Would You Help Me Decide Whether to Open an Online, Used Bookstore?

Posted on by Shari Lopatin
Sharis Pick image
Should I open an online, used bookstore via Amazon? Help me decide, fellow readers and writers!

Happy Wednesday fellow readers, bloggers, and writers! I have a question to ask you.

I’ve recently tossed around the idea of opening an online, used bookstore via Amazon to go along with my own writing and publishing. I would carry used books from classics to recent bestsellers, and the hope would be to make pricing competitive. However, I’m trying to determine if the quest is worth my time.

Would you help me by taking one minute to answer three quick questions via the survey I developed about opening an online bookstore?

Survey-Button

Your anonymous feedback will help me make the final decision! And I always figure: who better to ask than other lovers of the literary scene? 🙂 Thank you so much for your time and help. Oh, and feel free to pass this survey along to your other reader and writer friends!

What would you do, if you lost EVERYTHING?

Posted on by Shari Lopatin

diceSo usually, you hear people ask, “What would you do if you won the lottery?”

Well … duh … that’s kinda easy.

But how often do you hear someone ask, “What would you do, if you lost everything?”

By this, I mean your house, your job, your car, even your marriage. I’m not a complete sadist, so I’ll spare you your loved ones and pets.

Besides having a panic attack, perhaps you’re not too sure how to answer. Well…

I can tell you what J.K. Rowling did.

According to Wikipedia (and rumors I’ve heard from others who saw her speak), Rowling considered herself a large failure seven years after graduating from college. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a child. Yet, she said the following—as cited in Wikipedia from The Fringe Benefits of Failure, 2008:

“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me [Harry Potter].”

This has been on my mind lately.

I won’t lie. In fact, I’ll be completely truthful. I’ve been a little quieter on this blog, because I’m in a career transition. I lost my job of more than five years after the company I worked for lost a major federal contract. It wasn’t just my job affected, but hundreds of others, too.

So now, using everything I have, I’ve launched my new business, “Shari’s Ink: Copywriting & Creative Services.” And I’m writing a novel that burns inside my soul.

I have a house. I have a life. And I keep asking myself, what would I do, should I lose it all?

Maybe I could become the next J.K. Rowling.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?