Easter Weekend!
It's been a wonderfully busy April at No Books HQ.
April is traditionally my quietest month of the year. Like, not just quiet, but, like, DEAD. My first few Aprils in business, it was like, January, flat out clearing pre-Christmas orders, February peaks with Valentine's Day, and there's no reprieve as we head to Mother's Day in March. Then April would happen, and, honestly, my first 2/3 Aprils, I was like "W T actual F??". Absolute ghost town quiet. I remember checking to see if my website was still up and emailing myself in case my emails were down. All was well, I was just suddenly dead.
After the first 2/3 years, I finally recognised the pattern (bit slow on the uptake at times), and for the last 5 or so years, I've come to look forward to April as the only real downtime in my entire year. It's easy to assume that a business such as this would be dead busy for Christmas, and not much doing the rest of the time, but I can assure you that couldn't be further from the truth. With the build up to Christmas starting early on, I'm ramping up to 100 hour working weeks around the end of September, and steadily creeps up, increasing to a good 120+ hours in November and December, until I 'have' to dial it back to 60-70 hours in January, just to not burn out...back up to those hours in Feb/March...practically part time in April, maybe 6-8 hours a day, and then from May it picks up to 'nicely steady' for the Summer months, before September comes round again. And I guess even nicely steady is around 80 hours a week hahahaha
But April, April has always been super, super slow. And now I know that, I actually look forward to it. It's the closest I get to winding down a bit. Not this April! This April is completely and utterly bucking the trend of every previous one! One day last week, I actually cleared and dispatched ALL of my outstanding orders, which is very, very unusual, and I thought, ok, here we go, bit of sofa time for the rest of the month. The following morning I woke up to 6 orders, totaling 57 books, and as the day went on, they just kept a-coming! Absolutely wonderful, unexpected, humbling, exciting and fun!
So, instead of spending my April hoping that things will pick back up in May, like they usually do, I've been at my desk and folding the whole time ♥ Amazing!
Hopefully your Easter weekend will afford you lots of time off, cheap chocolate and afternoon films. Mine's being spent in my Happy Place, folding all of your wonderful orders, ready to catch the couriers when they're back to work on Tuesday ♥
As surprises go, April has been a lovely one, thank you all so, so much!
~ Jo