It’s been a long time since we’ve written a blog post, and time changes things.
Anyone who has seen our page “Who Is Leonard?” knows that this book restoration business has never been run by anyone named Leonard. He was Eric’s father, who ran an antiques and used furniture business from a bricks and mortar store in Lafayette. He inspired Eric by throwing away books he acquired in estates because he didn’t think they had any value. So we loved him, but it’s ironic that we kept his name for our business.
Eric spent some time as a bookseller, doing bookbinding on the side, until he realized there was more potential in the bookbinding business than in the bookselling one. Since Margie joined the business and we went full time, we have rebound / repaired / restored more than 10,000 books and Bibles and are still going strong. We have 10 employees, 2 buildings, 2 offices with 3 computers and 4 phones, and a very busy coffeemaker. We have a website that regularly has over 10,000 visits per month and we ship more than 200 books and Bibles a month, which keeps our little rural post office in business while many other post offices in the area have closed.
But we’ve come to the realization that even though we can do certain kinds of work, and we certainly enjoy it, we are not always able to keep up with the demand. Here is a portion of the books and Bibles that were waiting in line on January 30, to be processed through the office. Some were double parked. (Yes there are some you can’t even see, in these pictures. This was about 2/3 of the load.)
Some people tell us, well, that’s a good problem to have. But it’s not a good problem if you are a customer and we’re taking longer than we promised.
We do not want to sacrifice quality on the altar of speed. That would take away from our personality and our reputation, which all started with … Leonard Haley. And we can’t simply hire 10 more people and build an industrial complex in Burrows.
So during those winter months, we had to make some hard decisions. All the irons in the fire are hot, but some have always had priority, and when we were overloaded, we needed to concentrate on those for awhile. That would be:
• Pastors’ and Missionaries’ Bibles (especially their preaching Bibles)
• Personal Bibles
• Family and Antiquarian Bibles
During the summer, things quieted down, so we were able to continue doing other items, but we know when we are in a pinch, we need to slow down on:
• Antique books
• Other non-Bible related books and materials
• Very damaged Bibles
• Highly-customized projects
Thanks for understanding! We look forward to serving you!
~Eric and Margie Haley, and All the Gang at Leonard’s
