New Releases from Lo Scarabeo

We have a TON of new, gorgeous decks now available from Italian publisher Lo Scarabeo! Check out what's available!

Alchemy 1977 England Tarot Deck: Alchemy 1977 is famous around the globe for their stunning gothic artwork and steampunk accessories. Fans of this iconic brand will recognize and appreciate the powerful and seductive images in this extraordinary tarot deck. This captivating mix of art from world famous gothic illustrators ranges from traditional horror to lush supernatural scenes to medieval fantasy. The boxed deck includes 78 full-color cards and an instruction booklet.

Anne Stokes Gothic Tarot Deck: Renowned worldwide for her breathtakingly beautiful fantasy artwork, Anne Stokes delights fans yet again with this gorgeous tarot deck. This exquisitely crafted deck offers a compelling gothic twist on the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith suits. The wands are themed to mighty dragons. Cunning vampires have replaced the cups. Skeletons stand in for pentacles, and the swords have become angels. Use this inspiring tarot to explore strange magical worlds, call upon inner strength, understand dark urges, and test the limits of your imagination. The boxed deck includes 78 full-color cards and instruction booklet.




Michelangelo Tarot Deck: Revered as a divine genius even in his own lifetime, Michelangelo is unquestionably one of thegreatest artists of all time. Honoring the master of the Italian Renaissance, the Michelangelo Tarot Deck cleverly enshrines his signature work into a tarot paradigm. David, the Madonna, and other familiar faces from Michelangelo’s iconic masterpieces come to life in unique and compelling ways. This inspiring tarot, lightly tied to Rider-Waite-Smith structure, can be used to deepen your faith, solve spiritual conflicts, make moral decisions, and embark on your own personal renaissance. The boxed deck includes 78 full-color cards and instruction booklet.

Royo Dark Tarot Deck: Luis Royo, one of the most popular fantasy artists of our time, invites us into a vivid world of haunting beauty, where justice is swift and transformation is inevitable. Shimmering nightscapes are dominated by deadly female warriors, noble armored knights, and luminescent nature creatures, both wild and wise. Loosely based on the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, Royo’s sensual and empowering tarot deck urges you to confront your darkest fears, embrace your primal passions, and unleash the beast within. The boxed deck includes 78 full-color cards and instruction booklet







Tarot Bags: We also have two new breathtaking tarot bags from Lo Scarabeo, the Moon Fairy Satin Tarot Bag and the Magic Star Satin Tarot Bag.

Runes: There are also three new rune sets available, the Blue Onyx Runes (pictured at left), Golden Quartz Runes, and Hematite Runes. Each set comes with 25 rune stones, a black velvet bag, and an instruction booklet.

Leveraging the Indie Store Advantage: A Unique Customer Experience

Hi Booksellers,

By now, you’ve probably seen the remarkable interview between author Ann Patchett and Steve Colbert on The Colbert Report.

In the interview, Patchett, who recently opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, articulates the importance of independent stores and the unique experience it offers to customers, authors, and the community.

What a great reminder of what drives people to their local bookshop! No website can truly replicate the brick-and-mortar shopping experience — the smell of aging books, the sounds of soft music and hushed voices, and authentic human interaction.

One way to leverage this advantage is through customer service. While not exactly cutting-edge, this time-tested business tactic is still hailed as remarkably effective in today’s marketplace. A friendly, flesh-and-blood person offering insightful recommendations can be quite powerful. 

This article from Bloomberg Businessweek offers a refresher on customer service basics, specifically:

• Emphasize hellos and goodbyes.
• Train greeters.
• Speed order fulfillment.
• Hire selectively.
• Get the language right.
• Develop a system to make each customer feel that employees care.

You can read the full article for complete insight on these tips.

Here are a few more ways to connect with customers, maximize your unique product knowledge, and deliver a unique, rewarding experience that will encourage repeat business from a growing circle of devoted regulars.

Greet Everyone
A quick hello sends a welcoming message to customers and engages them right away. It will make them feel accepted and comfortable, especially if it’s their first time in your store. It’s also a great lead-in to the next tenet of customer service: asking open-ended questions.

“Is There Anything I Can Help You with Today?” 
When I’m in a hurry, it’s a relief to get quick assistance. A gentle, open-ended question opens the door to a one-on-one interaction that could turn into a lengthy conversation about your customer’s interests, a hand-selling opportunity, or a chance to share your knowledge and expertise.

Build a Rapport
Building a relationship is key to earning customer loyalty. Make an effort to know your customers and their interests. Take the time to have a conversation. Ask for feedback. Keep the connection alive by inviting them to sign up for alerts on sales, promotions, and events.

Of course, customer service is just the tip of iceberg when it comes to creating a unique and satisfying experience for customers. We'd love to hear your ideas!

