Last Week

I haven't written on here since last Monday. Yeah, sorry about that. Here's a catch up. 

The Independent Bookshop Alliance was relaunched last week. The idea is that Indie Bookshops work together to have a more level playing field in the industry. 

It's a big project, but hopefully, once i've got myself sorted a bit more, I can dedicate more time to making this a reality. 

Wednesday's #buyastrangerabook day on Twitter was, once again, an absolute joy and 23 strangers were gifted books. 

I'm off to London next week, to do a talk about #buyastrangerabook. That should be loads of fun (not nervous in the slightest...) and i'll let you know more about that nearer the time. 

On Thursday I woke up stupidly early (4.30am) and caught the first train from Hastings to London. 

Too early...

My mission? To pick up a few essentials from The Big Green Bookshop to take back to base. 

With the help of Mark (@markymarket) we filled a Zipvan with bookcases, a table and a few books and headed off. 

You need to go up 43 steps to get to our flat. I counted them. These are things one notices, when one is carrying bookcases. 

To cut a long story short, the bookcases are up and the "office" is almost ready. 

...still waiting for the PC to turn up after being couriered from the bookshop, but I am assured that it won't be much longer. 

The Patreon scheme (which has been launched to help fund some of the projects that we're currently doing and plan to do in the future) reached a little milestone on Friday. Those of you who have joined, I'll be posting out your EXCLUSIVE "I am in a train" badges next week. 

Shiny things!

I'm still working out the logistics of this Patreon thing, but the first newsletter will be going out very soon too (as soon as my daughter has finished her comic strip)

In other news last week, Katie and I watched Stan & Ollie at the cinema. It was brilliant and I cried twice.

The kids are really enjoying their new school. They've made some lovely new friends and they don't actually moan when it's time to go. It's a 15 minute walk to get there. But what a lovely walk it is. 

Going to pay some bills now and possibly eat cheese on toast. 

Independent Bookshop Alliance

Last January, I put a thing up on our Blog, with an idea of Independent Bookshops working together to compete with chain stores and massive online tax dodgers websites. It's HERE, if you'd like to read it.

Any it proved surprisingly popular and within a couple of days I had about 80 bookshops contact me to express an interest. 

Then, The Guardian did a piece about it, which raised its profile even more, meaning that more bookshops wanted to get involved. 

 Following this, Lord Bird, founder of The Big Issue and all round good guy, got in touch to offer his support. In March, The Independent Bookshop Alliance was officially launched at The House of Lords. 

This was all very exciting, and by now there were about 150 bookshops involved. Publishers proclaimed that they would support our initiatives (hurray!), and we set about trying to put together a few titles that we really wanted to get behind. More about that can be read HERE

This was bloody hard work, but it was satisfying bloody hard work and I really thought that something exciting was happening. 

Then we hit a few stumbling blocks. The publishers we approached, whilst keen to support us, weren't quite on the same wavelength as us. And despite a number of meetings, phone calls and emails, we weren't able to get anything concrete sorted. 

This was frustrating. 

I was looking after the bookshop (trying to sell books and keep the shop going) at the same time as trying to coordinate this huge project. Eventually, I had to put the Independent bookshop Alliance on the back burner and concentrate on the Bookshop. 

So, fast forward to now. 

The Big Green Bookshop is closing its doors on January 31st, and I will be taking it online. And in a bizarre way, not having a bricks and mortar Independent Bookshop, will allow me time to devote The Independent Bookshop Alliance! 

So, today I sent and email to all the bookshops who'd been involved last year to tell them that The Independent Bookshop Alliance is back!

My fear is that the email has gone straight into everybody's junk mail, as I haven't sent anything for a while, but hopefully there's still some interest. 

If you are an indie bookshop and are interested in hearing more about this, simply send an email to indiebookshops@gmail.com, with the word "YES" and i'll add you to the mailing list. 

Please share this far and wide. 

It is Thursday

Yes, it is Thursday. And as tradition now dictates, this means it is the day after Wednesday. 

