BookSmart Fundraising Campiagn Update.

We will regular posting in the newsletter and on the Indiegogo.com site

Thanks again to all of you who have joined the campaign or wanted to but couldn't. BookSmart has been in this community for 20 years and many customers think of BookSmart as their own bookstore (they just don't have to mop or take out the trash). In fact when we were deciding on a web name for the store and we found out that BookSmart.com was taken we were at a loss. The very next day a customer came in and said "How is My BookSmart today?" We looked up the URL mybooksmart.com and there you have it.

 

We posted an update the other day that was a bit confusing so I will try to make sense of it:

 

1: We decided on the "Honorary Stockholder" program as we want the community to feel that BookSmart is their bookstore and hoped that taking stock in the store would be a matter of pride. Maybe parents might want to buy stock in BookSmart for their families even if it is just "Honorary" (pretty nice gift for children who love books).

 

BookSmart, Own It! Fundraising Campaign

2: The Potato salad story is about a guy that started a crowdfunding campaign to be funny. He took in almost 30K from the general public to make potato salad (not commercially, just at home for himself!) We realize that good potato salad is tastier than books and books are just "Mind Fuel" but we think books are pretty important too.

 

3. When we commented about 600 people putting up $500 to save BookSmart we were referring to the idea of an investment pool. The idea would be for someone in the community to collect money from various interested parties and then loan it to us at a low rate so we could fix this business and get back on solid ground.

 

4. Many patrons have asked what the breakdown of the money received would go to. There are few ways to slice and dice it but in a nutshell this is the story. If we reach the $60,000 mark we should be able to make peace with state sales tax agency and set up a payment plan for the remainder. At $120,000.00 we should be able to satisfy the state and our publishers. The remaining $180,000 would be to refinance the high interest debt that is killing us.

 

Thank you for reading!

Brad & Cinda

 

 

 We come to you with serious and sobering news. Despite all our efforts, it has finally come down to this: Without debt refinancing or a drastic change in circumstances, we will be forced to liquidate.

For the last twenty years BookSmart has served Morgan Hill as a place where children have grown into avid readers and adults have indulged their reading desires. BookSmart promotes literature, community, education, and family values, without telling people what they should read or how to think.

Since the beginning  we have had good times and rough times. We have overcome (or endured) the opening of big box bookstores to the north and south of us and we have dealt with Amazon's deep pockets and ruffian ways.     

Three years ago, after the opening of our store in San Jose and with the soft economy, we found ourselves in financial trouble.  We have continued to struggle and cut costs, but now, after many sleepless nights, we realize that without an infusion of capital we will not be able to go on.

Over the years we have been given many suggestions for possible financing, such as a private offering or creating a local financing fund, but we are not bankers, we are book sellers. We've thought about crowdfunding and have been waiting for the SEC to rule on the JOBS Act so we could sell equity shares in our store to make BookSmart truly community-owned, but so far lawsuits have kept equity crowdfunding from happening.

We have finally realized that our only hope is to reach out to our fans and loyal customers for help. We have decided to create a group of "Honorary BookSmart Stockholders" to fund us. We hope that this will raise some real capital, while offering our customers an innovative and fun way to support us.  

Own BookSmart  To read/learn more click here