[Izulde]

Long story short, I wound up at a small private school teaching AP and other upper-division classes. In many respects, the best teaching year I've ever had (including 100% pass rate on the AP Lit exam!)

But I left because I wanted to do something other than teaching. Had conversations with bookstores around the country about buying a space. Those went nowhere after I dug deeper into the finances.

August rolled around and I missed being in a classroom, so I applied to a lot of different positions. Had numerous interviews and the tenor of the conversations has been a lot different than the last couple years - focused much more on classroom management and differentiation. Content-related questions have all disappeared (Lot of variation on the line "We know you're experienced and you know this material", which is something I haven't encountered before. Pretty cool).

But none of those positions has ultimately seemed right for me. Turned down a couple of very likely offers for fit - others, they went another direction.

Even applied to be an Olive Garden host of all things (great conversation, but with my hearing issues, I realized it was a no-go. And they were also willing to offer me a busser position, but the guaranteed pay wasn't worth it).

So, walking downtown the other day, I saw a few commercial properties for lease and became intrigued about the possibility of opening a bookstore here. I hadn't considered it much before, because we've a Barnes & Noble and a firmly entrenched independent bookstore (oldest in the state, in fact). But I had other people encouraging me to keep looking for a gap in the market I could fill.

Then this morning, it hit me. One thing neither store has is international specialization. I conceived of a concept of organizing books by continent/country for fiction, travel books, and history books, then came up with cross-selling/diversification lines of portable travel supplies and international snacks/chocolates (the latter a suggestion voiced by two different people). Then later on, looking at international wines as another cross-selling/diversification stream.

So I looked at one commercial property today and will look at a couple more tomorrow. Signed up to be an American Booksellers Association (ABA) provisional member for help in writing up my business plan. Started compiling a list of publishers/wholesale booksellers and international snacks/chocolates sellers (reaching out to one to inquire if they do wholesale at all).

I feel like this will offer enough of a difference that I'm not directly competing with either current store - different area of emphasis, different diversification lines.