2024 Wrap Up

This year is almost at a close, which is absolutely wild to think about. If you told me at the beginning of this year that by the end of it I would own my own bookstore, I would’ve been shocked.

I started 2024 by working at the same job I had for almost six years in the hybrid publishing space. I loved parts of it like choosing which submissions we took on and helping authors achieve their dream of being published. But the past year was especially hard and it seemed like no matter what I did, my job kept getting harder. I was incredibly stressed, unhappy, and felt stuck. Between January and March I applied for a few new jobs, even got an offer, but decided to stick it out in my current position for a bit longer because…we were getting a puppy!

We welcomed Chandler into our home on April 13 and it was a BIG change. Both my husband and I had dogs growing up so we knew roughly what to expect, but it was definitely a learning experience as we figured out his personality and how to take care of another living being other than ourselves. Chandler is an excellent dog and incredibly smart (he was potty trained within two months!). We absolutely adore having him around, but I was very grateful I did not start a new job right around then as I got a case of the puppy blues while he was teething.

Then, in July, I decided to quit my job for a variety of reasons, which I won’t go into. I knew I desperately needed a break from working because I was BURNT out. My game plan was to wait for one more pay check then take a month off from working before I started looking for a new job. Well…plans change. A few weeks before quitting I thought hey, I could be a publishing consultant! I have a ton of knowledge about the industry I think would be beneficial to share, but after doing research I realized that authors were just not interested in paying services. (I pay end up coming back to that idea down the road with my own spin on things, but we’ll see).

The Saturday before I planned to quit my job, I was scrolling on TikTok when I came across a video of someone having an online bookstore out of their living room. A lightbulb went off. I actually thought about this idea back in 2021, but we were in an apartment at the time and I had no idea how I would actually sell books out of it. But here, in 2024, we had a whole extra bedroom I was using as my office AND it already had plenty of empty bookshelves. Thus, the idea to start The Reading Chamber was born.

Between my resignation in August and the website’s launch in October, I took a much-needed vacation to London (my favorite city in the world) and Edinburgh then came home and got down to business. It was a grueling couple of weeks as I knew I wanted to launch before the holidays and I had a LOT to learn. I’m still learning today and I’m sure I’ll adjust how I do things as I go.

With only a few days left this year, I’m curious to see where I’m at at the end of 2025!