From the President

DEB GRAHAM

Reminders In Life

About ten years ago, now, in December, I sat with my parents watching the CNN coverage of the Granada military action. This is significant only because at the time I was a ten year veteran in the military, working Special Operations, and those units were my own, those guys in BDUs running around, the gunship crews, they were all friends of mine and I was sitting home recovering from successful surgery to remove an ovarian tumor instead of working on the mission. It’s the only action I missed, and the funny thing was, it didn’t bother me to not be on the inside knowing what was actually going on.

For me, the prospect of cancer had been a wake up call, one of those reminders in life, which made me think about what I wanted to use my time and mind and energy for. Travelling to foreign places and blowing things up, for whatever reason, wasn’t what I wished to be remembered for.

I recovered, returned to work, finished my hitch and left the military to become a deputy sheriff here in Okaloosa County, Florida instead. It seemed a worthier form of warfare to me, and at least this way, if I died, it would be on my own ground and for a cause I personally believe in rather than one I got told to believe in. It was the right decision for me. However, my old nemesis came back to hassle with me again and about three years ago I had two more operations, both successful, to beat tumors, this time trying the breast cancer route.

This second “go round” was harder than the first, really knocked me down and took a long time to recover from. In ways, I am still trying to recover the energy I once had. Just another reminder, and I started Books By Blondie, an online business, to have something to fall back on should another round be ahead of me and I not prove able to continue as a cop. Shortly after this, I got recruited into IOBA by Rik Pavlesak, one of the best friends anyone can have and the owner of Blue Monkey Books. I poured a lot into it, because I believed it could be important for me and others as a small, independent bookseller. I wanted it to be here and be strong in case I ever needed it.

IOBA was just an idea then. I had the pleasure and heartburn both of being one of the Founders and working with the others as we struggled to define and give birth to this dream. Life is strange at times. I started by working as the webmaster for the website, then was drawn in to be the interim Vice President and later was voted in as the first acting President of IOBA. It’s been a very long couple years, full of challenges and hard work to learn the job and juggle this responsibility along with being a cop and a bookstore owner and, occasionally, having a life, too. I’d never done anything like starting and then running a corporation with a board. I was still learning the book business as well. Did mistakes get made? Yep. Did I lose some battles? Yep. I also was in on some great calls and big wins. Life is like that. One battle won or lost doesn’t make the whole war, and it is good to keep your eye on the long term perspective as much as you can to weather occasional setbacks and losses.

Next week, I have another date with the surgeons for another battle with the old nemesis. It will be old news by the time this goes to press. I’m not worried about it, I feel really positive and haven’t chosen to share some of my personal world with you out of some maudlin sense of self pity or doom and gloom. I’m smiling a lot as I type this up. It’s just another one of those reminders in life to run a self check on where I am, where I’m going, what I stand for and what I’d be remembered for if I lost the war today. I like the answers better than I did ten years ago, but I still have a long way to go. I haven’t gotten it right, yet, but I’m learning.

A couple weeks ago, I sent a call for volunteers to the membership for help in the coming elections. Last time around, people lacked confidence, perhaps, and the interim board had to handle it and ended up fortunate to get one candidate for each office. Later, we took some criticism for that, there were some mutters about it. I’d like to avoid that, this time, however NO ONE, not ONE, volunteered or even enquired what we had in mind or needed.

There’s a lot of reasons for this. The biggest one is, you don’t realize how much IOBA needs YOUR help. It really does.

Secondly, some of you don’t know that most of your current board had no prior experience, learned as we went along, and are still learning and making mistakes along with the good moves, and this is OK. Our members have never demanded perfection, just candor, from me. I believe the entire current board would say the same. All you need is the desire to make a difference, to learn and grow some more, to have an effect, to work with your peers, argue and agree and all the usual work of a relationship, be it working or personal. Having a tough skin also helps.

Thirdly, secretly, maybe you lack self confidence to speak up, feeling you are too new, or not good enough in some talent or area or way.

Facing the unknown is scary. I was scared to accept the nomination for president last year, if you want to know the truth. My reasons included all of the above ones. I’m not a fighter by nature, but I’ve learned it’s not being afraid which makes a person a coward. It is what you do despite being afraid which determines whether you face your battles with courage. Win some, lose some, what really matters in life is how you play the game.

IOBA needs volunteers to oversee and help with the election process. IOBA needs several candidates for office to step forward to be the ones to take our association from here. Consider this a personal reminder in life and decide what you’d like to be remembered for a year from now. I really hope and pray with all my heart it will be that, among other things, you choose to add to your short list being much more active in our association, however your volunteerism takes form. No one gets paid here, we’re all volunteers. No more volunteers, no more IOBA.

That would be a damn shame.

From the President

The Way I See It “Freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” -Janis Joplin

All right, I admit it. As an independent bookseller in today’s marketplace, sometimes I wonder how much more I can lose. Being self-employed seems to mean paying my own way — and everyone else’s, too. We all have moments like this, when the downside of life looks bigger than the upside.

But, Janis Joplin obviously never ran with my crowd. To the independent booksellers I know, “freedom” means taking responsibility for our own destiny. We have accepted responsibility for our own businesses, incomes, and futures. Add in our strong wills, creative thinking and professionalism and there’s the very essence of the modern entrepreneur. We ARE the cutting edge.

Booksellers have always been a tough breed. The trade has been around a very long time and survived all challenges over the decades. Today, we are dealing with what could seem to be the single greatest threat to hardcopy books — the internet — and seeing instead it fueling one of the biggest booms in the number of new independent bookselling sources. The potentials in our own little bookselling community haven’t even scratched the surface as yet.

Change can be rough, though. Adjusting to the rapid paced, high technology Internet environment has forced us to re-evaluate nearly every aspect of the way we have always done it before. From book valuation to deciding to be a brick and mortar and/or an online only bookseller, we each are deciding for ourselves what to keep from our past and what to revise. It’s interesting enough to wonder what a “typical” bookseller’s reality will be in another ten years, let alone one hundred years from now.

As the president of IOBA, I spend some time thinking about that hypothetical bookseller and market, and have come to the conclusion that the most critical factor that will impact that future reality is the answer we develop to the following Big Question: “To what extent will independent booksellers prove able and willing to unify and cooperate for the common good of our trade, yet maintain the very independence which is our greatest strength as individuals?”

This is a life or death question for IOBA, and any other independent organization or group forming up now or in the future. These efforts will live or die by how accurately they answer the Big Question, preserve each member’s vitality and uniqueness, and yet provide the best forum for us all to come together and not only agree on those concerns we share, but also work together to find our own solutions when we can. If we fail, we must accept responsibility for the growing plethora of other interests filling the void for their own cuts of the “pie” and grabbing up as much as they can, as if there isn’t plenty for everyone. Janis was wrong, but Pogo was right when he said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

I, for one, am not at all pessimistic about the present and future survival of this trade I love. I know IOBA has incredible potential to become a major asset to independent booksellers worldwide. I hear good words about other initiatives, like Book CoOp. I know if we fail to answer the Big Question correctly, find the winning balance between unity and individual independence, others will rise up. That’s natural in a competitive arena.

These are great times to be alive and to be an independent online bookseller. I hear a lot of doom and gloom, and all the major chains and conglomerates are in my little town, too. Yet, a new little independent used bookstore just opened a mile from my house, and they obviously expect to succeed. I can’t help but love that winning attitude. It’s not true that freedom and independence means there’s nothing left to lose. The way I see it, being an independent today means we have everything to gain.

I’m excited, and I’m a winner! How about you?