My 2 cents: These videos don’t come across as bragging or showing off in any way. Conversely, I actually find them to be quite helpful for a few reasons. One is that they’re helpful to other prospective small business owners, regardless of discipline. Small business owners being open and honest about their processes and finances helps to paint a realistic portrait and to teach reasonable expectations about starting a business. Another thing is that it helps to show prospective customers that value that you add to their purchases. Small sellers often charge a bit more than a site like eBay and certainly more than getting lucky at a boot sale or thrift shop. These videos and seeing the inner workings of the business show the personal touch and where that added value is that justifies the sometimes higher prices that level of service requires. Thanks for making these videos and I’d kindly ask that you be even more informative (as much as you’re comfortable with) about the margins, sourcing methods, etc in order to help other potential entrepreneurs such as myself to learn from those actually doing it. People often feel they need to reach some pinnacle to give advice, but watching someone in the nascency of their adventure can be just as, if not more informative for its own reasons. Thanks for the video!
So happy for you. Has been wonderful to get to share this journey with you. The comment about a stranger understanding reminds me of the time years ago when I was in the Army stationed in Germany. Inside a fenced area out in the woods was a square made of rocks. There was a sign that I couldn't read...but I took a picture and had it translated. I learned it was the base of a Roman watchtower. It turned out that I had been pulling guard duty on the same ground where Roman soldier had served sentry duty over 2,000 years earlier. I still get goosebumps knowing that...
Thank you for being transparent about your love for books, while earning money for a young family! I am so happy that you are enjoying your passion and offering your clients these awesome books! Be blessed.
I have been a follower of your RUclips videos since last spring. I must say that your openness and honesty in both a personal and professional way has been so refreshing. Your videos are one of the highlights of my Sunday morning. I am delighted that your business is growing and that you are doing well. I wish for you in the coming year that your business will flourish and that you and your family will have an abundance of health and good fortune. Happy new year to you all.
Tom, it has been a pleasure to watch your business grow and to discover so many gems about so any beautiful books and their histories. Special congratulations to you and your wife, as combined with a new baby, this has undoubtedly been a herculean feat, and Sienna. I'm looking forward to more of your adventures and stories in 2025.
I am coming to the end of my business career and know from experience what it is like to have sleepless nights and endless worries that my business might not succeed. 44 years later, those worries still surface once in a while, which is not a bad thing as it helps to concentrate the mind. I now have a very successful business, so it was all worth the effort. My advice to you is to persevere and have faith in your own abilities and if you continue to do this, hopefully you will achieve your ambitions. Well done so far and all the very best for 2025 :)
Congratulations Tom on excellent work. I doubt you would remember me because the shop was very busy the day I visited, but I met you when you were at Jonkers. As a business owner myself and having tread in your shoes many times, it is wonderful to see your business grow and may it continue to do so. Happy New Year to you and yours. I look forward to seeing you next year when I return to the UK.
Congratulations on your hard work. Thanks for your information which encouraged me to buy 2 signed copies to encourage my granddaughter. Please continue to share information . Good luck to you and best wishes to you and your family.
Your passion emanates from you and I cannot help but respond positively to that. For as long as this channel exists, I will be here, learning. And may even one day by a book Thank you! And here's to a prosperous, adventurous new year!
I have enjoyed your videos from the beginning. I don’t collect books but am a great reader & absolutely love Tolkien. So happy for your continued success.
Well said. Proud of what you have accomplished so far this past year and looking forward to the journey ahead. Godspeed and a Happy New Year's Tom and your family!
I’ve followed you since the beginning and love your videos! Yes, great success is definitely down to the agency of others and not just yourself Tom - so let’s appreciate them fully! Your greatest agency is your wife and family - who undoubtedly give you unfailing support and love while you’re working. She wasn’t mentioned in your gratefulness for your success and I’m hoping you have not been dismissive and just remissive only. Please acknowledge her publicly as you did Sienna, and us, your viewers. Thank you for your wonderful videos, but please - I’d like to see more appreciation for mothers looking after children while husbands follow their passions!! 🙏😍💕
I am so glad that I found someone whose love for books can be so inspiring and informative. I’ve learned a lot in just the few months I’ve been watching your channel. Here’s to a great 2025!
