deals and sub-deals

Unlike my daughter, who when left to her own devises finds the shittiest books around, I have side-deals and sub-deals going on as I try to find the right mix of books and genres to pay off handsomely. Okay, to do better than break even. At the end of last year I looked at my student loans and cringed at how little that number had moved over the year. I was determined to do more - this way, through moving books - to pay off my student loans. Yeah, a tall order but at least I have a goal now. I might beyond the taking care of the kids goals which I do all the time.

This is different. I have been running "games" for myself before but this is different. It's direct. I am going after one thing: the student loans. I could kick myself when I think about how much money I wasted on cigarettes and bar-hopping before I met __ . She forced me to change, we had kids right away and I wasn't about to smoke in front of them. So, I quit. That money saved didn't go to the student loans though. I wasn't focused enough yet. They went to jumping into the book trade as much/little as I have.

"games" - deals - subdeals. It's all the same thing to me. Mental distractions, if you will. I don't watch TV like I used to, got to hear the kids, so I "run the numbers" in my head a lot. The side projects add spice to the main meal of best sellers that move but are boring to handle. Yeah, even moving best sellers are boring. I loath packing them and taking them to place I KNOW will take them, and will sell them because people want to read them but not pay full price. It's not the money they don't want to spend, it's the boring story lines and lack of character development and.... listen to me.... no, it's boring because my runner could and should do it. I like the thrill of handling dangerous material, you know. The thrill of it all (Roxy Music)

I like finding and selling Beat Books {Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac} but there aren't as many of them floating around as you might think. As much as I hope, anyway. I like to think of it like the adage about playing the stock market: buy low, sell high. I do jump in online when I see a bargain, like a lot of Beat books that I know I can split up and double my profit. But going into any used bookstore around here? It's a fucking crapshoot. I am as likely to see nothing close to Beats in the bottom of a crumbled cardboard box as to actually scoring a find. And now with my "new religion" about paying off my student loans, all I make from all my hustling goes to paying fucking interest on the loans. Hardly touch the principle. I just realized that both meanings there are true.

I have toyed with dealing with porns in the past. Those clients have vanished. I guess I could find others. I am finding some in the wasteland that I tour. Enough to put together a LOT of them. But posting them on, like, Ebay is an invitation for some moral prunes to FWD me to the authorities. Like I am a child raper or something. I sell books, that's all. I separate one aspect of my life from others to protect my kids, you know, honestly - I am sure that there are some completely sick/fucks out there who deal in more than porn BOOKS but I pray they don't also have kids. I know the line I am walking. It's a little dangerous - maybe - but it does get me closer to paying off my student loans and that's all that counts.