Sh*t's getting real

Although this week, that might be a tiny bit too literal...

Blinded with new biz enthusiasm in our household, there were things that we weren’t prepared for so early in our foundling journey. We met one of them face-on, so to speak, this week.

Ahh, the curveball of gastro. This week it has rendered three of four of us apocalyptic zombies and halted our progress like, well, like a bout of gastro will. I’ll spare the deets, but patient zero kicked things off in a dramatic way at 3am Tuesday morning, and now, Sunday, we’re all finally in our toast with butter (!!) phase. Said child has been struck off my Christmas list. (I’m kidding, of course! He’s actually my favourite twin.)

So what have we done since we last spoke?

• We have the keys! 79 High Street, Westgarth is Ramona Books’ home, for a terrifying-sounding nine year lease. We have three-year break clauses in place, but hell, it’s not like I had anything else in the calendar for the next decade.

• Our brand identity is back from the designer and we are delighted with it. We’ve gone with a classic, graphic font (lowercase though, lookout pedants!) and a punchy palette that will stand out on the retail strip and also give us a lot of options for social content.

• We’ve had a painter in the shop giving the space a freshen up. Rose beige, if you’re interested.

• Prior to contagion, I met with a gift and card wholesaler to start locking in our non-book offering. I’m shaping out my buying vibe to be bold, beautiful colours, with products that feel young n’ fresh. The opposite of us this week.

• We’ve had our accounts approved at all four of the major distributors, and ordering is now getting real. Each distributor has several publishers under it, and so I’m opening order spreadsheets like Matryoshka dolls. Have you ever chosen a book based off an Excel column? Some of these spreads don’t even include author. If a cover speaks a thousand words, a cell speaks, well, one. It’s grim. I’m copy-pasting ISBNs in my sleep. Right now I feel 5% aware of what’s going to be arriving in those first orders.

• I am on TikTok. Words I never wanted to thought I’d say. I own a light ring. A lapel mic, even! Gastro aside, the idea of showing my face in such a public way has a bowel-loosening effect. Do it for the biz, do it for the biz. And gosh, new found respect for legit Creators - this is time consuming stuff. The recording, editing, captioning… Between the hours of 8pm-9.30pm you’ll find me on CapCut.

• We have a job listing up and applications coming in!! Please, book-savvy, friendly people come and join us at Ramona Books! We need experienced casual staff over Christmas, to deal with either the volume of trade, or our own bookselling incompetence.

The week ahead

There is a helluva lot to get done. Honestly it all feels a little TBC on whether we’ll be able to open for 1st December. But I’m making prebiotic soups and feeling optimistic about:

• Attending the Book People Christmas party. Our first bookseller community event. What to wear! What to say to not offend/appear too foolish! Please be our friends!

• Having the furniture painted up ready for browsing tables and shop windows. The tiles are going to be stripped back to their Nonna-origins. We’re having signage made.

• Completing ordering. Books, gifts, cards, wrap. Christmas decs for prettying up the windows and shop. Dog biscuits for the counter currently under hot debate between co-founders.

• Getting the shop hardware. A laptop! Label printers, scanners! Other things we don’t know how to use!

• Starting the interview process to find the team.

• Receiving our Circle training to get an intro to the software that’ll run this show.

Phewf, we’ve got 14 days until we open. Uber Eats, you’d better be ready for us.

Til’ next time,

Katie

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What I’m reading: In need of a pace-y, thriller-adjacent read? The kind where you can get a decent wodge of read pages over to the left hand on first opening? You need Kala by Colin Walsh.

It’s a gritty, Irish, coming-of-age literary thriller that uncovers the mystery of a teenage girl’s disappearance in a small Irish town, 15 years ago. Slicing between the past and present, we meet Kala and her five best friends, and uncover the haunting impact her vanishing still has on their lives today. Super stylish and v absorbing.