Notes from Chris

Episode 1368

Jessica Dollar is a mother of five. She’s often short on time and, as her name would suggest, sometimes she’s short on money. In 2018 the latter point became a larger issue for her family. She liked being a stay-at-home mom, so, to avoid getting a job outside the home, she looked for ways to generate income while juggling the demands of motherhood. A side hustle was the obvious choice.

But Jessica, like a lot of people, had no idea where to begin. She researched ideas and tried out a few. However, nothing really clicked. She’d heard the advice to follow your passion or find something you’re interested in. But those concepts didn’t present anything obvious for her. After some more exploring, she read about people having success selling books online: specifically, vintage books. Through that avenue, Jessica came across Etsy, the platform for creators to sell various handcrafted goods.

It all stemmed from this idea: What if she combined basic vintage bookselling with colorful decoration? Jessica’s thinking was that, for many people, books act as much as decoration as they do reading material.

Paging through the site’s listings, she didn’t notice anyone else doing it. For some, that might have turned them off. Perhaps no one was interested in color-matched vintage books? For Jessica though, the lack of competition was exciting. As a contrarian, she loves going against the grain. (And if it failed, she’d only have her shelf to blame!)

She took a one-hundred-dollar voucher for Goodwill gifted to her by her in-laws, and went shopping. She scoured the local stores, looking for suitable books to create her first batches. She’d search for old books in different shades of one color, bundle them together and sell them as one product. She found a few suitable sets and listed them on her new Etsy store called, cleverly, Pretty Old Books.

Three days later, her first sale came through. Jessica was having breakfast with a friend and heard the cha-ching sound from the Etsy app. It was an exciting moment for two reasons. First, she’d taken a chance on an idea and followed through with it. Second, it proved her hunch was right, there were people out there interested in buying Pretty Old Color Matched Books!

Which was good news, because, in 2019 Jessica’s husband lost his job and has been out of work ever since. Pretty Old Books has provided an income to keep them afloat through what's been a very difficult time. And, although the struggle is real, Jessica has had a lot of fun along the way learning about running a business.

She handles everything from inventory, packing, shipping, newsletters and social content. It’s all been frantic, fun and most importantly of all, profitable. In 2019, Jessica earned over fifteen thousand dollars from her side hustle and is on track for around twenty thousand in 2020. This should be helped along by her new Shopify store and special membership club she’s offering to her existing customers. She intends to provide exclusive offers and special discounts.

Jessica’s success shows that with plenty of shelf-awareness, good things are bound to happen.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Check out Jessica's colorful book collection at her website, PrettyOldBooks.com or at her Etsy store (Pretty Old Books).
• Jessica started selling her books through Etsy: before selling directly through her own site. Now she uses both!

SEE ALSO:
• Designer Illustrates Success with Personalized Wedding Products: A graphic designer in New York City taps into the wedding e-commerce market and turns her side hustle into full-time work bringing in multiple six-figures.
• Bedridden Marketing Director Pops Tags at Thrift Shop: A marketing director for a Connecticut health facility converts her passion for unique, vintage finds into a reselling side hustle.
• Rosary Bead Hustle Pays Bills for Homeschooling Mom: A stay-at-home mom’s prayers are answered when she begins to earn a full-time income making and selling rosary beads.
Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!
Yours in the revolution,


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