Howdy folks, Michael here, you know, the guy who owns and runs the shop and the events. It's been quite a while since I said hello so...
Hello
Around 2 months ago I put out a random tweet saying I needed 'Help' with the bookshop. That covered everything from running and booking events, to making tea and coffee. Abigail popped in and after a lengthy chat, I realised that the website was getting left behind. It was just too time consuming! Abbii has built this site from the ground up and is constantly giving me tips on how to market things better. One of them is 'Oi, stop being lazy and write a flipping blog post'. So here it is. Not reluctantly at all.
In all seriousness, I was pretty happy with how things were going beforehand, it's just I felt I was a little stagnant and needed to get out to a wider audience. The events were and are going great guns, but the general 10am-6pm trade could be better. Some added ideas were welcome. Alongside building and maintaining the website, Abbii has been writing weekly blogs from 'Top 5 bookshops' to 'Literary Festivals'.
Oh yeah,
We're doing a literary festival!
It's always been an idea to host something like that here it's just I'm pretty good at writing lists then leaving said lists in the notebook. Abbii again is the driving force, or 'kick-up-the-arse' that was needed. Between us we've already written a shortlist of top named authors and those in the creative fields. The ones we've approached so far have agreed to be part of it so it's very exciting!
As well as Abbii scoring a home run with the site I've also got the super talented Annette who is writing blogs too. Watership Down, The Shining and Antony Horowitz are just a few of the topics covered so far.
In the past 4 weeks or so since Abbii came on board I've taken two 30-minute meetings with her. The first lasted 5 and a half hours, the second for 10 hours. That's not even an exaggeration. What have I done to deserve this?!?
I'll be adding my own thoughts to 'stuff and things' on this site too, but now with Annette and Abigail (and Alison, can we call them the A-team?) here too, this is a lovely regularly updated place to find out about the written word. And more.
I'll leave you with our latest Big Comfy Session that we recorded with one of my favourite acts, The Willows.
