Welcome to From the Front porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, rinses it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia.

And this week, I'm answering your questions about books, small business, and life in the South.

I thought it would be fun to kind of close out the year of podcast episodes and bookselling with something that was a little bit like literary therapy, but different.

So this is basically mailbag where you have sent in your questions, most of them about the bookshelf and life in Thomasville, and I'm going to do my best to answer them.

So this should be fun. All of these questions came from followers on Instagram. I will try to correctly pronounce and emphasize the names of Instagram handles.

But thank you to all who submitted questions. I think this is going to be a good time. So without further ado, let's jump right in.

At ER Spitz asks, what is the origin story of owning the bookshelf? I've been following for a long time, but I'm unfamiliar with the story.

Well, luckily for you, we did a whole podcast episode about this actually. This year, I recorded an episode back, I think it's episode 281, all about owning a bookstore and kind of how I came to own the bookshelf.

Because as many listeners probably know, I bought the bookshelf like it already had existed before me. I hope will exist long after me.

And so I bought an existing store. So you can hear that whole kind of story on episode 281. I will not belabor the story here, but like a lot of people with their careers and jobs, it was a long and winding road.

And some of it, it felt part serendipity, part hard work, part providential. And yeah, it's been a, this is the seventh year, my seventh year of running and operating the bookshelf. It is my, oh gosh, second full year, I think of owning it outright. And boy, what a ride 2020 has been.

I will say, and I hope I mentioned this in episode 281, one in a long line of owners of the bookshelf. And one thing that I do think is really cool about the history of the store is that it's always been owned and operated by women.

And I think that's really fun, a fun part of its history. And as much as I think 13 year old, 14 year old Annie would have really liked to start her own bookstore.

I am now convinced that that would have been a really hard path. And I have friends and people I know who have done exactly that and I admire them.

I am grateful that for me, bookstore ownership came through sweat equity, it came through hard work, it came through the knowledge and wisdom of other people and me being able to benefit from their graciousness.

And so I purchased the bookshelf in its existence, it already existed in Thomasville, it already had a wonderful reputation and I just get to be a part of it.

So ER Spitz, go listen to episode 281 and I kind of give a rundown of the whole thing because this year is like the seven year inch of running and operating a bookstore.

So you can go listen to that full episode for details.

At Jenny Lee Holmes asks tips for someone with dreams of owning a bookstore.

I do think we've addressed this a little bit in previous episodes, but Jenny, I hope this will help here are just some basic tips for you.

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