Many thanks to Dana Richardson of Windy Hill books. She will bring a wealth of knowledge in the area of children’s books to our blog. Here’s a short bio.
A bit about me and Windy Hill Books:
I have been a certified book fanatic all my life and a bookseller of out of print and collectible children’s books since 1993. I started first with catalog sales typed on a salvaged IBM Selectric typewriter, then intranet sales (the old INTERLOC, anybody remember?) using a borrowed computer (thanks again sis) and, if I was lucky, a 14.4K dialup.
I went online (Abebooks & Bibliofind) in 1996 with a new computer & 800 or so books, both computer and books were financed with a loan taken out using husband’s beloved truck as collateral. A major act of faith on his part, as we had two young kids, one dog, 5-8 barn cats, two goats and an old farmhouse in the country that we were remodeling.
Flash forward to the present, we relocated from the midwest to suburban Maryland, leaving the Wind and the Hill but keeping the name. 800 books grew to over 13,000 online and another 8,000 or so unprocessed. Goats are gone, farmhouse is gone, children are grown and (mostly) gone, and only animal left is a psychotic cat very appropriately name Attila.
Dana
I love the graphic for Windy Hill Books, it’s just beautiful. It must have been quite a wrench to leave such a lovely house. And that certainly was quite a leap of faith that your husband took to put his truck up as collateral for a new business.
As for the old INTERLOC? Not only do I remember it; I was right there with Al Gore when he invented it!