Stimulating Idea, Stimulating Person - Read This Now!

I don't even know the first time I met Jessica Stockton because at this point she's just such a part of my landscape in this business - and I mean that as a compliment in the highest order. Wherever I go, I see her, wherever I don’t go, I read that she was there. She's an amazing bookseller and a really cool person - but most of all, she’s a hell of a future small business owner (keep reading).....

I'll be hanging out in L.A. tomorrow night with Jessica and a whole host of other booksellers under the age of 40 that want to build a future for themselves in this business. The party is for a group called the Emerging Leaders and it's a great night of fun, networking, drinking, talk about the future, etc. However, Jessica is not just trying to find path for herself in indy bookselling, she's paving it.......

Check out the letter I got from her last week and more importantly, support Stimulating Reading! Hopefully I'll see you in L.A. tomorrow night where you can tell me about what you are going to do to help change bookselling forever......

Presenting Stimulating Reading: www.stimulatingreading.com

All the details are on the website, but the basic idea is something like the public radio model, except in a for-profit sense: kick in some cash and get back t-shirts, bags, or at higher levels, gift cards and discount cards at the future bookstore. It's kind of an act of faith, since the bookstore doesn't yet exist. But I have every confidence this bookstore will open within the next year, and everyone will find their investment has been worthwhile. And what could be a better way to use that windfall than by supporting a place where people discover books, discuss books, find community, create culture, and support the local economy of Brooklyn. So yeah, this is partly about asking for money. But there are lots of other ways to get money (I'm working on those too). This is more about offering an alternative to spend that stimulus payment purposefully, in a way that will actually strengthen the economy, and promote a culture of literacy that makes for an educated citizenry.