Green Your Store, Your Home, and Your Friends This Earth Day

As Earth Day approaches, the issue of green takes center stage. How eco-friendly is your store? We’ve provided a few ideas for retailers in the past, including ways to save money by going green for Earth day, a list of books for your shelves that are spiritually green, and ideas to celebrate Earth Day at your store.

But this year, I propose something different. Instead of simply adopting green practices, why not encourage our co-workers, our friends, and our families to adopt some green practices as well? Below are a few green ideas that are earth-friendly (and often budget-friendly) that you can implement at your store and in your home, and make easy and fun suggestions for family and friends.

 1. Change your lightbulbs. CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights) pack a punch in terms of energy savings. And now is a wise time to start switching over; with regular bulbs being phased out in the next couple of years, they will become unavailable, and many retailers are offering low prices (as low as $1 a bulb in some cases, like Excel energy has done in our area) to entice consumers to make the switch. Also, since a CFL can save you up to $50 in energy costs over its lifetime,  you could be looking at a savings of $1,500 or more (over the next year or two) when you switch all of your bulbs to CFLs.

2. Hand out seed packets. What a fun way to spread some green! Make "gift baskets" for customers, friends, or kids that include seed packets, handouts and stuffers with green living tips, or other items (a small portion of potting soil, perhaps?). Starting a few flowers on the deck or some herbs indoors will bring out the gardener in everyone--adults and children alike.

3. Hand out stuffers with tips for living green. Many people feel overwhelmed by the idea of "living green;" a handout that includes quick and easy tips can be a great way for them to feel more comfortable with the idea. These can be included with your seed packets (see number 2 above) in a fun and creative gift basket or other package. We have a stuffer with Natural Homemade Skin Care Remedies on our downloads page that could be included as well.

4. Encourage customers to bring their own re-usable bags. Encourage customers to bring their own re-usable bags (saving on plastic and paper) by offering a discount to those that do. You can also encourage friends and children to use re-usable cloth bags by giving them as gifts. Many stores, from Amazon to Ebay to Etsy, have a vast collection of styles and patterns; some sites will even let you customize your own design, making them a perfect gift for anyone.

5.  Ride your bike to work--and encourage your co-workers and friends to do the same. Bicycling can be great fun, as well as good exercise. It's also a great way to save on gas costs and automobile emissions harmful to the earth. Bike together to work with co-workers that live near you, or set up a challenge to see who can bike to work the most days in one month. For more ideas on how to take up bicycling as a primary mode of transportation, read our article, "Bicycle Commuting and the No-Car Life."

6. Save on printer paper. Set your printers (both at work and at home) to print everything as double-sided. This has the potential to cut the amount of paper you use in half, reducing not only your carbon footprint for paper (including trees used and carbon emissions released during the creation process) but also could therefore cut your printing paper budget in half. Have a document that is one-sided, or papers you are about to recycle? Staple them together, un-printed back side up, so that it makes a great note pad for jotting things down at work or an art pad at home on which kids can draw and sketch.

What are some other fun and innovative ideas on green living?

March Issue of the New Moon Is Out--Check Your Mailbox!

For those of you who currently subscribe to our email newsletter for booksellers, The Moon, you may have noticed a few changes.

We've streamlined the look, included new features, and christened it with a new moniker: The New Moon. As with this blog, our goal is to really connect with you, our selling partners, each month and offer support, guidance, and resources with the aim of helping you grow and thrive in this ever-changing market.

Our March issue of the New Moon was mailed this morning. This issue includes:
-Celebrating Earth Day At Your Store -Shelftalkers (The Essential Guide to Natural Skin Care, Navigating the Out-Of-Body Experience, Tarot Spreads, and Table Tipping for Beginners)
-April New Releases
-And Much More!

If you did not receive a copy in your email inbox, you can also view it here: The New Moon, March 2012 Issue.

You can also visit our website to subscribe to The New Moon, ensuring that it reaches you each month (please note that you will need to log in/register to be able to join our mailing list).

Celebrating Earth Day at Your Store

Dear Booksellers,

It’s almost here—that special time for honoring the Earth’s rich bounty.

Earth Day officially takes place April 22, although many schools, businesses, and communities celebrate all week long. We invited Clea Danann, author of Sacred Land, to talk about how to bring the spirit of Earth Day to your store.

Bring Earth Day Alive
Clea Danaan

In today’s world of gadgets, customers expect hands-on experiences. Invite interaction with these magical, dynamic Earth Day displays.

These ideas can be adapted to your store and your interests and time. Have time for a big Earth Day celebration? Go all out, offering classes and transforming your whole store into a magical garden (I can just see it!). Or if it suits you better to be subtle and quick, just tuck a few of these ideas into the corners as they fit.