I have spent the morning posting out all of yesterday's #BuyAStrangerABook purchases. Three to the Philippines, one to Holland, two to India and many to the UK. A truly international affair!

It is time for some shameless bragging now. 

I picked up a copy of The Big Issue today. It's a special edition, in which they have devoted pretty much the whole magazine to "Changemakers". 

They have selected 100 "Changemakers" who they feel are "changing the world for the better, though they're frequently under the radar"

Well, look who's included? It's only Simon Key!

This is incredible and I cannot thank The Big Issue enough for including me. I shall be making an "Under the Radar" badge later.

A couple of people have suggested that I set up a Patreon page, to help me with the funding of some of the projects I'm currently working on, as well as others I'd really like to get my teeth into. 

The idea of a Patreon scheme is that if people like what you're doing, they can lob you a quid or two each month, to help you carry on doing it. In return, they can receive exclusive stuff from the person or organisation they're helping. 

So, anyway, I have set one up. 

IT'S HERE. 

Bear in mind, everyone who joins will receive a regular newsletter, with a comic strip included, conceived and drawn by my daughter, Freya.

There's also the opportunity to have your very own "I am in a train" badge!

Just because we've moved to Hastings, doesn't mean we're not going to be supporting events in other places. 

On March 1st-3rd, we're delighted to be selling books at a health and well-being exhibition in London. 

So, with this in mind, I'm looking for two reliable, sensible, enthusiastic, friendly people, who are able to help me out at this event for ALL THREE DAYS. I will pay you.

10-6 Friday

9-7 Saturday

10-4 Sunday

You'll be using the till (and the card machine), keeping the stall tidy, being nice to people, helping to look after the authors who are going to be at our stall signing their books and generally being ace.

For all three days I will pay you £180 each. 

If you're interested, please email me on biggreenbooks@gmail.com, with contact details and a bit of info about yourself. 

It should be a right laugh. 

Thank you. 

It is Wednesday.

Yes, it is Wednesday. And as tradition now dictates, this means that it's #BuyAStrangerABook day on Twitter. If you don't know what #BuyAStrangerABook day is (and you'd like to know what it is), click on this link HERE and Sarah Newey from The Independent will explain.  I'm typing this sentence at 12.36pm and someone called Vicky Anne from the Philippines is being bought a book by someone called Polgara. They are strangers. Isn't that lovely?

#BuyAStrangerABook

I think I mentioned in my last post that the PC from the Big Green Bookshop was being sent to me here. I don't have a PC and i've been itching for it to get here, so I can get stuck into a few of the projects i'm working on. It was expected to arrive "no later than January 14th, but has yet to reach its destination (me). So far, it's been to Hatfield, Aylesham (somewhere near Dover), back to Hatfield, then it took another trip to Aylesham, was then sent to Wednesbury (near Walsall in the West Midlands) and then came back for a third time to Aylesham. It's current in a van, but we don't know where. Yodel, in case you were wondering. 

I have a laptop here, and although the power packs up on it every so often, it does its job, so I can still do stuff. 

I other exciting news, my Mum gave me an Argos voucher for Christmas, so i've picked up this little beauty. 

Thanks Mum

I'd been sitting on that cardboard box until I bought it, so it's definitely an improvement. The kids love spinning around on it too. 

Katie and I met a very lovely author for coffee yesterday, who's lived in the area for a while. She recommended some great places to visit and hopefully we're going to meet up again. 

Yesterday I emailed the Council to cancel our business rates at the end of this month. That was very satisfying. 

Here's a picture of my lunch.

I shall be announcing a THING tomorrow. If you have read this far, I think it's only fair that I share it with you a day early. So, here it is. 

 Let me know if you think it's a good/bad idea?

Thanks. 

Update

We've been living here for a little over a week so far and things are just starting to calm down. 

The kids started at their new school at the end of last week. It's been a huge move for them and we're so proud of how they have embraced this new adventure. They're already settling in well and the teachers have been amazing. There is also the prospect of pizza for today's school dinner!

