Throughout my life, few places have offered the comfort and solace of a bookstore. Many are the hours I’ve spent wandering the towering stacks (any good bookstore has shelves that are just out of arm’s reach) perusing countless titles covering every topic conceived.
Yet like so many areas of life, the Internet has changed forever the way we buy our books. Anyone who has visited Landscape Management‘s Web site or received one of our electronic newsletters in the past couple of months has noticed a link to our new LM Bookstore. There you can find titles only available through our electronic store, including Jeffrey Scott’s “The Referral Advantage: How to Increase Sales and Grow Your Landscape Business By Referral” and Harvey Goldglantz’s “Marketing Matters: The Ultimate Reference Guide to Making the Most of Your Marketing Money.”
We offer titles covering a range of Green Industry topics, including fertilization, insect and disease control, irrigation, tree and ornamental care. And in keeping with LM‘s mission, you’ll also find topics on business management, finance and leadership. Through our site, you also have access to Amazon.com‘s millions of offerings.
Many other titles will hitting LM Bookstore’s virtual shelves soon.
If you’re anything like me, you have a stack of titles sitting on your nightstand you’re trying desperately to get to. But a backlog of books doesn’t stop you from going back to a favorite bookstore and (despite the protestations of your wife) picking up another title or two. Actually, my wife enjoys bookstores as much as I do, and she probably outreads me. She has this annoying habit, though, of not picking up another book until she’s nearly done with the current title. I just don’t get that. But I digress.
Books do more than entertain. They educate. The really good ones do both. Any writing talent I have (and there are those of you who might argue otherwise) comes primarily from reading other authors, how they turn a phrase, a nuanced word choice that deepens understanding and meaning. Our electronic bookstore, for good or ill, allows me more easily to peruse the old and the new. Brick-and-mortar operations are limited by space. They simply can’t house all the titles available. Our electronic bookstore has no such limitations. There’s a real thrill in coming across an unexpected title that catches your imagination.
And while I still enjoy the faint musty smell that permeates a good bookstore (used bookstores are better for that), the realities of modern life have reduced the amount of trips I take to my favorite haunts. Work and chasing after kids have limited my ability to walk among the stacks. Occasionally, after a rare dinner out, we’ll stop by the bookstore and scan the latest new releases. Sometimes we get lost among the titles and never make it to the movie.
But usually my free time comes after the kids have gone to bed and the brick-and-mortar operations have closed for the evening. How much of your business do you manage after the sun goes down? I like the ability to shop late at night.
Equally enticing, click the title of a book on LM‘s Web site and you’ll get links to several similar titles, customer reviews and ratings. All of this, and more, is at your fingertips — and you can do it at work, in your pajamas, or anywhere inbetween.