Craft an Indoor Garden

Set up a well-lit corner of your store with an indoor garden. Buy inexpensive planter boxes or pots from a local garden shop, fill with potting soil, and plant pansies, herbs, or lettuces. You may want to protect the floor with plastic sheeting or oilcloth.

Keep the soil moist, and pick off any browning flowers or leaves to keep the display fresh. Decorate your planters with crystals, glass balls (put them at the back out of reach of little hands), or figurines of fairies or animals. Next to the garden, put up a chalkboard or bulletin board with I Spy questions: Can you find the blue frog? The pink fairy? The toadstool?

Simply adding a few potted plants to a book display would also work well as an indoor garden.

For your Earth Day celebration, invite customers to plant a seed. Fill a large, accessible planter with fresh soil. Next to the planter, provide a dish of radish, marigold or chia seeds, purchased in bulk. Customers can plant a seed, offering a prayer for the Earth as they press it into the soil. Instead of one big planter, you might offer little pots made out of newspaper. (Here are instruction and a video for making newspaper pots.) You could also re-purpose yogurt cups or buy tiny peat pots in bulk.


Invite the Fairies

Fairies are guardians of the land; every Earth Day celebration should include a few fairies. If you have planter boxes in front of your store, encourage fairies to visit. Plant pansies, violets, or miniature roses—all favorites of the fair folk.

Wind chimes and sun catchers also draw curious Little People. Tiny furniture crafted by hand or from a garden catalog also encourages them to take up residence. For a unique and lighthearted workshop, offer an Earth Day class on making fairy furniture or fairy gardens.

To make a fairy garden, fill a re-used plastic container with soil. Plant grass seed or Johnny jump up flowers. Add a fairy figure, little frogs, and crystals. Fairy garden kits can also be purchased from toy and craft stores and would make another fun craft class. Or just make your own for the front counter or near a display of books on fairies.


Start a Worm Bin

Worm bins turn newspaper and leftover lunch scraps into garden fertilizer. Unlike regular compost, you can keep a worm bin in an apartment or store, tucked onto a shelf or under a table. They are also easy to make. (Here are instructions for making your own worm bin.)

Include a worm bin in your Earth Day book display. Use the vermicompost in your store garden or planters, or offer it to customers who appreciate the immense benefits of compost. You could also offer a class on making worm bins.


Heal the Waters

An interactive display that takes up very little space can help heal the planet’s water. Fill a glass jar with water and set it on the front counter where everyone will see it. With a little sign, invite people to send “love and gratitude” into the water, seeing that healing intention spread to the planet’s water. People can hold or touch the jar, sending positive intention to the planet.

***

Clea Danaan (Colorado) has been gardening organically for over fifteen years. She is the author of Sacred Land and Voices of the Earth. Her articles on gardening and environmental activism have appeared in Sage Woman and Organic Family. Visit her website.


Clea Danaan on her favorite bookstore:
“I love Elliott Bay Books in Seattle for the creaky floors and old wooden beams.”


Let us know how you’re planning to celebrate Earth Day this year!

Small Business Strategies in Our Changing Economy

Rhonda Abrams recently wrote a post for USA TODAY 's Money section, detailing the plight of the small business--and how the independent bookstore is the "poster child of the endangered retailer." In her post she highlights Kepler's in Menlo Park, CA, and what the store is doing to adapt to the changing times, in addition to providing some survival tips for small businesses.

Briefly, those tips include:
1. Diversifying the revenue stream.
2. Adding membership programs.
3. Creating new relationships with vendors.

Read the full post here.

Books to Inspire Us All This Earth Day

Earth Day is fast approaching. Each year, the month of April is a time when I'm reminded of the things I am doing to help our Mother Earth (recycling, reusing, actively reducing my carbon footprint by carpooling) as well as a time when I search out new ways to contribute to the effort (such as composting, becoming a "localvore," or making my own cleaning supplies).

I love that Llewellyn has so many books to inspire my green living aspirations; from cultivating a reverence for the Earth and all her inhabitants to creating my own skin care products, I can always find something new each year to try.

Of the many (and yes, there are many!) Llewellyn books on green topics below is a partial list of the ones that, in my humble opinion, should inhabit any green-lover's bookshelf:

To Cultivate Your Relationship with Our Mother Earth:

 Voices of the Earth, by Clea Danaan
Awaken your psychic powers, talk to nature, and hear her reply. Nature intuitive Clea Danaan gives lessons in building psychic awareness and communicating with plants, trees, and nature spirits. This rewarding connection with nature offers healing, renewal, knowledge of your life purpose, and a spiritual oasis in a chaotic world. (2008 Independent Publisher Book Award for "Most Likely to Save the Planet" Bronze Medal Winner)

 Flower and Tree Magic, by Richard Webster
Flowers and trees have long been celebrated as sacred and powerful. By learning to read the special messages they hold, plants can help us navigate our life path and reconnect with nature. In this comprehensive guide, bestselling author Richard Webster uncovers the hidden properties of every major type of tree, herb, and flower that we encounter in our daily lives. From protection and healing to divination and worship, this book shows you how to apply ancient spiritual practices from many cultures to modern life.