I remember watching your early videos. It never occured to me that you could ever fail at this. You knew your product and your market, and you were sensible with managing your risks. If I tried doing what you do, I'm not sure I could part with my purchases. I'd have an excellent book collection, and a business in bankruptcy within a month. You deserve your success and much more. It's been a pleasure watching you realise your dream and I wish you exponential growth in 2025.
'He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, who dare not put it too the touch to win or lose t all.' One of the the thing I admire most about your efforts is the ability to buy such wonderful things, and then sell them!
I've been folling your youtube channel for several month now without realising it was your first year in business. What a year it has been for you! Looking forward to seeing the new heights you will soar to in 2025! All the best to you and your family in the coming year.
I've been watching these videos of yours since I first saw a "short". I do love reading, and as a archaeologist I do like old things. I think you should keep up the good work, and don't underestimate what impact your videos and enthusiasm have contributed to your success. Happy new years! Best regards from Norway.
Cheers to your success this year. Love watching your updates and learning more about the books you are buying selling. A very refreshing outlook on the subjects your covering. Good luck in your first full year of business ahead. 😊
This is very impressive. I've always learned that setting up a business takes at least 3 years of hard work. So you being able to already pay for an employee is insane. Well done!
I can imagine the incredible feeling of someone in five hundred years from now, holding a beaux bought, managed, and sold by Tom Ayling himself, long ago. It will be in the streets of a city, with beautiful picturesque boutiques around, a fine day in march.
Tom, what a great peek at how your business has progressed in its first year. By any measures, your scary start with limited financial resources and no existing stock was successfully overcome by the passion and dedication you have for your craft……one of the many reasons I enjoy your channel! Thank you for sharing! Wishing you much success and happiness in 2025!
I have a desire to open a bookstore... your experience and obvious passion is giving both insights and inspiration. Keep it up man and congratulations on doing what you love!
Wow Tom, this is a fascinating and super honest video! I love the full year round up and so amazed at how the business has grown each month. Keep up the great work!
You will be surely pleased to know that as a result of watching your videos I now have two 19th century transport-related leather-bound books, and a series of four, small, French-related volumes dating from 1818. Not hugely expensive, and I didn’t realise at the start of the year that I needed them, but oh, how pleasurable to have them in my collection. All the very best for 2025.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now" You did. It does. Thrilled for you. Ps: esp loved the lecture.
Greetings from Australia. I enjoyed this video. Best of luck in 2025. Your best video, and my favourite, is the one where you revealed the beautiful book given by a bookbinder to his fiance prior to going to war. What a sad story! Did you keep that book yourself? I couldn't part with it. Thanks again.
Even for someone who definitely knew his trade from the beginning and had the right connections, that's really impressive. "Great success is in the agency of others" is the kind of thing you can only legitimately say when you have yourself done a lot. And you definitely earned the right to say it. Congratulation for that astounding year and best wishes for the next !
Is the antiquarian book business generally dealers selling to other dealers until an item ends up in the hands of a collector at some markup? I'm more familiar with the general used books business but I'm fascinated with the rare book trade and how an item can exchange hands multiple times, presumably with some profit to the dealers. Is the crux of the business then knowing "I personally know customer X or customer Y who would like this and I can possibly sell this to". I've gone to the NYC antiquarian book fair a few times and loved hearing deals being made between booksellers.
Booksellers often buy from each other, but for the most part it’s a very small margin deal when we do so. E.g. I see a bookseller has a book my customer wants for say £250. I’ll try and cut a deal with the dealer so I can pass it onto my customer for £250 or less
In Bulgaria you can buy the whole accursed kings series for 14 leva = 7 pound. Here you can be poor for playstation or Nintendo but you can always have books. The new books are 15 pound at most and after half year will be the half of this price second hand and will be in very good condition
Tom- It is still cheaper than start-up costs for a new restaurant. You might as well flush the money down a toilet if you ever want to start a restaurant.
Would you recommend others to consider the rare book trade? And for advice, what would be the most important thing one should do before venturing into the trade?
You had to pay cost of items, sales tax, and income tax on 770 books and still paying yourself and growing the company. How does someone find that many first edition/rare/antiquarian books at are so cheap that you can do that?
So in 9 months you spent a rather sparse 2,000 Pounds but managed to convert the final spend into 263,000 Pounds. I'd say that, monumental worries aside, your business acumen is fairly sound Tom. Good luck for 2025.
