Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Greg Mollin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Greg thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Artifact Books stemmed from an idea I’d had for quite a while. The curated store experience is something I have always liked. I enjoy niche and collectors stores like genre-specific record stores and specialty bookshops and wanted to bring some of that energy into my store. I have been a collector my whole life and there’s just something about walking into a store and seeing things displayed that speak to my interests or aesthetics that makes me feel at home. I wanted to have a bookstore where the book buying experience supplied that same feeling, where it was personal and not just an alphabetized list of bestselling titles. There’s an adage with writing that says that you should write the book that you would want to read. As a writer and book lover, I took that advice and tried to create the bookstore that I’d want to shop in.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Books have been my passion for as long as I can remember. While it would be great to think I was going to get rich doing this, just the idea that I can make a living doing something I enjoy so much still blows me away. My enthusiasm for reading and recommending books to my customers comes from a place of pure love for books and stories, and I think that customers can sense that earnestness. One of my great joys is talking about books with other readers, finding out what they like or don’t like, turning them on to books or authors they might not have been aware of, and getting recommendations from them as well. I feel that as avid readers and book collectors, we’re all cut from a similar cloth and being able to connect with others like myself while also helping someone find the perfect gift or special edition for their collection is a pretty damn good life. I have a genuine love for the whole process and I think it shows not only in myself but on the shelves as well.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The last two years have been extremely difficult, both from a business and personal standpoint. On the business end, I had barely made it through the first year of ownership here at Artifact Books when Covid hit. Like all small businesses (and pretty much all humans in general) the impact of that reality was devastating. It was a struggle to maintain a retail store while being effectively unable to do business. I feel very fortunate that I was able to make it through that rough time. Luckily, I am a member of the American Booksellers Association and was actively seeking out loans and grants, through amazing foundations like BINC (Bookselling Industry Charitable Foundation) and the newly created (at the time) Bookshop.org, and was able to stay afloat. The only plus that I came away with from those three months of the Covid shutdown was a completed screenplay based on one of my short stories, The Monster on Myers Avenue. I had never had that much uninterrupted time to work on my writing and I was very sure to make good use of it.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
On the personal front, in March of 2021, I was diagnosed with stage IV CLL Leukemia, a non-Hodgkins lymphoma of the blood and lymphatic system. The cancer diagnosis was devastating, and the thought that I somehow wouldn’t be able to make it into my store to work after just beginning to bounce back from the Covid situation made it even worse. Once all of the testing and biopsies were done, treatment quickly followed. No matter how much I’d known about chemotherapy and cancer treatment, it could have never prepared me for how difficult the next year would be. The treatment did a major number on me. There were many days I didn’t even feel like I could get out of bed, let alone drive an hour to man my bookstore six days a week. Fortunately, I have wonderful family and friends, and their love and support helped me to make it through the darkest days during the six months of intravenous chemotherapy. I am extremely thankful that I made it through, that I had the help I needed to keep my store going, and for all of the great friends and customers that have continued to spend their book-buying dollars with me. There is no cure for CLL, but I am happy to say that I am in remission now and look forward to the future. In more good news, June 1st was the Three Year Anniversary of Artifact Books and I have a new story coming out in the next issue of Weird Tales Magazine, which is a dream publication for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.artifactrarebooks.com
- Instagram: @artifact_encinitas
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/artifactbooks
- Twitter: @BooksArtifact
Image Credits
Michael Rababy, Greg Mollin