Bookselling and blogging can be crazy-making

I hope to post an actual review later today, but first I wanted to ask: HOW IN HECK do those of you who blog, have jobs, and have families actually get all of this done? I'm just going to talk at random about what's going on right now, mostly to make myself feel better about being unable to write any reviews for a couple of weeks, and partially to take a good hard look at it all. WORK: I am the children's and young adult book buyer (and, actually, the entire department) at Pudd'nHead Books (celebrating our one year anniversary on Saturday!). I work in the store about fifteen hours a week, although that is about to double because of the holidays. I work at home probably another 2-5 hours depending on what's going on. I work out of the store if there's an ongoing event. Between now and Christmas I will be selling books at five performances each of three children's theatre performances at a local performing arts center. After each of these shows have ended, I need to immediately return any unsold books that were ordered specifically for that show. I have Heather Vogel Frederick coming for two school visits and an in-store signing. We are having an evening with Hank Steuver and Curtis Sittenfeld, and a rescheduled signing with Ron Currie. I have at least three, possibly more book club meetings to facilitate. We are having two in-store book fairs. For one I need to make short video book talks for the librarian to show the students; for the other, I need to pick some special targeted books. For each I will need to rearrange the department to accommodate special shelves for each school (and then dismantle them immediately following). I am having two educator evenings, a picture book night and a chapter book night, to reach out to area educators and talk to them about what we do. I am having a Fancy Nancy party and a Polar Express storytime. I need to place backlist orders with Simon and Schuster, Candlewick, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Random House, HarperCollins, Disney/Hyperion, Little Brown and Scholastic. Some of those I need to do immediately either because the trade show special is about to expire or because I need the books for an event. I can only do that at work, and if it's a backlist order of a book we've never had before, an inventory card needs to be created for it. I need to place Spring 2010 frontlist orders with everyone except Scholastic. In order to do that, I need to read a mountain of novels. I'm pretty well set with Penguin, but not remotely ready for the others. I've read Random House's and Penguin's picture books but no one else's. (AND SPECIAL TO SCHOLASTIC: SENDING A BOX OF SUMMER 2010 GALLEYS WAS NOT REMOTELY AMUSING.) I need to decide on sidelines for stocking stuffers and special holiday purchases, place the orders, and figure out where in heck I'm going to put more stuff. Oh, and I need to read all the new books that have come in that I ordered on the strength of recommendations and other reviews but haven't actually read yet. Because I haven't read them, I can't handsell them or write shelftalkers for them. HOME: Greg (my husband) is in Shanghai for two weeks. My mother lives with us and is currently not working, so that is an enormous help, but I have a three year old who both misses and is mad at her father, and has a completely unpredictable nap schedule. Over the coming weeks we have Halloween, several days in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving, and a quick overnight to Chicago. Greg is a law professor and is on a semester-long teaching sabbatical, and when he comes back from China he needs to try to finish up a law review article. And did I mention the holidays are coming? And the three year old? And that I owe about a thousand emails and phone calls, and I don't know how much more understanding my friends have? BLOG: Suffers. One of the biggest issues is that I can no longer just read what looks interesting to me - I have to read EVERYTHING. I can't buy the books if I haven't read the books. So I'm reading a lot of stuff in genres I don't really enjoy, and a lot of bad books, and a lot of nonfiction, and it would be really, really nice if publishers could just consider publishing fewer books. I have read at least fifteen terrific books I haven't had a chance to review, as well as piles of picture books. I haven't even had time to format and post any more of the video reviews Sarah and I made together. So since *AHEM* my other contributors seem to *AHEM* be busy as well, posting here may well continue to be sporadic until the New Year. I have no idea. Perhaps a burst of energy will produce a small stockpile of reviews I can stagger; perhaps not.

Comments

[Kymm]

That would *AHEM* be me, one of the *AHEM* lame contributors, who has been feeling really guilty about her lameness lately! I promise to get some new reviews to you really soon, cross my heart!

[Darsa]

Hang in there, Melissa! Try not to waste any energy on feelings of blog-guilt. Your fans understand.

[Michelle]

You sound incredibly busy!! It is difficult to have a full-time job because really I could blog all day! My library job feeds my blogging though and feeds the family as well I guess. It is difficult to keep all the balls up in the air.