In a nutshell Richard Booth started selling the dusty tomes from his family's bookshelves in the backwater (and I can say that as a regular visitor) of Hay and Wye in the Welsh Marches. As his business grew he started to go far and wide buying job lots of books. His ever increasing stock pile meant he had to find more premises and he even invented the "Honesty Bookshop" where books are stacked up outside with a tin box for donations alongside. Over time other booksellers gravitated towards Hay. Today it is a thriving rural community - and an excellent place to visit. Richard began to know as much about developing rural towns as he did about selling books. Many of the views he puts forward in the book are the same sort of things that Mary Portas tells the government and big firms (for a fee) nowadays. Keep it local, keep it friendly but professional, bigger doesn't always mean better.
I'd recommend this book to anyone looking to get started in the second hand book business or even anyone interested in how business can thrive away from the crack-riddled drug dens of the inner M25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Booth
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