It’s 4:48 a.m. and I’m wide awake – and have been awake since about 1:30. I started thinking about the bookstore and the lack of traffic and that was it – no more sleep for me. I went downstairs, prayed and settled down to watch some TV. Eventually I got sleepy, turned it off and almost started snoozing till the thinking started again. Finally I came upstairs and got on the internet. Hopefully I can make up the sleep tomorrow during the 1-3 break when the bookstore is closed (on Fridays).
It doesn’t help that my throat/palate is hurting again, worse over the last week or two and especially worse over the last few days. For whatever reason I woke up at 10:00 this morning (!) with a horrible headache and sore throat. I took my temp and it was normal, so I don’t think I’m actually sick. I’m seeing my ENT’s PA tomorrow morning – oh wait, at this point it will be in a few hours. The pain seems to be localizing to a pretty specific place on the left side of my throat, so hopefully we can identify a concrete problem with a concrete solution.
As for the decreased customer traffic…what’s bothering me is that I had to keep saying “no” when people asked if I had this or that book and it was driving me crazy, so now I’ve ordered a ton of new books and CDs and no one is coming in to buy them. I guess that’s the challenge of retail. I just wish I knew what to do about it. I’m especially disheartened because the “mainstream” titles are just sitting on the shelves, even though they were the most popular items – and the most distinctive in terms of LOI being one of a kind. Even my newsletter read stats have been steadily going down. I wish there was a conference coming up where I could move some of the merchandise. The ICNA South conference is July 4, but it’s a one-day affair and last year it was a real pain in the rear because it was so disorganized.
Anyway, I’m having great success with the bookstore’s activities but I dont know what to do about the lack of day-to-day customers. I have no problem with LOI being more of an educational center than a bookstore, but I guess more Muslims have been hearing about it and they expect religious books.
