We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gary Cassel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gary below.

Hi Gary, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

We want to inspire adults and students of all ages – this includes preteens, teens, young adults and a wide age range of adults too. We want these people to read books and become better writers.

Through our interactive online free reading and writing program, LitPick’s mission is to inspire people to read and write.

We also connect authors and publishers with readers. LitPick’s online presence gives authors and publishers an opportunity to globally promote their books to readers and to influencers such as bookstores, bloggers, parents, librarians, and teachers.

Furthermore, we want people to read the opinions of reviewers…for FREE.

We strive to have adult books reviewed by adult reviewers and student books reviewed by student reviewers, but we do have some adult reviewers who enjoy picture books, middle grade, and young adult books — as they are teachers and librarians who share recommendations with their students and purchase copies for their classroom libraries.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

In 2002, when Seth Cassel was in fourth grade, he started Flamingnet.com with his dad, Gary Cassel. The site allowed them to combine Seth’s passion for reading and reviewing books he read with his dad’s web development hobby. Flamingnet received a lot of national recognition and awards.
Hundreds of book reviews later, authors and publishers began to ask Seth to review their new titles. As the number of book review requests and visitors to the website grew exponentially, Seth and his dad realized they had hit upon a simple yet powerful idea – the most important opinions about literature come from readers…and readers want to read books reviewed by other everyday readers. This is particularly true for literature written for teens and young adults, but it also holds true for adult literature, too.

While attending Harvard, Flamingnet was rebranded as LitPick Book Reviews by Seth, some college friends, and Gary in 2011. This rebranding and redesign was based upon Seth and Gary’s years of working with Flamingnet. Initially just a website for kids, LitPick was soon expanded to include adults too. Through an ever-increasing selection of free books sent to us by authors from all over the world, we now offer ADULTS and STUDENTS many new eBooks and print books which they can request for review.

The site’s online interactive reading and writing program was also expanded in 2011 to encourage teachers and librarians to use LitPick for their book clubs and reading groups, besides recommending LitPick to individual adults and students who may also want to become LitPick book reviewers.

Numerous other improvements were made to Seth and Gary’s original Flamingnet concept which have continued to increase our online popularity. LitPick’s continued growth and success, both in the U.S. as well as internationally, helps reinforce our passion today for our site and for our mission to help make a difference in the world by promoting reading and writing as well as connecting authors with readers.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

LitPick Book Reviews, was cofounded in 2002 with my son. After he went to college, I took over full responsibility for the website. Along the way, I have had several employees, notably one terrific employee for ten years who eventually left to raise her family. Aside from this one special employee, I have had one disappointment after another with people who I hire for social media marketing, editing, and newsletter production. Since we don’t have an office and work from home, I tried to have monthly meetings and conference calls with staff members, but this proved unsuccessful as none of them shared my passion for what we were trying to achieve with the site.

At one point I even hired an outside marketing agency from Chicago to help us increase revenue. They sold us on improving my “brand awareness” online and then proceeded to soak us for $1000 per month without any increase in sales or traffic to our site.

After a year of healing from this marketing misstep, I decided to read about paid social media marketing. An online article that made sense and prompted me to email the article’s author. He set out a Facebook marketing plan for us, on a limited budget, and it has been working very well for us.

Be careful what you wish for though! Our marketing has been a BIG success and has led to more work for us.

Over the past 6 years, my wife and I have run been running LitPick Book reviews ourselves. We are getting older and can’t keep the site up forever, although we see that it has a lot of potential. Now we face the problem of getting out from a business that is “owner dependent.” Therefore, we are seeking someone interested in our mission and as passionate as we are about promoting reading and writing, with a creative, managerial mind, to takeover LitPick Book Reviews and move it to the next level.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

LitPick Book Reviews allows us a way that we can give back to a world that has been very good to us.

As successful medical doctors, it is in our nature to help people. LitPick has taken us out of our profession and opened us up to an entirely different way to reach people and help them.

We have reviewers in over 50 different countries, and besides providing books to people all over the world, many who don’t have access to bookstores or can’t afford to purchase them online, we also are helping people to become more proficient in reading and writing, especially in countries where English is not the primary language.

We have also established friendships with reviewers of all ages and helped many to purchase food and medication with our gift cards in situations where there is financial hardship.

The help we can give to people in these ways has been extremely rewarding and is why we love what we do at LitPick Book Reviews.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www,litpick.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/litpick/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565531805204
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/litpick-llc/
• Twitter: https://x.com/LitPick
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LitPickBookReviews
• Other: https://flamingnet.blogspot.com

Image Credits

Mom’s Choice Award
AASL Best Website
Best Website for Independent Authors