Welcome to the Birthing of A Friendly Spirit
started  July 1998, updated March 2, 1999  April 2, 1999  June 2001   February 2002   July 2003

July 2003    

This isn't quite blogging, now is it?   I've been a bit too busy to write, although the madness didn't really start until September of 2002.   Last summer, we went to Istanbul Turkey to attend my oldest son's wedding to a wonderful Turkish girl.   Her family showed us what hospitality is.  My other two sons and I stayed in their home -- two of us were there for two weeks.  They didn't speak English at all, and our Turkish was so poor they couldn't understand us.  But it was a lot of fun.  After returning home, we drove to Florida to pick up my mother and move her into an apartment within spittin' distance of our home.  (She had a mild stroke in January of 2000).  But of course that wasn't enough (child at home, mother at home, business picking up) -- I decided to finish my Business Degree and so started school, 3/4 time for the first two  quarters, full time for the Spring 2003 -- I have only my Senior Project left, which (where are my brains?) runs from Sept - December, my busiest season.  This is all, I think, part of the Friendly Spirit.

Where it goes, I seem to follow.   When last I wrote, Lord of the Ring bookmarks were doing well.  They still do fine, but I am looking forward to the days when my inventory is gone -- that will be the end of them for me!   And Quaker books are selling quite slowly -- a Friend once told me it was silly to sell Quaker books.  "Quakers don't buy books," she said.  "They borrow them from Friends or go to the library."  

Silly me.  Since I wanted to buy books about Quakerism, I knew there were a few people out there who also wanted to find them, but couldn't do so easily.  True.  But since I began, Amazon has taken to carrying every book in print (at least it seems that way).   So, Quaker books will soon go -- as I run out, I will leave the Amazon link and not stock or ship them myself.

Bookplates have been our salvation, business wise.   99% of our orders are for bookplates.  Over half of those are for personalized bookplates.  The bulk line we were  carrying seemed useless when the company that makes them started advertising them on-line -- so although we offered a link back to them,  we no longer distribute for them. They weren't thrilled with our newest offer -- paper to print your own bookplates on -- and the name we (thought we'd) developed for that line -- My Own Bookplates.  Turns out long ago they went under the name My Own Bookplate. They demanded we stop using that name as was an  'infringement on our business.'  Sigh.  No problem -- Make Your Own Bookplates makes more sense, anyway.  Since we weren't carrying their bookplates, and they didn't see the links we still had to their site, we sought peace by simply dropping the three bookplates we'd bought from them to resell, primarily without personalization.  So,  we have some 3,000 of their bookplates and no way to sell them.  Probably we  will donate them to some library somewhere.

 

Write  us  if you know a deserving not for profit who could make good use of these. All we ask is postage (these are heavy!).  

The first one, the border print, has been a wonderful seller.  So, necessity being the mother of invention, we've developed our own line of bookplates to fill that need.

The Friendly Spirit continues to move me.  However,  I'm feeling moved in  another direction.  This won't stop my on-line business -- I do love books, bookplates and the whole retail feel.  And there are some bookplate designs I'm developing, to sell by the sheet, if anyone is interested.  We'll see.   So, meanwhile I'm considering an additional enterprise, "Dancing with Scissors".  I'll keep you posted (once every year and half is perhaps too long to wait to update this!)

A Friendly Spirit

March 1999

Over the next few weeks I started searching for book titles that I found of interest as a Quaker, a woman and a seeker. Eventually I built a Quaker Books page. I talked to friends who have small businesses - a reflexologist, a child care provider, a social worker who likes to write, a holistic physician, a graphic artist - and began to see A Friendly Spirit as a sort of on-line community for myself and people of like interests and beliefs.  More than just an on-line shop to sell something (do we really need more things?), I am hoping to start with a small community of friends, Friends and like spirits with a message board, columns  and links regarding topics such as health, parenting, home, simple living and more.

It is my hope to nurture and grow a little on-line community, filled with Friendly Spirits seeking information and sharing ideas, beliefs, opinions. In addition, I plan to offer books in partnership with Amazon.com (for which I receive 5% or 15% commission - in order to break even with the cost of opening this business, including site development, I estimate I would have to sell about $50,000 retail worth of books a year - not likely!).   At the moment, I do not need to earn a living from any sales that happen to come through, and can give any profit to a concern, most probably having to do with children, reading, domestic violence.

Also, I want to offer a source for borrowing, owning, exchanging and cherishing books and the authors and publishers who bring them to us.

July 1998  - Feb 1999 

Books have been a passion of mine since I was a small child.  Although I enjoy the work I do, I have found myself wondering how I could make a living by surrounding myself with books, web pages (an interest of mine since 1993) and people of like beliefs and interests.

