We recently connected with Staci Hicks and have shared our conversation below.

Staci, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

I started my journey on Bookstagram. (Naptime_Bound) I created friendships and relationships with authors & book lovers. I was on a date with my husband, explaining to him that there was no place to support indie authors and he encouraged me to look into how I could make that happen. I have a huge passion for indie authors and romance is my jam. This is where the idea blossomed. I opened my business in April of 2024 and have been doing pop up book events since. As of January 2025, I will now have a Brick and Mortar! It will be a cozy location for readers and authors to meet, hangout and enjoy romance books.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For me, books are my life. They are my escape. When I got involved in the Bookstagram community I knew I found my people. I have made some of my best friends online. After being in the world of Bookstagram for over 4 years I knew I wanted to work with indie authors. I love to read their work and I love to support them. There really was no place you could go to get indie books 4 years ago. Now, they are popping up all over and I love it! For me, it started as a hobby and has quickly grown to be something that has taken over every aspect of my life. I cannot wait to see what our new brick and mortar is going to do to help grow the book community!

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I currently have a website on Squarespace. I absolutely love Squarespace. It is great for building a website regardless of your skillset. As with anything, it has its pros and cons but for me the pros outweigh the cons and I will forever be grateful for the Squarespace team.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

As I had mentioned before, I started this as a hobby. I was going through severe post partum depression and was looking for an outlet and some place to connect with people. Being a stay at home mom can be so hard on your mental health. Bookstagram gave me the support I was looking for. Little did I know that they would foster a deep love for reading and a deep connection with authors and readers all over the world. Social media has its cons but I will say that for me, it has been a blessing. I love meeting new people and talking to them about books. It is so fun to sit and talk with people about a common interest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.romance-landia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romancelandia_bookstore/profilecard/?igsh=OGN3cHNqajZxcm82
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/19qsLXa895/
• Other: https://libro.fm/?bookshop=romancelandia

  https://www.threads.net/@romancelandia_bookstore?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==