If you could

[DesertPirate]

Ranch in Wyoming/Montana with beef and bison and big game hunting. Hunting trips need horses to get to camp!

 

[sadangel]

Nice to see there's good people here. Feel bad for not being one of them.
Does it help that I'd be willing to contribute?

It counts to me. Not everyone is cut out to come up with an idea of a business. Some prefer to do the financial. They are always needed in any business adventure.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

It counts to me. Not everyone is cut out to come up with an idea of a business. Some prefer to do the financial. They are always needed in any business adventure.

I've always wanted to find a way to publish other writers that have a hard time getting in. The thing is I know that ends up starting out good, until you get the golden writer and fall off track. It would be good to know my money was going somewhere pure even if I fell off the wagan and turned into an ass like the rest. Don't want it to happen, but it seems money makes it inevitable.

 

[lance gt]

I've always wanted to find a way to publish other writers that have a hard time getting in. The thing is I know that ends up starting out good, until you get the golden writer and fall off track. It would be good to know my money was going somewhere pure even if I fell off the wagan and turned into an ass like the rest. Don't want it to happen, but it seems money makes it inevitable.

It's great when a bunch of asses put their money together and do something like this. Somehow ending up being less of an ass overall. I have some people looking into it now for investment purposes for retirement income later on. Amazing what a smoking a few doobs and having a couple of beers and yakking will come up with sometimes.

 

[Katyusha]

So what would you do if you had the money?

Cat

You took my idea. Would you let me borrow your idea for the middle of IL?

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

It's great when a bunch of asses put their money together and do something like this. Somehow ending up being less of an ass overall. I have some people looking into it now for investment purposes for retirement income later on. Amazing what a smoking a few doobs and having a couple of beers and yakking will come up with sometimes.

So I can be a good ass. Works for me

 

[lance gt]

So I can be a good ass. Works for me

Me too!

 

[OhMissScarlett]

My mom and I want to start a fabric/sewing supply store. We live in a rural area where Walmart is the only place to buy fabric and they're phasing out their stock to make room for something else. This is gonna leave everyone who can't order their fabric and supplies online without anywhere to go. So, we know we could make it work, we just need the funding to buy our building and stock. Easy, right?

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

I did it.

I opened a secondhand book shop and ran it for ten years, covering the costs but not making a profit.

I enjoyed buying and reading books. I even enjoyed selling them and particularly finding books that people really wanted.

If I could, I'd open another much bigger store that would rival Hay-on-Wye's book town. A secondhand book shop the size of a large Walmart, backed up with several warehouses would be about right. I'd employ people who enjoy books as much as I do and enough of them on shifts so that the store could be open seven days a week, 24 hours Monday to Saturday and as long as legal on a Sunday. I would need several vehicles and book-loving drivers to collect books and contracts to take all the books that charity shops send for recycling.

I'd go bust but it would be enjoyable.

Og

I looked into this seriously when I lived on the East coast. Then I moved to Dallas and found out it's already been done, and very successfully. More than a dozen stores in the Dallas Metroplex alone. Their model is different than yours, but once they move in, it's hard to compete in the used-book trade.

It's called Half-Price Books.

 

[Edward Teach]

A friggin bank! The profits are huge and the government won't let them go broke no matter how hard they try.

 

[oggbashan]

I looked into this seriously when I lived on the East coast. Then I moved to Dallas and found out it's already been done, and very successfully. More than a dozen stores in the Dallas Metroplex alone. Their model is different than yours, but once they move in, it's hard to compete in the used-book trade.

It's called Half-Price Books.

It has been tried in the UK but failed because the owners, although previously successful businessmen, didn't understand books. They bought and overstocked with Reader's Digest Condensed Books which are not worth the space they take up.

The real competition for secondhand bookshops in the UK comes from charity shops, particularly charity book shops. They get reductions on the rent and local taxes, are given the books free, their staff work for no pay and the customer is sometimes willing to pay over the normal price "because it's for a charity".

