So, yeah, today’s the day, I guess, that I officially announce that All on the Same Page Bookstore is closing. It’s not really news, we’ve been heading that direction for a while—December sales were just 50% of last year’s.

Let’s examine this, um, social experiment, shall we?

We took no salary, so no worries there; we had no employees. Our rent wasn’t ridiculous, our expenses pretty minimal for a business, utilities, Internet, and so forth. Our location wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t horrible, either.

Maybe I just suck at this. Maybe.

Or—and here’s where I start grumbling and griping about everything. Or everyone. Or should I be professional until the end? Hmmm.

Sure, I’m upset and sad about closing down the bookstore. We’ve been there two and a half years, after all. We put a lot of time and money into it. And a lot of heart.

But I’m pretty irritated right now. Won’t lie.

We decided NOT to do a crowd-funding project on the regular sites; after all, there was a campaign for Main Street Books a few weeks ago and two of them for The Book House since last summer. I know. I was pretty involved with those last two.

But we did our own thing, and we raised almost $2000. Not enough, sadly. And you know what? Everyone talks all the time about “local” this and that, but only half of that came from any local peeps—three locals, to be exact. The rest was from around the country AND OVERSEAS. Seriously.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I won’t. Someone will yell at me and I don’t like to be yelled at—in spite of all that, I do own the business, and I own the fact that we failed. Just can’t help but think hardly anyone gives a damn. Maybe I’ll think differently later. Maybe not.

Watching a funding campaign from, in effect, a grocery store, raise $30K in one day didn’t help, either. Sure, people have to eat, I get that. But still.

WARNING—AMAZON GRIPE SESSION ALERT!

So the next time you go to Amazon to buy your books or, worse yet, use their cutesy little share button to promote the fact that you really DON’T care about the “local” stuff, think about all the bookstores that are going under because you have to have that book RIGHT THIS MINUTE and can’t be bothered to walk out the door and go into an actual bookstore once in a while.

We’re far from alone. Since we opened, FOUR independent bookstores around the area have closed.

Well, then. If you’re still with me, I wanted to let you know that we’ve starting closing out our stock—all used paperbacks are $1.50, used hardcovers are $2.50. We have some new books too, at half-price. Author consignment books, however, are full price. At least until the authors come and pick them up. Which is okay now, since we’re closing anyway . . .

So long, and thanks for all the fish!