Bookstore

[mallorys_camera]

In shock: Frank's counter-offer for the bookstore is pretty close to my offer. I'd lowballed him by more than 50% of his initial asking price. Damn. I may end up owning a bookstore.

Comments

Re: Are you sure?

[shfantom.livejournal.com]

Seems like a lot of work to make money. I live in the old Fort Ord. I've been here for about 5 years and have seen the job slowly go away. I feel bad for you and what your going through. At the same time I think that buying a book store is going to be a lot of work for a little payoff. I don't know the financial situation of the book store but I know that you'll be spending a lot of time there, and a lot of mental money there. By mental money I mean stress, exhaution. Just make sure your ready.

What kinds of work are you interested in? Maybe I know of something. I work in Ryan Ranch and am friends with a lot of the tenants.

Re: Are you sure?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What do you do in Ryan Ranch?

A bookstore would be a lot of work. Books = low margin: typically you only net about 3% of gross sales because varible and overhead are so high. I am recrunching numbers today. Place also has a coffee bar (high margin) and I'm seriously thinking (don't laugh) of putting a hot sauce mini-store in there as well. Hot sauce is the new Big Collectible.

On the plus side: I love books, and I have the right sort of personality for this kind of venture being kind of a maddeningly extroverted showboater type. Think Morgan's with books! Place is being so mismanaged now that I could jack up sales by 20% with no effort at all, so if I can get the cash flow numbers to work on the store's current revenue flow, I'm looking at gravy.

On the minus side: no bank in its right mind is going to give me a loan to buy an independent bookstore so I'd be risking my own $$$. And it ties me to Monterey for the indefinite future. I'm very ambivalent about Monterey, but my oldest son is going to a great highschool here so I need to stay for at least two more years.

Kinds of work I'm interested in -- well I've done practically everything in my lifetime from health policy analysis for the State of California to entertainment editing and writing for People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, to business development and marketing for Sillicon Valley corporations. In fact, you might say my resume is a little too eclectic.

What do you do? How did you end up in Monterey?

Re: Are you sure?

[shfantom.livejournal.com]

I'm an IT Project Manager. I work for Hayward Lumber in thier corp office. I've been here for about 3 years now.

I came to Monterey because my friends offered me a cheap place to stay on the coast. I've been 6 years. My roommate was in the first class at CSUMB. He's lived on campus ever since.

I wish I could go to Mendacino!!!!! I love it up there.