A letter From Mary Alice

 A friend of mine, Mary Alice Wilson, owns a used book store in Yellow Springs Ohio. She emailed me as to how she has adapted to retailing in the time of COVID-19

“Dark Star is doing ok with ebay and one employee.  Our comic guy whom we laid off, is getting the unemployment boost to his check . The check is for more than his salary.  he was hinting it would be   good thing if he stayed laid off. and that we hire a newbie. Kate wasn't good with that idea! 

Our Gov. De Wine just announced plans for the future.  First doctor, dentist and then veterinarian.  then construction and factory work.  and on May 12, WE can open.  Already have the $335 plastic shield at cash register. trying to buy a large hand sanitizer dispenser for at the front door,  which is  hard to find.  However, i could see Magic and Pokemon games with a plastic shield between the players across from each other.  I don't really know much about gaming, but it might work.

One of our staff has been making masks like a demon - and today i saw one with clear plastic over the mouth area, so folks a little hard of hearing, like me, can read lips a bit.  i either have to have visitors lift the mask up  or have someone tell me what they said.  Getting folks to just talk louder doesn't seem to be in my skill set.  Our staff mask maker  said, “oh yes, I know about those”.  Well, MAKE some, for goodness sake.  i wouldn't know how.   I said, there is one thing a comic book store has, is plastic, and Mylar. 

Hoarding is great!  I don't know why I bought - and much less KEPT - bathroom decals from the 30's; a whole box full of boxed 12" figures from the 70'S (well i know NOW it was a good idea - best one sold for  $400); boxes full of mads and cracked and warren mags like elvira.....we have a double house. The other side was was where we put stuff we didn't know what to do with after we bought it.  or stuff that came in while buying things we DID know what to do with.  but along comes our staff member Kate and her pop culture know how, and all that stuff now has price tags.  Being in the book biz means we had hoarded lots of first editions for when we got an on-line presence.  Well we have that now, and 1700+ items currently listed.  Some of the things that sell are from early days.  we sold something the other  day that had been on eBay for 10 years, maybe, and i cringed at the way it was listed and the price - too low - but hey, it sold, that's all good.

Where do I sell online? Ebay, baby! and abe and amazon.  Gary does abe, which is strictly books.  He also does amazon - and Kate and staff do ebay.  and the latter does amazingly well.  if there is someone out there that wants to pay some outrageous price - and remember this is being available to everyone in the world with an internet device - that person can find us.  They would NEVER find us on our website.  The most looked at items on our website are cat pictures.  (They are really cool; kate finally put up a video.) Really glad to hear from you.”