Henry Bemis Books
Quality Used, Rare & Collectible Books | Personal Library Consulting Services
5513 Beam Lake Drive, Charlotte NC 28216
website henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com
Twitter@henrybemisbooks
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Bloomsday 2015
Dear Friends,
21 years ago, his return to Apple still in the future, Steve Jobs gave an interview where he talked about the remarkable value of asking for help. A writer for Inc. magazine republished the video the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkTf0LmDqKI&feature=youtu.be
Here’s the core of what Jobs said:
"Now, I've actually always found something to be very true, which is most people don't get those experiences because they never ask. I've never found anybody who didn't want to help me when I've asked them for help."
Jobs goes on to tell about the time when he was 12 years old that he decided to call Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, to ask for some spare parts to build a frequency counter (Hewlett's home phone number was in the Palo Alto phone book at the time). Not only did Hewlett readily agree to young Steve's request, but he offered him a summer job at his company, assembling frequency counters.
Jobs continues, in the video:
"I've never found anyone who's said no or hung up the phone when I called-I just asked. And when people ask me, I try to be as responsive, to pay that debt of gratitude back. Most people never pick up the phone and call, most people never ask. And that's what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you've gotta be willing to fail, you gotta be ready to crash and burn, with people on the phone, with starting a company, with whatever. If you're afraid of failing, you won't get very far."
So here’s where I ask for you to help me with a couple of things.
Tomorrow I begin emailing Henry Bemis Books’ Summer Catalogue. Last year, at 58, I decided to take the plunge and spend the rest of my life doing something that would spread learning, make people happy, and give me some happiness as well.
I went into the book business.
After some months of planning, and pulling various threads of my life experience into a coherent skillset, I launched Henry Bemis Books on the Internet three and a half months ago. I’ve worked 18 hours days for months, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Building a business in the age of social media is fascinating, exciting, and changes every day.
Henry’s big summer catalogue lists over five hundred books, published between 1764 and 2012. It contains some pretty amazing stuff, and there is more to come in future catalogues. If you’d like a copy, please sign up via the catalogue request form at the right, or the newsletter signup at the top of the page.
By next summer I hope to hand many of you the 2016 Summer Catalogue in person, in the shop I plan to open. We’ll be expanding our rare and collectibles focus into a broader range of quality used titles there. Charlotte, North Carolina is a great place to this: it’s the second-fastest-growing city in America. It just made Amazon’s 2015 list of the 20 most well-read US cities- at #11. And it is seriously underserved by good bookstores. Charlotte-area residents made 5700 “rare books” queries on Google in April 2016 alone.
I survived- just- the tech boom and bust of the late 1990s, so I’ve been determined to bootstrap Henry Bemis, as much as possible, on my own dime. No bank debt, no sharks wanting control. If you know me- and in these times, I recognize the term “friend” can range from Facebook folks, to Tweeps, to people I’ve known decades- you know I know books. In 2012-13 I field-tested my business plan in a thrift store’s book department; in six months, book sales went from nil to 35% of store sales- 4,000 volumes a month from a 625 square-foot space. I spent another year learning the charity and estate auctions side of the business, mastering how to spot the first edition Catcher in the Rye in a junk box long-stored in an attic.
HBB has built a strong social media market presence this spring; we’re just 14 Facebook likes behind the biggest Christian book outlet in the area, and have engagement rates that leave the top five indy stores here in the dust. But it takes time to build those markets organically; we need to grow them faster.
Time, now, for me to pretend you’re Bill Hewlett and I’m 12 year-old Steve Jobs: I want to build a great book business, and I need some help.
- Will you read the catalogue, and share it with others?
- Will you try to find something to buy?
The last few years have seen a great resurgence of independent American booksellers as the buy-local movement has spread, and even the most tech-savvy learned there are just some things an algorithm can’t do as well as a real live bookseller who lives to connect great books with great customers. Most of what Henry Bemis offers is priced comparably to a new hardcover, but- it’s also almost certainly a first edition, or autographed; maybe both. A classic you’ve never knew you were meant to own; a book you once had and wish you’d kept, and with some investment value.
You can help me launch a great bookstore in a city pining for one.
Like Steve Jobs, I’m ready to repay your faith in Henry Bemis Books. For every order received by June 30, 2015, I’ll give you buyer a credit of $72 a year until one of us dies: that’s the average annual book expenditure of Charlotte-area households.
Longevity runs in my family; according to the ubble.co.uk website, I have a 96.3% expectation of surviving the next three years, and am 5 years younger than my calendar age. So there’s a $216 return, minimum. And as time goes on and Henry prospers, I’ll adjust that credit upward. You’ll also be listed, if you wish, as a Founding Supporter of Henry Bemis Books. As they used to say on Japan’s Iron Chef, you’ll earn “the people’s ovation and fame forever.”
Any order placed from this catalogue for the rest of this year- take 25% off. If you are a) an alumnus of St. Andrews Presbyterian College (now St. Andrews University), or the University of Oxford, or a member of Charlotte’s Caldwell Presbyterian Church, take another 10%. Half the the net proceeds will be donated to those institutions (in Oxford’s case, to Mansfield College).
If you are another used, rare and/or collectible bookseller, let’s talk about discounts for you, too.
The first order over $250 will get a unique token of Henry’s gratitude: a first edition, hardcover copy of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby. Our Gatsby lacks the dust jacket (if it had that, I’d be on a beach in Honduras already), and has a couple of condition issues: some loose pages and a cellophane tape repair to the title page. These dings take it out of the usual first edition $5,000-range auction value. But only 23,000 copies made up the first edition; when Fitzgerald died in 1940, there were unsold copies in the Scribner warehouses. 90 years on, only a tiny number survive, in any condition.
Think of the bragging rights! The pride of place on your shelves! And if no one is allowed to touch it, no one will know about the tape.
Without books, the 17th century Danish physician, Thomas Bartholin, wrote, “God is silent, justice dormant, science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in darkness.”
Will you help me spread the light? We can make a mighty bonfire!
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Lindsay Thompson
For Henry Bemis Books
#HenryBemisBooks #St.Andrews University #MansfieldCollegeOxford #CaldwellPresbyterianChurch
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