To Help You Enact Green Changes in Your Community:

Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political, and Environmental Change, by Clean Danaan

In this positive and practical handbook, Danaan shows how organic gardening can germinate environmental awareness and political change while feeding your spirit. You'll learn how to plan and plant your garden, create compost, save seeds, conserve and transmute water, connect with garden goddesses, and incorporate planetary energy in your garden.

Sacred Land explores the benefits of native plants, organic food and agriculture, buying locally, and eating seasonally. It suggests simple yet effective ways of spreading the message of ecology and sustainability to your community. You'll discover how to get along with ants, bats, bees, butterflies, fairies, frogs, gnomes, worms, and other creatures who share our gardens. This one-of-a-kind gardening guidebook also includes inspiring stories of women activists, farmers, artists, and healers who are making a difference in the world. 

 Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future, edited by Ly de Angeles
Representing diverse arenas of Paganism, eleven established activists, authors and academics passionately debate the critical issues facing modern Pagans. These provocative discussions--exploring feminism, magickal ecology, ancient Egyptian ethics, political activism, globalization, the power of truth, sacred communities, and environmental spirituality--challenge readers to reconsider what it means to be Pagan in the twenty-first century.









To Help You Discover Your Magical, Green Thumb:

The Real Witches' Garden, by Kate West

Enrich your Craft and tap into an age-old source of a Witch's power—the garden.
Kate West, acclaimed Witch and top-selling author in the U.K., can help you transform a garden of any size into a sacred space for healing, working magic, honoring the gods, and celebrating the Wheel of the Year. Incorporate the five elements or magical shapes into your garden. Work plant spells. Grow a window box of medicinal herbs. Honor your gods and goddesses with specific plants. Use Moon energy to help your garden thrive. Also included are spells and rituals for deterring pests, healing sickly plants, influencing weather, and consecrating your magical space.

Garden Witchery: Magick from the Ground Up, by Ellen Dugan

How does your magickal garden grow?... With violets, rosemary, and yarrow to attract faeries; an apple tree for love and health; and a circle of stones in some tucked-away corner? Whether you live in a cottage in the woods, a home in the suburbs, or a city apartment with a small balcony, a powerful and enchanted realm awaits you. Discover the secret language and magickal properties of the trees and flowers, herbs and plants found growing around you, and learn how to create your own witch's garden.
Written with down-to-earth humor by a master gardener who is also a practicing witch, this creative and encouraging guide will inspire gardeners of all ages and experience levels. It includes a journal section that makes it easy to keep track of your progress, practical gardening advice, personal stories, and garden witchery lore and magick.




To Help You Discover Natural and Homeopathic Remedies:

The Essential Guide to Natural Skin Care, by Hélène Berton

Treat yourself—your face, hands, hair, and lips—to vitamin-rich, toxin-free nourishment from nature. The Essential Guide to Natural Skin Care maps the wondrous qualities and uses of botanicals used in homemade beauty products, making it easy to customize your own lotions, creams, milks, body butters, face masks, lip balms, ointments, toners, and more.

Choose from a wide variety of eco-friendly vegetable oils and butters, infused and essential oils, aromatic hydrosols, and emulsifiers. Discover the beneficial beauty and healing properties of each, as well as their practical traits, such as shelf life and absorption. You’ll find ingredients that soften, tone, and hydrate skin and hair; tighten pores; fade scars; stave off wrinkles; prevent and heal acne; promote hair growth; treat dandruff; fight infection and fungus; and repel insects. This portable, compact DIY reference also includes practical advice and basic recipes that can be easily modified to your unique skin type, needs, and tastes.

The Wild & Weedy Apothecary, by Doreen Shababy

Just outside your doorstep or kitchen window, hidden beneath a tall pine tree or twining through porch latticework, a wild and weedy apothecary waits to be discovered. Herbalist Doreen Shababy shares her deep, abiding love for the earth and its gifts in this collection of herbal wisdom that represents a lifetime of work in the forest, field, and kitchen. This herbalism guidebook is jam-packed with dozens of tasty recipes and natural remedies, including Glorious Garlic and Artichoke Dip, Sunny Oatmeal Crepes, Candied Catnip Leaves, Lavender Lemonade, Roseberry Tea, Garlic Tonic, Parsnip Hair Conditioner, and Dream Charms made with Mugwort.