Yesterday I spent the day in the shop pulling material and boxing it up for the Sacramento Book Fair. I got together about eight file/banker boxes to far, slightly less than half of what I plan to bring. Personally, I find the decision of what to pack for a show very stressful. Do you bring lots of high spots (read: expensive) in the hopes of making only a sale or two while creating an impressive presence? Or is it better to bring a lot of less expensive material in the hopes of sales volume but at the risk of diluting the overall impression? Steer a middle course and perhaps please neither the serious collector nor the more general reader? Better to bring book all in one general category to create a strong identity? Or is variety a better approach so as to possibly appeal to more buyers? To some extent, the answers depend on the fair. Nonetheless, these questions keep me up at night.

So what will I be bringing? I’ll be bringing a shelf or two of nice Steinbeck material I recently acquired, lots of fine binding, Californiana and Western Americana (natch), some cool occult and paranormal titles, a handful of antiquarian volumes, and as an experiment, some of my more interesting science/technology books. And of course, lots of modern firsts, poetry (including a handful of C Press mimeos and a lot of Joe Brainard material), signed books along with a sprinkling of juvenile and art titles (including an original collage by Claude Pelieu).

In other words, I couldn’t make up my mind.