Read All About It
The founders of the
Levenger catalog wrote the book on selling to serious readers.
To read, you need nothing but words. But to read seriously--that
is another proposition. Serious reading involves equipment.
Accessories. Ingenuity. Style. Serious readers need monogrammed
velvet pillows to support their books. They need cherrywood lap
desks to compose letters, gold-nibbed fountain pens to lend splash
to their signatures, and note pads with night lights to capture
late-night inspirations.
Until Lori Granger Leveen, 39, and Steve Leveen, 42, creators of
the Delray Beach, Florida-based Levenger catalog, began
purveying what they call "tools for serious readers," no
one dreamed readers were such a vast--and acquisitive--market. In
fact, no one outside the publishing industry dreamed readers were a
market at all.
The Leveens don't scoff at this kind of ignorance.
That's because they didn't recognize the market themselves
until months into their venture. How did this husband-and-wife team
parlay an $8,000 investment into a $60-million-plus mail order
powerhouse with its own built-in market? Their road-to-riches story
began with a bright idea.
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