Starting Up and Moving On

As I said in the introduction we started with a small shop near the city centre in Exeter. I say near because we quickly discovered that people's idea of the city centre ended the lamppost before the shopping arcade where we had the shop!Nevertheless, it was a good introduction to running our own business. We were able to keep our heads above water and pay our bills. We also met some really great people who shared our passion for books including a Canadian who was trying to find a book. We tracked down a copy for him... ...in a book shop in his home town in Canada.

However, we quickly discovered that we could do better online. From the start we had listed our books on Abebooks but we then discovered we could do very well selling our books on eBay as well. Eventually we decided to close the shop and concentrate on our online business which we ran from our flat and self-storage space. Looking back I am not sure how we managed it but somehow it worked!

Finally, we decided to move up north to be nearer our families, partly because property prices were cheaper and partly as we were thinking of having a family of our own. Then, in 2004 my wife gave birth to Daniel, our pride and joy. (If you want to see a picture of us all you can visit Chris' Blog Spot). Although I don't think we were quite prepared for the effect Daniel would have on the business, he gave us a whole new literary world to explore, the world of toddler and baby books.

Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to Exe Libris' Book Corner. I'm Graeme, one of the owners. My wife and I started selling books in 2001 but the seed was planted years before with a film, Deadly Advice starring Jane Horrocks and Brenda Fricka. The story starts in a bookshop in a Welsh town but was actually filmed in Hay-On-Wye, the second-hand bookshop capital of the world. Given that we both liked browsing in bookshops, we thought we would like to visit sometime. It was some years later before we managed to get there and we really loved it (and spent far too much money!)We stayed at The Seven Stars, a very friendly Bed and Breakfast which had it's own swimming pool and sauna. As we were leaving we got chatting to another couple and we all agreed that it would be great to own a bookshop. The rest, as they say is history...