The Library Phantom!

I stumbled across this incredible story on NPR. Apparently, a very talented book artist has been leaving "gifts" all over Edinburgh, Scotland. The exceptional sculptures are, in the words of the artist, "in support of libraries, books, words, ideas..."

I highly recommend that your read the original stories on NPR:

Who Left a Tree, Then a Coffin, in the Library?

And the follow up: The Library Phantom Returns!

Here are a few of my favorites:

This tree takes my breath away and the eggs are lined with gold leaf.

"A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas... Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story..."

Yes, those feathers are made out of paper, book paper.

O loves this little T-Rex, the story shows his tail peeking out of the back of the book.

SCORE

There are a lot of things I love about running my own business. Mostly, I love bookbinding and I love working with people. I do not love marketing.

Primarily, I think my distaste for marketing and advertising stems from a general lack of knowledge, experience, and well, success. As I was searching the BYU Library's databases for a book or article to help clear the haze, I stumbled across a link for SCORE. I am amazed by this incredible resource and cannot wait to start taking advantage of some of these services.

Here is the gist of it:

• Free, online tutorials for small business owners and startups
• Free, local training
• Free mentoring with local business professionals (options to email with a mentor available as well)
• Free access to templates and tools
• Local networking groups

Also, this video is inspiring.

Now Benefitting the Center for Women and Children in Crisis

K.Beck books is proud to now benefit the Center for Women and Children in Crisis. With every book or journal purchased, we donate another to CWCIC.

So now to answer the questions, why this partnership?

First, a story. I was reading an article about a gal who teaches bookbinding classes and once a year she goes to Ethiopia to teach binding to lepers. I was amazed, and a little intimidated. I have always been impressed by small business owners who give a portion of their proceeds or otherwise benefit non-profit organizations. However, I always let myself off the hook. My excuses went something like this: "My business is too small"; "Bookbinding is more of a niche market"; "Maybe when I'm more established"; and on and on. But this girl, this girl is doing some good. Real good, with real people, with bookbinding.

So, I started looking around online at the local non-profits. The CWCIC caught my eye as their list of donated items included journals. It turns out, that in addition to the necessities, these women are in need of personal possessions. Many of the women and children at this center have given up everything. The more I thought about it, the more excited and motivated I became. It isn't much, but the idea of providing a leather bound volume of Fairy Tales to a mother and child at a shelter is enough to get you up in the morning.

Thanks to the CWCIC for letting me partner with you. Hopefully, K.Beck books can contribute to the good you're already doing in our community. (For more information, you can check out our website, or CWCIC.org.)

Happy kick-off to the Holiday Season!

-Kelcie Beck

Playing with Buttons

I'm doing a little bit of experimenting with shopping cart buttons. Bear with me for a moment...

New Site!

After nearly 2 years in business, K. Beck books is launching a new site!

We have learned a lot over the last few months and years of working with you to meet individual, custom orders, as well as large, wholesale orders. Taking the collective experience of our successes, failures, and just the day in day out of operation, we have put together a new business model and a new site to better meet your needs.

I'm excited about where we're going and can't wait to launch the new site. In the meantime, here's a clip of what's to come...