This is my Halloween Musing – it is October 31 and I just realized that we have reached our 2-
year milestone in business. Our listings on Abe state “Abebooks seller since October 30, 2017”.
We sold our first book on April 18, 2018 “Michelangelo” off to NYC for US$50.
This realization came to me as I was driving home from setting up our booth at Christmas at
the Forum. So, it is exactly 1 year since we had our first foray into the local marketplace. Over
the past year, we also had 3 sessions at the Tantallon Farmers’ Market and had a booth at last
month’s Scarecrow Festival in Mahone Bay. All have been very successful.
I used to tell people that we sell primarily on the internet. This is no longer the situation. We
have clients who have bought from us on 3 or more occasions. And every single person who
has visited our Hackett’s Cove bookshop has bought something.
Our journey actually began 4 years ago when the idea bubbled to the surface. Once we made
the decision to do it, it took almost a year to go through our library to decide which volumes to
keep and which to move in Raven & Gryphon Fine Books. And those 1,600 that moved into the
business needed to be priced. And since then we have purchased more than 600 books for
inventory.
We had to come up with the name and logo. This was a family effort. People constantly go
“Wow – love your logo”. I say that was son Gregory’s and daughter-in-law Maria’s work, I tell
them. Awesome job!
Starting in the summer of 2018, we engaged with a member of our broader family, Renée
Gruszecki, to develop our website and to be our webmaster. She has done such a great job that
my partners and I at Halifax Global Inc. have just hired her to do the same thing for that
business – still going strong after 17 years. And in April 2018, Renée got us active on
Facebook.
I pride myself on knowing books, but Glenda actually has a better eye on assessing a
purchased book’s condition and considerations for position and value than I do. And look at the
great poster she designed for this year’s Christmas at the Forum – where we are as this musing
gets posted.
When we kicked off Halifax Global Inc. I went to see an old family friend and esteemed lawyer,
Lorne MacDougall, in Truro, to tell him about our new business. He made the following, very
astute observation based upon his more than half century practising law that I often quote and
firmly believe – “You know, Andrew, it takes 5 years to get a business going.”
So, we have reached the end of year 2, on the upswing, and in 3 years time we can retire – NO
WAY!!!
Thank you all!
Happy November.