Our Story

Hi Everyone,

 

A lot of bad things happened this year, and the world seems to struggle to value real, human art.

 

But there’s still good. Every time I pass by LitBox's first location in Western Market, people are STILL excited to see the books being sold, and still excited to buy them.

 

LitBox's first location reached its one-year anniversary last month!!!

 

I also  received partial funding for our second location from the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, THANK YOU!!!

 

I sold more than 500 of YOUR books last year from our first location. Beautiful, local chapbooks, essay collections, novels, novellas, story collections, etc.

 

I also BOUGHT your books to sell. I used every dollar I made to buy more of your books or pay rent/taxes/insurance, and kept $0 for myself. I did this out of love for local books and made no profit, not even from my own books.

 

I use that to say this is 100% a volunteer effort on my part, which is why I feel okay asking for your donations. 

 

I HAVE A TENTATIVE AGREEMENT FOR A SECOND LOCATION AND THE SECOND BOX IS IN PRODUCTION. I WANT TO DOUBLE SALES NEXT YEAR.

 

Now a confession: Not only have I not been able to make a profit yet, I had a loss last year. Yes, I worked for free for a solid year, managing the website, stocking, ordering, coordinating, etc. only to sink my own money into the project. The reason is fourfold: Insurance, rent, sales taxes, and a DC recession. Bookselling is a tough business, but I'm STILL proud that there are over 500 more of your books in readers' hands and I STILL want to double that next year.

 

What I am asking: I need $3,000 more to finalize the second machine + shipping for my second location (exact location in Southeast DC to be announced once my contract is complete). If 100 people give $30 each, I can be done, and we can all go about our merry ways. However, I am happy if you even give $1. People last time donated between $1,000 to $1, and I was grateful for every single donation.

 

You can donate to LitBox directly through Zelle. LitBox's business account is on Zelle at Lauren@litboxbooks.com. Alternatively, if you only have Venmo, I will also take payment through @Ladiwoods1 and transfer directly to the business account. 

 

Note: I am not going through Kickstarter this time, because I had to give them a portion of the funding I raised. If you donate through the above methods, you can be assured every single dollar goes straight to the new machine. If I make $3,500 that will cover shipping/moving too, and anything beyond that I will use to pay for my second business license and building up inventory again. 

 

Note: Some authors have books 6 x 9 or larger. These don't really fit into most slots for the current machine. In fact, I have already bought an extra hundred books that don't fit, which has exacerbated my losses. The new machine will fit larger-sized books, so the second it arrives, I can sweep through that backlog! If you are waiting for me to get to your book, this is the way to break through the logjam. 

 

Please donate. I want to sell more of your books. Thank you.