Quick Update on Social Networking

I am only too well aware that I have been neglecting my blog once again. I don't intend to ignore it permanently - its just that once again, events have overtaken me - book fairs, a brief hospital session (nothing major), just life in general - life mainly equating to work. However I do try to keep in touch with both friends and customers via social network.  I had avoided facebook for a long time, thinking it was a bit daft - just telling people that you had gone out shopping etc. As usual, this was a matter of ignorance on my part, and I have found there is a great deal more to facebook if I had just taken the time and trouble to find out.  As usual, I haven't the time to explore it fully - I can get so easily side traced - there are so many interesting groups on there. Only today I got side tracked looking at one showing all sorts of interesting pictures and people sharing their memories of Wells-Next-the-Sea - one of my favourite walking places, and communities, under 10 miles from here.  Anyway, I digress, it is also a very handy place for me to drop into to let people know, in brief, just what I am up to, and what Peakirk Books are doing.  We have 2 site pages on there - but they are very much intertwined - mainly because when I find interesting articles I want to share with Peakirk Books people, I cant always manage to get them to go onto the Peakirk Books page - and they end up on the Heather Lawrence page.  (as ever my IT skills leave much to be desired). Thus it is always worth looking at both pages, as items are not always where they should be.

To find me on face book, my face book page is (or should be) - https://www.facebook.com/heather.lawrence.58367

the Peakirk Books page is (or should be
https://www.facebook.com/PeakirkBooks

A 'like' on our Peakirk Books page is always appreciated. :-)

This is still the place for more in depth pieces, and I hope to have more time to write more for the blog again when time permits.  Until then, I hope to see you on facebook - oh, and I also tweet! Heather@peakirkbooks  think).

York National Book Fair 2013

As usual, despite being well aware that York Fair was coming, and even managing to put a few items on the York Website, the Fair seemed to suddenly creep up on us, and we suddenly found ourselves frantically packing boxes of books and trying to decide just what we should take with us.

Once loaded up and on our way, the journey took just under 4 hours, and we were soon unpacking the same boxes of books onto our usual stand on the mezzanine.  It was good to see some of our usual neighbours from years gone by,  and have a chat. It took some hours to get the stand set up, and then it was off to our lodgings for a nights sleep. When I looked at my iPad to check on internet orders, I saw an urgent request for a book that we had luckily brought with us to York. The customer wanted it posted the next day, to arrive on the Saturday as a 30th birthday present.  Obviously, although we had the book, we didn't have all our packing equipment etc. and no knowledge of local post offices, but as it was for a special occasion, wanted to help.

Next morning it was back to York Race Course for the book fair. The first thing we did was get the code for our iPad so we could communicate with the customer who wanted the book sending. We got a postal address and Jeff dashed off to find a post office and negotiate for a special special delivery that would guarantee postage delivered on a Saturday and a decent Jiffy Bag.  He managed to get back for the beginning of the fair.

It always takes a little while for customers to start finding their way up the stairs, but they soon started to filter upwards, and we began to see some new and some familiar faces find their way to our stand. It was especially lovely for us to meet a Scottish customer of ours, who we have dealt with for years, and who had decided to come and meet us face to face, by coming to this fair, staying overnight and returning to Scotland the next day. I do hope she didn't find us too disappointing. For our part, we thought she was delightful.

This book fair is the largest in the UK, and some people find it tiring and a bit overwhelming. Many come for both days in an attempt to get round it all.  There appear to be lots of satisfied customers. We saw lots of people walking round with bags, stuck down with the famous security tags. We certainly sold quite a few books I am pleased to say, as did our fellow stall holders.  At the end of the 2 days, I'm not sure who were the more tired, the customers who had been trudging around concentrating on all the books, or the stand holders who had spent 2 days talking and working. However most seemed happy. Then it was back to dismantling the stall and the 4 hour drive home, but some had further to go than us. One dealer came from Aberdeen, anorexic from Cornwall, so our 4 hour drive was quite local.

I enjoy the York fairs, both this one and the January one, which although a bit smaller being just 1 floor, is always a successful one too.the atmosphere is usually good, the people friendly and the fair a pleasant event. Hope t see you soon.

As yet I haven't worked out how to transfer my pictures onto here, so I shall put them on Peakirk Books Facebook page for now if you want a look.

Collecting Ephemera

I know, I have been slow to blog again. It could be to do with work, work, work,  that and trying to keep up with the never ending round of social networking with social media. I now not only tweet - as one does on twitter, but have a facebook page, and a Peakirk book facebook page to maintain (Facebook.com/PeakirkBooks - please please 'like' it if you have a moment, it means I get extra information from the people who run it!).  I am also well and truly 'Linked in' - oh what a social networking whirl, how did I ever manage before with pen and ink and the boring old telephone. However, for business reasons, I am told, one has to do these things, so I try my best, and trail along behind 'tweeting' and 'poking' and anything else I should be doing to generally make a nuisance of myself and generally get me and Peakirk Books noticed.  I'm not convinced it works, but with so much competition out there in the book selling world, you have to do your best. Meanwhile, my poor old Blog has been neglected.

