So, I was in business.
1st October 2014.
No Books Were Harmed was now a registered business - despite not having sold a single sausage, and the fact that just days earlier, I still had no intention of ever selling my pretties! But when a Hollywood star asks to buy your creations, you have to accept that maybe it isn't just friends and family blowing smoke up your arse...
I wondered if maybe I could sell a few books on the run up to Christmas. That would be very handy.
I was sure of a few things.
1. This would be an absolute flash in the pan. Six months of interest, tops
2. I would only sell what I'd already made
3. I wouldn't fold to order
4. Commissions weren't my bag
First things first, Facebook. I started a page to share my pretties with people outwith my immediate circle. And, oh em gee, It absolutely exploded. I couldn't believe the outpouring of love for what I was making! It was just incredible. But I very quickly found Facebook was a bit messy and a big clunky, and I wanted to keep photos of my pretties all together in one, public, portfolio/album. So before long, NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk 0.1 came into being! I wish I had photos or screenshots of this process, but I don't. So this is another very wordy blog post, I'm afraid.
NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk was a one page website. There was nothing on it. I think the business name was at the top, it was a really dark background, and all that was on it were [really shitty; even shittier than nowadays!] photos of what I fold. I had no intentions of this website ever needing searched or found, it was purely so I could show folk a photo album of my work, if asked.
Or so I thought.
So every few days, when I had a chance to fold something new, between commuting for over an hour a day, walking my, at the time, 5 dogs, and working 50+ hours, 6 days a week, I would add a new photo. A bit like this blog, the most recent thing went at the top of the page and that was that. Except, people kept asking how much certain books/designs were. And I'd have to be like "do you mean the 5th one down, third over?" and they'd be like "nah, 3rd one down, fifth over" - it got very messy, within a very short time. So. Remembering this was purely a photo album, not an ecommerce platform, I manually added a Paypal "Buy now" button to each photo. Which was fine. Until I moved a photo - and then the order of every photo and every price button, was out of sync and just became a massive ball ache to maintain.
I had to face facts. People were buying my pretties, and I was just making things more difficult for myself, by constantly trying to dial it back. So I said fuck it, and quickly built a very basic but very functional site, that was to become NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk 0.2 - and 0.2 was to be in place for the next 6+ years! (you're now looking at NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk 0.3 haha)
And that's when shit got real! My photos were shite, my site was basic, but I was me, my books were them, and my customers found me. Daily. And I realised that I was now riding on the coat tails of a self propelling beast, which had already altered the rest of my life, before I'd even noticed...
*dear reader, turns out I wasn't so sure at all, as these are now the very things I love most in the world!