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

Alright, Hailey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

During Hurricane Milton, our local community (Fort Pierce) was hit very hard. We had an unprecedented tornado outbreaking destroying many homes and taking lives as well. In the aftermath, we donated $1 for every book sold in the month of October. With sales, plus additional monetary contributions, we were able to donate $1300 to GraceWay Village, a local non profit with a focus on helping those in need within our community. We selected them because they are consistently doing good in our community including assisting those in poverty, food scarcity, homelessness, and other tragic needs.

With the L.A. fires, we are currently hosting another “Books For a Cause” for the entire month of January, and will again donate $1 per book sold to relief for victims from the fire. Customers can also leave a monetary donation upon check out for the relief.

We are thankful to have the ability to help these communities in need, whether it’s our own backyard or on the other side of the country.

Hailey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Scribbles Book Shop is a signed copies only bookstore with signed books by 140+ romance authors.

I (Hailey Dickert) am a romance author, and after noticing a need for a signed copies only romance book store, I founded Scribbles Book Shop. I wanted to create something unique for both authors and readers.

As an author myself, I know the pain and difficulties of getting signed copies to readers. The time, effort, and cost is overwhelming to authors who are working hard on their next book. Not to mention the high cost for readers of buying signed copies separately, and paying multiple postage fees.

So I founded a one-stop-shop where readers can easily get signed copies from multiple authors along with other goodies. We also host signed preorders to take this weight off the authors during the busy release time.

Our goal is to make it easy, simple, and seamless for all bookish parties involved, while helping my fellow authors chase their dreams.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I used a significant amount of the money I had earned from being an author towards starting Scribbles; however, one thing I did that I believe made a large financial impact was having a preorder period.

I partnered with thirty romance authors to host a signed book preorder on Scribbles Book Shop. I was in the process of moving from Germany back to Florida, USA but didn’t want to wait to start my dream. So for two months I collected the preorders, and once I was in the country the books started being delivered, and I fulfilled the pre-orders, officially opening July 2024. We now ship within three business days.

The money earned during the preorder period enabled me to pay for the stock of books for the preorders along with some extra stock for the opening. Obviously this strategy wouldn’t work for all business models, but it certainly helped us be able to grow our inventory more quickly.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Having started as a romance author, I feel this gives me a lot of credibility both when speaking to authors and readers. I understand this industry, and I’m able to guide my fellow authors along, uplift them, and assist them in their dreams. Authors are coworkers not competition! And I’m so glad that’s something I can continue spreading daily in my business.

Additionally, I was very active on social media. I shared a lot of videos behind the scenes from our process of starting the business through now having been open for seven months. Customers like to see the face behind the small business.

Additionally, we work hard to maintain a high quality standard for both the books, and also packing with care. Our customers thank us for how we pack our orders as we take great efforts to reduce the possibility of damages. Customers can rest assured that when ordering with us, we send their new book babies with love!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://scribblesbookshop.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scribblesbookshop/