My youngest son and I took a fateful trip to Texas during a record breaking summer, in 1998 (I think).  We were combining business and pleasure.   We stopped in Dallas so I could attend, as a sales person, a religious booksellers convention.  This was a little too commercial and fundamentalist for my usual tastes, but what I noticed was a large group of independent booksellers who were able to integrate their passions with their vocation.   Wouldn't that be a lovely thing to do?  Then we went to Midland, to visit my sister and her family.  In essence, this meant spending a lot of time at their family run store.   Again, not quite my cup of tea, but again, they were able to integrate their work with their lifestyle, and to surround themselves with like minded spirits.

At some point during those two weeks, the idea of doing the same and the name, "A Friendly Spirit" came to my mind. When I got home, I immediately registered that as a domain name.  For months I let that sit, as I thought about perhaps opening a small shop downtown in the small village I live in.  I visualized a shop filled with books and non-competitive games and other things of interest to Quakers and like spirits.

For some reason, the concept of "A Friendly Spirit" has remained strong in my mind, despite the fact that I was blessed with a job I often enjoyed, which paid well and yet left time to fill my free time.  I was a few years away from retirement, but the lead I felt to start this venture immediately was clear and firm.

How,I could do this, without leaving my job, with little start-up money and little interest in being the sole proprieter of a shop 6 days a week, 10 hours a day while singly raising my son, did not seem obvious to me.  Only the concept and the name stayed strong with me as I tried to sit quietly and allow my lead to find me, so I could follow it. I continued  learning html and playing with my 'vanity' pages (how unQuakerly that is, too!) on America On-line.

In February of 1999, while visiting one of the many places I buy books,  (and overfilling my house with books, a severe weakness),  I saw at the bottom of the screen "Become an Associate".  Yes, this 'place' was the on-line bookstore, Amazon.com.  (I also spend more money off-line, I go to the library and borrow books from friends).

April 1999

I went and did it, as I explained to my family and friends. I gave my employer notice that I will be taking early retirement this time next year!  I don't expect to get rich, or even make much money, running A Friendly Spirit...but life is too short and unpredictable to waste.  If an opportunity to do what you want to do shows up, take it, and trust that all will be well.  You will have an abundance of more than a material kind.

A Friendly Spirit has been through a lot.  I have been trying to resist - or at least go slow with - the urge to make it a real business, with a store front.   Quaker Books On-line was born in 2000 from all of this.  This is an expansion of the Quaker Library I'd started on my home pages back in 1999.  Conversations via e-mail with a Friend I'd never met had prompted a remaking of my home pages, where I'd somehow never mentioned being a Quaker.  When I applied to join the Quaker ring, one of the ringmasters wrote back politely and asked if I was a Quaker, and if so could I please mention this on my page?  Evidently I'd been taking this all for granted, that my Quakerism would just show through. Or that it wasn't important.  Or that it wasn't really an integral part of my day-to-day living.

But I digress.  Since I really didn't need the money, and was terrified at the idea of setting up an on-line business, I continued to work as an amazon associate.  This meant that although I would suggest books, amazon would take any orders, process them and the monies, ship the books and pay me a modest commission, usually on the low side of 5 to 15%.  This was just fine for me.  I looked for a charity to give the commissions to, since (again) I didn't need to make a living this way.  And would have starved, had I tried!   A web search for "Nicaragua, street kids" pulled up Si A La Vida.  I continue to send a check after quarterly commissions are paid to them.

Meanwhile, A Friendly Spirit Ltd. kept nagging at me.  In the summer of 2000, I visited a lawyer and an accountant and set up a Limited Liability Corporation, with internet design and book and gift sales (off or on-line) as my somewhat vague focus.   I set up a web site for A Friendly Spirit with web design information, and built a web page for a local politician.

But the books kept calling to me.   I began writing reviews at amazon.com, and eventually got into the Top 100 review list.  The books I review are rarely Quaker books, but I try to do the reviews with a somewhat Quaker perspective, or at least my own peculiar interpretation of my own Quaker perspective.

In the past few months, several things have happened.  I opened an off-line business, Book Boutiques for Businesses.  The focus is on local businesses who would like to offer books to their clients without having to have responsibility for the inventory and management.  So far it has been mildly successful, a little helpful and very enjoyable.   I am starting A Friendly Spirit Books service, catering to local Quakers who cannot find books they want except at Yearly or (sometimes) Quarterly meetings.

During this week's meeting for worship, I sat in the quiet with sounds of nature flowing in through the window and thought, "I would love to be in this kind of a setting all day.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a prayer center and bookstore like this?"   Now, I have been looking for a building to buy or a space to rent to do this, but our little village is so popular, the prices for these things are obscenely high.  In short, I can't afford this.   But it has been part of my dream, to have a store where people can come and just hang out with other like minds (go back to the summer of 1998!)

