If you think that the tried and tested pursuit of reading a book ‘from cover to cover’ might have been supplanted by the advent of information technology you may wish to know that there are instances, quite a few of them in fact, in which old habits die hard.
Ask La Toya Barton, whose own passion for reading led her to establish The Book Hub, an online bookstore that offers a bewildering array of titles, fiction, non-fiction, and school texts.
The service exists, she says, because it keeps open a door which avid readers might well have thought had long been slammed shut by the contemporary book-loaded Kindle that allows avid readers to carry their libraries around in their haversacks. Good books, La Toya believes, apart from affording readers the pleasure of their fingertips being applied to the turning of the pages, allows for the accumulating of ‘classic reads’ on bookshelves that contribute to both tasteful drawing room libraries and to the accumulation of treasured memories.
With La Toya it is as well, a matter of a kind of ‘selfishness’. “The Book Hub was created because I have a personal passion for reading,” she says, her unapologetic tone suggesting that there is nothing wrong with inserting an element of ‘selfishness’ into one’s choice of business.
There is, however, a wider sense of mission in La Toya’s choice of entrepreneurial pursuit. That mission, she says, is to broaden horizons, “to allow readers “to experience a thousand lives through reading. Every book tells a different story so that our mission at the Book Hub is to inspire and encourage persons to read more.”
She credits the recent Expo 50 held at the Giftland Mall with playing a key role in promoting the service to the wider Guyanese public. “Apart from the sales that we enjoyed at the Mall I believe that we were actually able to broaden our customer base, to meet new people and to connect with a wider circle of people who also enjoy reading,” La Toya says.
From a personal perspective La Toya believes that the experience afforded her the opportunity to enhance her own marketing skills. “I certainly felt more confident in talking with people about what we do. The experience encouraged me to believe that, in the future, we may well become Guyana’s number one bookstore.” It is a more than worthwhile goal to aim for.
