I haven't blogged anything for a couple of days, as I haven't really had anything to say of interest.

 I guess I'm in a bit of a 'downer' for this point in the season.  All the figures we were quoted for bookings showed an increase - nobody here has seen it: this is great for the visitors - no problems on the beach, no booking for dinner - but not good for businesses - Where is everyone!!

Well, todays' thoughts are a bit of a moan concerning publishing houses...

Now, this has been a constant thorn in our sides for the entirity of our tenure here in the bookshop.  Considering the decline in the independent bookshops, wouldn't you think that the major publishers would be helpful to us small outlets?  The answer I'm afraid is a resounding NO!

We have a limited space in our shop, so we can't hold a lot of the same book - just not practical.  As a result, we want only a few copies of current titles at a time, with a view to ordering on a regular basis, depending on turnover.

Does this get any help?  No!

So many of the large publishing houses put a limit on numbers ordered( say 50 per title), or a HUGE minimum order value on, so by the time we add in shipping costs, it becomes a joke...
As ever, not one to be put off, I'm now contacting other publishers I've found via Twitter, Google, and through recommendations...here's hoping they can be 'bigger' than the others (Penguin et al.)


OK...that's the moan of the week over!  Just to give you an idea of what we look like, I found a couple of pics from last season...hope you like them :)

Of course the views stay pretty much the same - although we have done a lot of work on the garden plot outside the shop - here's what I mean...

And today John added the new 'arrow' sign on the road...looks good, and I'll take some pics tomorrow as we walk down to the shop.

well, I've managed to cheer myself up a bit, and the seats pictured above are calling...need to go watch the boats, swimmers and soak up some sun while it's quiet...we live in hope that the evening won't be!