Suddenly it comes to me, that I am worshiping in the perfect place.  Our building is little used during the week.  Would this not be the perfect place for Friends to meet - the meetinghouse?   After rise of worship, I talked separately with two people, one an elder, another a long time Friend with a centered view of meeting for worship and small business.  Is this a conflict?  Am I being selfish?  Would this serve just me, or would it serve the community?

After listening to their feedback, I am now preparing a proposal to my local meeting, hoping to be able to host a mid-week worship center where people can come at lunch time to rest, bring their bag lunch, talk, pray, read.  I would operate a book boutique there, and could also open up the library so it is more accessible to people.  Next meeting for business is not until August, so I will have time to pray, reflect, prepare a letter.

Meanwhile, my sister has helped me open up an on-line bookstore.  The books I am offering off-line are for sale there.  My first sale - my only sale to date! - was of a woven bracelet made by the children of Si A La Vida.  A weaver bought it, and said it was excellent work - she's going to tell her friends.  All proceeds for that sale go to the charity.

A Friendly Spirit sales will enable me to integrate passions - work, spiritual faith, family life - with my day to day life.  My youngest son, soon to be a fourth grader, will be in walking distance of the meeting house.  Perhaps he'll enjoy attending there mid-week, since he does not enjoy First Day school (he has yet to decide if he is going to be a Quaker.)   I have friends who are too busy or too tired to attend First Day Meeting for Worship.  Perhaps they will stop in for lunch, and we can worship together.

February, 2002

What a difference just a few months makes -- the web bookstore was very slow from June to October -- I decided to add some of my favorite book accessories -- bookplates and bookmarks -- and business really picked up!  Bookplates are essential to my life -- the company I retired from (see April 2, 1999) started with bookplates in the late 1920's by Ernest Morgan (you'll see his name on just about every page of my site).  He and his partner worked for the local newspaper and wanted to find something practical to do with the side cuttings of the newspaper -- they decided to make bookplates here in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

And so it went.  I actually followed Ernest as a North Carolina sales rep in the 1980's (yes, he was still selling from his van!), then moved to the home office here in Yellow Springs.   Anyway, I was happy to see that there are people out there who know what bookplates are and use them -- and give them as gifts!  I soon added personalization of small orders, then became a distributor for bulk orders of bookplates for the same newspaper where they began.

Sales were nice, but not terribly impressive.  Which was alright -- my motto has been "We won't get much bigger than this."  We were still contemplating the idea of finding a storefront -- we may be working with a local bookstore to do so -- but before we could make any moves, January arrived.  January, for most retailers, is a slow month.  Returns, perhaps purchases by gift certificate (but since you've already received payment for the gift certificate,  perhaps only a little new sales.  A dead month, sales wise.

But for us, January, was an experience!  In October, when ordering the bookplates, I had decided to add a few each of the Lord of the Rings bookmarks from the movie - a dozen or so of the 13 designs.  The company that manufactures the bookplates also makes those bookmarks.  I liked the books and thought, why not.   Surely in the next year or so I could sell the hundred plus bookmarks I'd bought.

They sat on the website, unnoticed, for all of October, November and December.  Sure, I sold one or two in December.  One customer even bought 30 of them, 5 Frodo and 20 of The One Ring.  But on January second, the gates seemed to open all all the Tolkien movie fans poured in.  Well, not all of them but a dazzling number.

We did 10 times the business we'd done in 2001 in the month of January.  We were impressed, busy, and pretty tired.  By February 15, we were back to normal, selling more bookplates and other bookmarks than Lord of the Rings bookmarks. What a relief!

But we figure things will pick up in April, with the Star Wars Collectible bookmarks, then slow down over the summer, but will pick up in the fall with Christmas.  Bookplates are wonderful gifts. And there's the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers.  We're also working on a real world catalog, primarily because our valued bookplate customers have strongly suggested an interest in ordering via catalog.  We began taking credit card payments ourselves (rather than only through Pay Pal, an on-line service) because of customer requests and the upcoming catalog.

We're feeling fortunate -- the volume of business from the bookmarks has brought a lot of visitors, who've enjoyed other products and bought some of our Quaker books.   The low profit because of the discounting we do still allows us to pay our bills, keep offering books, and try out some new products.

Plus we will need to hire help for the holidays, which means jobs for some people who could really use the work -- among others, my 74 year old mother, recovered from her stroke and wanting to work -- she has many skills we can put to good use!

Thanks for reading this far!  We hope you'll come back to the site, we're adding new book accessories as we find them (and as you all express an interest).   We've made a lot of improvements, thanks to customers who have let us know what works and what doesn't!

If you are interested, bookmark this page.  A Friendly Spirit is up and running!

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