Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Lagoudakis.
Hi Pamela, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started making book sleeves on Etsy with my mama in August of 2018 when we were preparing to go to another book signing (yes, those are totally a thing! LOL). It started out as a hobby with the idea that the money we made would be used to get us to our book signings as readers and the awesome part is we now do signings as vendors!
In early 2019 I found out I was pregnant and quickly decided that I didn’t want to send my little to daycare. The cost meant I’d basically be working several days at my job for free, and I really just wanted to be home with her. So, all throughout 2019 I worked full time and also worked on building my business. We started with lower cost materials and very little packaging. I basically had no clue what I was doing and usually still don’t.
In January of 2020, I decided I needed to start investing in myself and my business so I bought an Etsy course to really learn the ins and outs of what made Etsy work. By December 2020, we had already made 8x the revenue we had made in 2019!
I really didn’t have a bunch of goals set for this year, but I knew I wanted to make a similar revenue, and so far we have surpassed what we made in 2020 by a couple of thousand dollars. Nothing crazy, but we’re steadily growing. In August, we decided to revamp our book sleeves to using higher-end materials, really stepped up our packaging, and I invested in my business yet again by buying an accounting course to really make sure I have my finances in order.
Who knows what 2022 will bring…
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh, heck no!! I’m slowly realizing that anything worth doing will never be a smooth road.
My little was just five months old when the world shut down, and shockingly this didn’t change my daily life very much. I was already staying home, cutting fabric, making post office runs, worked when she napped or was just being chill. I was still working and am still working outside of the home 1-3 days a week depending on what my husband’s schedule is, but 2020 wasn’t a terrible year as far as struggles.
In 2021 it got significantly harder to work because my little was now one and very mobile so I found myself very frustrated knowing that I wanted to get stuff done for that day but couldn’t work as much as I wanted to. I found myself comparing myself to other businesses selling the same thing because they seemed to have endless amounts of time to work and I didn’t and struggled this year quite a bit with imposter syndrome. I knew nothing about business or profit margins or keeping track of expenses so who did I think I was trying to run a business?
2021 has been more of a mental struggle for me, but I’m beginning to pull myself out of it.
Also, we have a very small house and trying to figure out where to keep everything and how to have that work/life balance has been a very real struggle.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I make book sleeves which is just fabric sewn together to make a pouch that you can throw your book or tablet into when you’re traveling or on the go so that your pages don’t get bent and your tablet or e-reader screens don’t get cracked.
I actually had gotten a Cricut machine for another business that I was kind of tinkering around with and actually ended up using my Cricut to put fun bookish sayings on fabric so I would say in 2020 that’s definitely what we were known for. I also really love hand-dying fabric and bleaching fabric to see what kinds of cool patterns I can get, and then add a bookish saying to match how the fabric turned out.
I’m most proud I think of going down the path of revamping our book sleeves. It would have been very easy to keep making our sleeves the way we were, but I knew that I wanted something better quality if we were going to keep growing and keep expanding our business.
With our new, revamped book sleeves we have decided to sew each of our collections ahead of time so we can ship out orders within a few hours or the very next day which is a very big thing that sets us apart! We are also using fun coordinating fabric on the insides of some of our book sleeves which most other companies don’t do.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Lauren Keplinger is the BEST Etsy coach I have found!! She’s been selling on the platform for ten years and really knows her stuff, and when I invested in her course I saw huge changes to my business.
I’ve also found a great group of friends within the bookish community over on Instagram that also have small businesses, and that has led to an amazing wholesale opportunity with one of them and a collaboration of book sleeves with another!
Just putting myself out there and messaging people has really helped grow that network! I can ask them business questions or Instagram questions, and the owner of the book sleeve shop that I did a collaboration with….we have actually exchanged fabric to inspire each other!
Contact Info:
- Email: wonderlandbooksleeve@yahoo.com
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WonderlandBookSleeve
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonderlandbooksleeve/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wonderlandbooksleeve
