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| The art of reading is to skip judiciously. P. G. Hamerton |
| Would you buy a used book from this man? |
| That's me in my store photo by Dolly Kerr, a friend and customer |
| The Axeman Cometh "It's as if we looked up one day and saw that we had too much debt on our credit cards, so we decided to save money by cancelling the education of our children." - Dr. John C. Hardy, August 1997 from Walter Stewart's book Dismantling the State: Downsizing to Disaster |
| This is my friend Tom, taking a break from helping me sort books |
| About Me BIO: I spent my first 8 years in England near Codicote - a village founded by the Romans just north of London. When I was 8 the lady next door taught me to read - took her about 6 weeks - Mrs. Batts, a retired school teacher - I'll be grateful to her forever. In '56 we moved to Canada. For this (among other things) I'll be grateful to my parents forever. In 63 I got interested in world politics, environment and religion, proceeded to get very depressed, quit school and spent the next few years working on farms (Peace River), in factories, logging camps, (Queen Charlotte Islands)etc. Reading all the while, of course. Huxley's 'Doors of Perception' inspired me to look into the 60's drug culture which introduced me to Eastern thought, broke me of seeing the world from a strictly 'logical' perspective, and enriched my life immeasurably. About 15 years ago, my partner and I bought a country general store on a summer tourist route in a little hamlet called Sylvan in southern Ontario - maybe 25 people. Did well for a while, followed by a 5 year period during which our road was closed for the better part of 4 summers. We closed the store and it slowly filled up with 'stuff'. Meanwhile, a friend (Scott Davidson) and I had started a weekly newspaper. We did that for about 2 years. The paper was extremely well received but neither of us was any good at selling ads. We never made any money, and eventually gave it up. About 5 years ago, I was reading the classifieds and saw an ad for a used book store. I knew I couldn't afford it, but phoned anyway. The young woman who had started it had been accepted to university and had just a couple of weeks left on the lease. I got a great price payable over a few months, it was April, summer coming, and I had an empty store. 12,000 books - not a bad assortment, wood shelves, cash register, for $2000. A lifelong fantasy had just fallen into my lap. I was only 4 miles from home when I saw the new sign - road closed for bridge repairs. 6 weeks that summer for repairs and ALL of the next summer while they replaced it. Money was getting a little tight, and a few months later, I was persuaded to try to sell my books. As a result of my ad, (a separate story) I ended up buying another used book store - 12,000 books, wood shelves, etc. from a young woman who had been accepted to university - and I was finally in the 'biz'. Finally got the home store up and running, and then sold the other one. Two years ago, after a reasonably amicable parting of the ways, I moved next door, (there are 2 houses attached to the store). I'm still only 50 feet from 'work'. Sheila's house is now as neat and tidy as she likes it, and my house has easily navigable trails between the shelves and the boxes of books. I am happier than I have been in a long time - even happier than the two years I spent in a log cabin in northern Ontario. I've been on Abebooks for nearly a year. I have listed about 3000 books and about 800 of them have sold so far. I prefer the store to the internet, but the two work well together for me. The books I sell on the internet mostly don't sell to the clientelle that comes to the store - and vice-versa. Of course, I'd sell a lot more books if I didn't spend so much time reading them. Fortunately for me I am very comfortable at the lower end of the economic ladder - used books, used clothes, old van. I do all my own building, wiring, plumbing, etc, Keep possessions to a minimum and seldom buy anything new. My store is called 'Sylvan's Foremost Bookstore'. I read somewhere that if you make the category small enough, you can be at the top of it. I'm not doing this to get rich. I'm not going to become a dot com millionaire. I'm not going to get this up and running and then start introducing fees. I have some ideas that will enable me to recover expenses, and if I can extend that to give myself $10/hour for the time I spend doing this, I will be pleased. I love books, and I like to have interesting projects. I think this is my best project so far! I hope you agree. Bob |
| World of Used Bookstores WeSellUsedBooks.com |
