It’s Friday, So Some Fun Stuff…
First off, one of my books from my Seeders Universe is in a nifty bundle that you can buy just about everywhere. But for a ton more information on this bundle called Sci-Fi-July Redux, go to…
https://bundlerabbit.com/b/sci-fi-july-redux
And I have one of my all-time favorite stories in a nifty short story bundle called The UFO Bundle. Kris has a great story in this one as well. But I love my little story because it just is flat out weird. Just look at the cover blurb. (grin)
Get information at https://bundlerabbit.com/b/ufos
Our South Pop Culture store has a new sign just put up today. You should be able to see it from a few miles out to sea.
Monthly Regular Workshops…
You can find them under Online Workshops to the right of this post. Sign up for July on Teachable.com. For credits or workshops beyond July, write me.
Each regular workshop is 6 weeks long.
Again, it will take you about three hours per week on your own pace to do each of these if you do the assignments. These are the starting dates of upcoming regular workshops.
All have openings at the moment.
Class #1… July 10th … Depth #3: Research
Class #2… July 10th … Author Voice
Class #3… July 10th … Dialog
Class #4… July 10th … Writing into the Dark
Class #5… July 10th … Writing Fiction Sales Copy
Class #6… July 10th … Writing and Selling Short Stories
Class #7… July 11th … Depth in Writing
Class #8… July 11th … Business
Class #9… July 11th … Writing Fantasy
Class #10… July 11th … Information Flow
Class #11… July 11th … Magic Bakery
Class #12… July 11th … Advanced Depth
Again, if you don’t have credits, sign up direction at Teachable.
I remember before, you saying how interested you were in marbles. I just never realized how popular they must be if you put that on the sign.
Which one at the store is the rarest? And do you keep any of them for yourself, or are they all at the store at this point?
I keep all the really rare ones. I have a lot of them from Germany in the 1800s when glass marbles started being done hand-made. Stunningly beautiful. Then early US early machine-made marbles are beautiful and expensive and rare as well and I have lots of those. I’ve seen marbles go to $10,000 in value. Most rare marbles are a few hundred bucks each, give or take. It has a large collector’s base and we have displays of marbles in both Pop Culture stores and both are good sellers. We have an antique wood candy dispenser we keep full of cheeper marbles and for a quarter you get six from the machine. Can’t keep marbles in the stupid thing.
Did you buy this store from someone else or did you start it yourself?
Started it about 12 years ago. Then sold it a year later and for seven years my former manager owned it. Then when my friend Bill died and we had to deal with a lot of collectable stuff, WMG Publishing bought it back six years ago.
We started a second Pop Culture in front of our publishing offices two plus years ago and bought the bookstore last August. Then started up Ella Collectables because of a place we rented seemed suited for it.
Four stores WMG Publishing Inc. now owns. And they are great fun.
I was curious. This shows how having different income steams helps with a writing career. I collected old baseball cards and original Star Wars memorabilia. I’ve wanted to start something like this as well.
Martin, yeah, different streams, but a couple keys if you haven’t run a small retail store before (I had, a number of them, including a bookstore that I started in 1977.) Low overhead and location and inventory. Got to have all three. And a love of finding more stuff if you are doing older things.
For example, right now our inventory in comics (we sell them in two of the four stores) is in the neighborhood of 150,000, a lot of those not out because of room, and we have a massive amount of room. Just getting them bagged and boarded and priced to keep up with what we sell is a full day every week for one person. So caution. Crazy fun but crazy amount of work.
I remember when I was a kid, there was nothing better than a new bag of marbles. Shooting them with my friends. No video games in the mid-sixties, no internet. Marbles filled many rainy days. We played inside, my basement had a smooth concrete floor.
Same here, Mark! My dad taught me one region-specific marbles game, where you dig a hole in the ground and throw, then take turns flicking them in with your forefinger and thumb, following streaks like in running a table in pool. Winner takes all. We played with clay marbles glazed in color, which are no longer made in the Czech Republic. Too bad, they had a charm of their own. When somebody brought a glass marble, especially a “rainbow” (with a vortex inside,) it was such a big deal. Negotiations took place as to what good marbles others had to risk playing with. That was considered a big stakes game 🙂
Those “vortex” marbles were German handmade for the most part and could be very expensive. The clay glazed marbles are called Benningtons, for the most part. Fun stuff.