The town itself is gorgeous and we've been on lots of walks, exploring the area. There are lots of fish and chip shops.

There are 21 Fish and Chip shops in this picture alone.

 It's been tricky work-wise, as internet access has taken a while to materialise and our laptop has been commandeered by our kids when they have the chance! However, last Thursday, Tim boxed up the shop's PC and a few other things and posted them down here to me. I've been tracking the parcel and it looks like it'll be arriving today, so that'll really help.

Things we've managed to do:

Start a new Blog (you are reading it).

Do the first #BuyAStrangerABook of 2019 last Wednesday (they'll be happening every Wednesday from now on btw)

Updates to the website are ongoing. It may take a little longer than anticipated to get this sorted, as there are going to be quite a few changes.

I've started an Instagram Account for Big Green Books.

Unpack most of our boxes. I need more book cases, so I shall be going up to Wood Green again quite soon to see if there are any spare at the shop for me to bring back down here.

There are a few other things that we're in the middle of organising, so you may have to wait a couple of weeks before we can announce those.

We're also doing lots of admin type stuff and sorting out all the bits we need to with the shop in Wood Green.

Tomorrow, we are meeting an author!

The pigeons here are bigger than the ones in Wood Green.

So, this is what's happening.

Hello, 

I wrote this on our website, just after Christmas 2018

THE BIG GREEN BOOKSHOP

Announcement from Simon.

I’ve absolutely loved it at The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green. We have the very best customers, who have supported the Bookshop every day, from the very moment we opened over ten years ago. These have been the most rewarding years of my working life, but sometimes things have to change. So it’s time for an exciting new adventure for us. My family and I are moving out of London and starting a new version of The Big Green Bookshop.

 

The shop itself will be closing on Thursday January 31^st 2019 and we’ll be continuing the Big Green Bookshop online from then.

 

It’s going to take a little while to get this up and running, but these are the things I know right now.

 

1.       You can still buy books from us (please do!) which can be posted out to you directly, rather than have them delivered here first, which will hopefully make it a quicker procedure.

 

2.       #BuyAStrangerABook will happen every Wednesday from January 9th.

 

3.       I will, of course, keep encouraging you to subscribe to The Big Green Book Club.

 

4.       Initiatives, like being able to support Shelter and buying books for the Calais Jungle will continue (this is going to be a big part of the new online version of Big Green Bookshop).

 

5.       I will continue to support Wood Green (as this is an area very very close to my heart) and I’m working with local venues to make sure that I can continue to put on amazing events in the area.

 

6.       A new website will go live in the next few weeks.

 

7.       I am terrified/excited.

 

The shop’s been doing OK, but rent and rates are an absolute monster.

Katie and I have often talked about moving to the seaside and now that our kids are getting older, it seems like the perfect time.

 

For those of you who follow @biggreenbooks on Twitter, or subscribe to the Bookshop newsletter, please do keep following, as this is the quickest and most effective way to pass information onto you at the moment. I have loads of new ideas and plans that i'm bursting to tell you about, but it's going to take a few weeks to get these all sorted (moving house is quite time consuming!), so please do stick around.

 

Yes, this is quite a big change, but I want it to be a positive thing for everyone and with your continued support, I really think it can be.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

Simon

------------------------------------------------

We have now moved!

So, one of the things that I thought would be useful, is to start a blog, charting how everything's going and reminding myself of the 4 million things that I need to do.

And this is that blog. 

I hope you enjoy reading it. 

This blogpost is a filler, so I can see what it looks like when I post it on the blog. If you are reading this, it means that it passed my strict quality control.

Further posts will probably be more informative. Some may have pictures. I might even add a link to something, if i'm feeling adventurous. 

I think the important bit to take from the announcement I put on the website is that "I am excited/terrified". This is all new to me and we're going to need all the help we can get. so if you have any ideas/advice/money you'd like to give to us, we'd be delighted. 

Have a delightful day and thanks for reading this. 

Simon