During the summer there have been fewer book fairs to attend, although, starting with the large international one in York, they will soon be back in full swing. However it is the time when Vintage Paper Girls and our ephemera make more of an appearance at Fakenham Market - the flea market on a Thursday, in the car park near Argos for those who know it!  As ephemera is paper based we have to anxiously watch the weather forecast every week to see whether we can attend. Rain, damp or excess windy weather does not mix with paper on the stand. Knowing how accurate the weather forecasts are (cough, splutter) we spend an anxious Wednesday deciding whether to pack up the car or not, before making our way to the stall on a Thursday, bright and early.

When I tell people that I have a new string to my bow, in the business sense, and that is the selling of ephemera, a puzzled look crosses most of their brows.  It's often a word that they have heard before, but are not sure just what it is. Sometimes they ask, sometimes they try to just look knowledgeable, but unless I am talking to people in the book trade, most people don't know just what ephemera is - and its quite difficult to explain. I believe the Ephemera Society call it broadly 'the minor transient documents of everyday life' - but I suspect if I quoted that, most people wouldn't be a great deal clearer. It includes the many thousands of printed and handwritten oddments that civilisation emits daily -  tickets, receipts, menus, pamphlets, brochures, letterheads, ............daily living in scraps of paper. As we live, we produce paper, in both handwritten and printed formats. We produce lists, keep records, write reports, send cards, produce certificates, send bills, invoices & receipts, we advertise, we produce newspapers, magazines, journals, comics,information sheets.

Some paper is produced to last minutes, some a day, some longer. Most pieces are quite transient. Some are produced quite basically and dully. Some are produced quite beautifully and decoratively.Most are somewhere in between.

In the more recent past, the layman & general collector has begun to join the academic student such as the graphic designer and the social historian, in acquiring and appreciating ephemera. 1975 saw the founding of The Ephemera Society (London) - and as the subject is so vast, they have had exhibitions themed on ephemera divided into certain areas eg their fifth Annual Exhibition featured items from collections from 60 of their members based on Transport and Travel. Under the title 'Going Places' the exhibition included paper fragments from the age of the stage coach to Space Exploration.

It included Baggage Labels, resort stickers, travel folders, posters, handbills, ship-board menus, passenger lists, airline boarding cards, stagecoach tickets, hotel brochures, touring maps, postcards, passports, timetables, broadsides, travel orientated toys & games, confectionary wrappers, cigar labels and much much more.

These little scraps of paper, put together, tell a story. Some are ordinary, some are quite beautiful. Some are common, some remarkably scarce - after all, they certainly weren't meant to last.  Many certainly tell a story.   We find them fascinating - and we have lots of them for sale on our stand - in Fakenham, and soon in Kings Lynn at the flea Market there on September 7th  and back in Norwich at St. Andrews Hall on September 14th. Hope to see some of you there soon.

Peakirk Books July Sale

Peakirk Books are now having a July Sale - on our own site at http://www.peakirkbooks.com

This is valid on all books EXCEPT Girls Gone By and Elsie Oxenham Society Published ones. This means 99.5% of all our stock is eligible.

To take advantage of this use the Code TREAT at the checkout and you will get a 20% discount for all of July 2013.

You can use this code as many times as you wish during the month of July.

Heroines on Horseback by Jane Badger

Recently published by Girls Gone By, Jane Badger has written a great reference book, which is also doubles as a stimulating read, covering the development of the 'Pony Book' from the early 20th century through to the 1960/1970's.  This is in no way a dry encyclopaedic type reference volume, but an interesting examination of the most significant pony book authors of this period, discussed in a lively and informative way, and illustrated throughout. Jane's own interest in and enthusiasm for these books shines through the book throughout.

'Heroines' has a great cover, illustrating a multitude of old favourites that I recognise from my own stock of pony books, and they are gorgeous books indeed. The contents of her book are well organized, including a history of the pony story covering the early Black Beauty style Pony Biography, progressing through Primrose Cumming and the famous Silver Snaffles, and devoting a chapter to the pony book in wartime. The Pullein-Thompson Family get their own chapter as does Monica Edwards. There are then several chapters covering several authors in the heyday of the1950's and 1960's, and a discussion of the pony books of the 1970's The book also contains a discussion on illustrators, short stories and annuals, so the content is really quite rigorous. I would thoroughly recommend this book as both a good read in its own right and a handy reference work on the subject of pony stories in the twentieth century.

                                                          

We currently have a few copies of Jane Badger's Book for sale 'Heroines on Horse Back' at 16.00 while stocks last on our website at http://www.peakirkbooks.com