Eye of Horus, a local metaphysical shop, now has the first ever Pagan Google eBook Store, with access to millions of physical books, and thousands of e-books.
Jane Hansen, co-owner of the Eye of Horus has been feverishly developing the new website for over a month.”This is totally a perfect fit for us. We love books. We love books so much that we opened a bookstore. But we also love trees, so being able to sell electronic books is just great. We do have a plant-a-tree program for the books we do sell, but some people want to skip the whole harvesting and planting cycle.”
Thraicie Hawkner, Jane’s partner as co-owner of Eye of Horus, said, “We’re excited. Now we can help people find the exact title they are looking for by just typing in a quick search on our site, and voila. Special Orders are super easy, whether it’s for a local customer for store pickup or a local customer in Guinea Mills, Virginia.”
Last December Google and ABA (American Booksellers Association) announced a partnership that could help even the playing field for independent booksellers. Jane and Thraicie read that, and as Thraicie put it, “This is specifically for independent booksellers with storefronts, who want to offer the service and community events that local stores are known for, with the selection of the big guys. We thought, we want that! And we want to be the first Pagan Store to make the leap to [Google] eBooks.”
The new website, https://www.eyeofhorusbooks.com, features curated lists. Several local Pagan experts submitted reading lists, and folks at the Eye are reaching out to all the authors and teachers who have been at the store, or in the extended network, to ask for their recommendations. Jane also went through the titles and searched for new titles of special interest to Pagan readers well, such as herself. As such, this new website is situated to provide what Jane describes as, “The bookstore community experience in the largest Pagan bookstore ever [online]. I’m like a kid in the candy factory when I browse to select which titles we can feature for special order or even pre-order.”
Jane continued, “For many of our customers, part of the appeal of Google eBooks is the ability to support Eye of Horus online, as well as in the bookstore. It’s part of the whole Indie business movement. We’re not a huge conglomerate. We’re real people. We can’t afford to take a loss on things to sell them for less. But with Google eBooks, since we don’t have to carry stock, we do discount where we can, so we are competitive.”
The new website officially went public this Wednesday at noon. They held their launch party celebration Friday night to coincide with 11-11-11. When asked why they chose that night for their celebration, Jane answered, “Aw, come on, it’s right there, how could we pass that up?”
The new store allows people the option of e-books which are kept on ‘the cloud’ or downloaded; physical books shipped directly to people; or physical books shipped to the Eye of Horus where customers can pick them up. Jane said, “It’s like a do-it-yourself special order system.”
[Disclaimer: JRob Zetelumen works at the Eye of Horus about four hours every Thursday night where he’s especially proud of the window displays.]
The theme for this year’s International Day of Peace is Make Your Voice Heard. Mr. Kiyo Akasaka, UN Under-Secretay-General for Communications, spoke about the significance of the this year’s celebration, “September 21, 2011, marks the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Peace. As we begin today a 100-day countdown to the observance, we pay tribute to the many civil society activists who lent the strength of their imagination to the institution of this Day.
Pagan Newswire Collective - Minnesota Bureau 