I learned I was wealthy today. I came across this article about “Bookshelf Wealth” and how people love to display their books. That’s me….guilty as charged!
To no one’s surprise there are people who love the term and others who went off. I am a simple person, I just love books and love displaying them. It started out with me displaying books that I had got autographed by the author.
James Andrew Miller is my favorite author and has written books about some of the things I love, ESPN, Saturday Night Live to name just two. I found his email address and reached out and asked if I sent him copies of his book would he autograph them. Took months and several reminders (the books were sent to his publicist) but I finally received them.
Since them I have dozens of books autographed by their authors and I love to display them. I also display original editions of older books (like Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose or the book that inspired the movie “Doc Hollywood.”
The point of all this (thanks if you stayed this far) is I love books and still visit book stores several times a year. Yes Amazon will suggest a book right after you purchase one, but there is nothing like getting lost in a bookstore for an hour and picking up some great discovery that you otherwise would not have found.
Recently I finished an amazing book on the business of Rap and Hip Hop music called, “The Big Payback.” It’s the single best book I have ever read! I purposely took months to finish it (I read multiple books at the same time). There were so many stories about how people built that industry, stories that apply to everyday sales.
I’ll share some of those stories in a future post but wanted this post to encourage all of you to do a couple things. First, read more books! You don’t have to display them. Second, visit your local bookstore, even the chain store. There are fewer and fewer of them and it would suck enormously if and when they completely disappear.
Happy Selling!