My business survived for ten years despite the fierce competition from charity shops because I understand books. I could identify the valuable from the valueless and could undercut the charity shops on run-of-the-mill paperbacks. I didn't pulp unsold books as many charities do. Any complete books that I couldn't sell were sent, by a charity, to villages in Africa where almost any reading material is valuable for schools.

If I had a surplus of books I'd have a sale. If I was really overstocked I'd pile books up on tables outside the shop priced at ten pence each or ten books for fifty pence. On a few occasions my outside books were reduced to a penny each. I sold 300+ books at a penny each to one schoolgirl who had to ring her mother on her mobile phone to collect her purchases. Luckily for me, her mother was delighted with the books too. Aside - giving books away didn't work. People will buy books at a penny each but will ignore them if they are free.

Og

 

[carrie-on]

I thought about that. I've worked in a Nursing Home. Then I realized a couple of problems with it.

No matter how I designed it the family members of the occupants would scream their family members were being mistreated.

No matter how much you paid the staff you would always have scum working there who felt it was only a job and they were in controll.

There would still be the politics between the R.N.'s, the L.P.N.'s, the Aides and the Administrators.

Cat

Yeah you're pobably right, but it IS a good idea.

 

[carrie-on]

It has been tried in the UK but failed because the owners, although previously successful businessmen, didn't understand books. They bought and overstocked with Reader's Digest Condensed Books which are not worth the space they take up.


Og

LOL I take exception to the fact that Reader's Digest Condensed Books aren't worth anything, Maybe not monetarily, they aren't, but I haven't found one yet that I wouldn't give my 10 yr old grandson to read. Often, some of the old ones have the great stories that you can't find anymore. Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, A tree Grows in Brooklyn. When my Gram died, I got all of the condensed books that she had, Almost all of them from the very beginning (minus 3 from the 50's)until she died in 1985. I continue my search for the last 2 years of the 90's but have most of them up to the last one issued. (Fall this year.) They aren't worth a whole lot of money but they sure are worth something to me.

 

[oggbashan]

LOL I take exception to the fact that Reader's Digest Condensed Books aren't worth anything...

What I said was "are not worth the space they take up" which is true from a bookseller's viewpoint. There are so many of them that they could fill up a shop quickly and very few people would pay more than ten pence per copy.

Shelf space is the sales pitch for a secondhand bookseller. Instead of ten Reader's Digest Condensed Books the same space could house ten pristine first editions at an average price of ten pounds each.

Selection is perhaps the hardest task for a secondhand bookseller. Do you pile high and sell cheap, or be selective and sell expensive books? Both are viable business models but too many get it wrong - pile high and try to sell expensive or have too few books priced too low.

Og

 

[carrie-on]

What I said was "are not worth the space they take up" which is true from a bookseller's viewpoint. There are so many of them that they could fill up a shop quickly and very few people would pay more than ten pence per copy.

Shelf space is the sales pitch for a secondhand bookseller. Instead of ten Reader's Digest Condensed Books the same space could house ten pristine first editions at an average price of ten pounds each.

Selection is perhaps the hardest task for a secondhand bookseller. Do you pile high and sell cheap, or be selective and sell expensive books? Both are viable business models but too many get it wrong - pile high and try to sell expensive or have too few books priced too low.

Og

sorry Og, I didn't see that..You have a good point.

 

[lance gt]

Another idea I had if money was no object, is a ride called Freefall. It was designed to work at ski resorts as an income producing venue when there's no snow. It is a tubular track, suspended above the ground, with individual seats for riders. It twists and turns and does all the loops and everything, the big difference being you go by yourself. It's almost like skiing, the speed and movements, but the fear factor increases becuase people don't think rides are unsafe when there are large groups going at one time. Going by yourself increases those thoughts of risk and fear incredibly. Totally safe, but scary as shit and draws the riders in like mad. No two rides are the same and resorts get to make money in the off season. No power is used to run the track because it's gravity fed, making it economical and environmentally clean as well.