT's service.)