Gran and I are losing hope Mick, losing hope of ever hearing you sing with Simply Red again. Every few days there's another video about the money you've made from selling those fuddy duddy old books, with not a word to the Simply Red fans who I know are becoming despondent. Your little book hobby is all very well Mick, but it's us fans who have got you there. We are losing faith in you Mick. Ps. And what do you mean "My name is Tom " ??? Is Simply Red over then ?? Just tell us ?!?
I really appreciate your efforts! Could you help me with something unrelated: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?
Tom, it has been a joy to watch your business and channel grow. Here’s to many more years of viewing!
Thank you my friend!
My 2 cents: These videos don’t come across as bragging or showing off in any way. Conversely, I actually find them to be quite helpful for a few reasons. One is that they’re helpful to other prospective small business owners, regardless of discipline. Small business owners being open and honest about their processes and finances helps to paint a realistic portrait and to teach reasonable expectations about starting a business. Another thing is that it helps to show prospective customers that value that you add to their purchases. Small sellers often charge a bit more than a site like eBay and certainly more than getting lucky at a boot sale or thrift shop. These videos and seeing the inner workings of the business show the personal touch and where that added value is that justifies the sometimes higher prices that level of service requires. Thanks for making these videos and I’d kindly ask that you be even more informative (as much as you’re comfortable with) about the margins, sourcing methods, etc in order to help other potential entrepreneurs such as myself to learn from those actually doing it. People often feel they need to reach some pinnacle to give advice, but watching someone in the nascency of their adventure can be just as, if not more informative for its own reasons. Thanks for the video!
So happy for you. Has been wonderful to get to share this journey with you.
The comment about a stranger understanding reminds me of the time years ago when I was in the Army stationed in Germany. Inside a fenced area out in the woods was a square made of rocks. There was a sign that I couldn't read...but I took a picture and had it translated.
I learned it was the base of a Roman watchtower. It turned out that I had been pulling guard duty on the same ground where Roman soldier had served sentry duty over 2,000 years earlier. I still get goosebumps knowing that...
Thank you for being transparent about your love for books, while earning money for a young family! I am so happy that you are enjoying your passion and offering your clients these awesome books! Be blessed.
I may not be in the market for antique books, but I love seeing and hearing about them. Thanks for the entertaining videos!
I have been a follower of your RUclips videos since last spring. I must say that your openness and honesty in both a personal and professional way has been so refreshing. Your videos are one of the highlights of my Sunday morning. I am delighted that your business is growing and that you are doing well. I wish for you in the coming year that your business will flourish and that you and your family will have an abundance of health and good fortune. Happy new year to you all.
Lol....if you don't know him by now! 😂
Not bad for a 2k start 😊. Onwards and upwards
We'll keep going in 2025!
Tom, it has been a pleasure to watch your business grow and to discover so many gems about so any beautiful books and their histories. Special congratulations to you and your wife, as combined with a new baby, this has undoubtedly been a herculean feat, and Sienna. I'm looking forward to more of your adventures and stories in 2025.
I am coming to the end of my business career and know from experience what it is like to have sleepless nights and endless worries that my business might not succeed. 44 years later, those worries still surface once in a while, which is not a bad thing as it helps to concentrate the mind. I now have a very successful business, so it was all worth the effort. My advice to you is to persevere and have faith in your own abilities and if you continue to do this, hopefully you will achieve your ambitions. Well done so far and all the very best for 2025 :)
Well done!
Congratulations Tom on excellent work. I doubt you would remember me because the shop was very busy the day I visited, but I met you when you were at Jonkers. As a business owner myself and having tread in your shoes many times, it is wonderful to see your business grow and may it continue to do so. Happy New Year to you and yours. I look forward to seeing you next year when I return to the UK.
Congratulations on your hard work. Thanks for your information which encouraged me to buy 2 signed copies to encourage my granddaughter. Please continue to share information . Good luck to you and best wishes to you and your family.
Your passion emanates from you and I cannot help but respond positively to that. For as long as this channel exists, I will be here, learning. And may even one day by a book
Thank you! And here's to a prosperous, adventurous new year!
Love to see people, enjoying their work, keep it up, well done :-)
I had no clue you started this year! It really shows what you can do with a small savings, knowledge, and character. Gives me hope
I am loving your videos and story. Best wishes for the future.
I have enjoyed your videos from the beginning. I don’t collect books but am a great reader & absolutely love Tolkien. So happy for your continued success.
I found you on TikTok but I'm so glad to have found you here. I love this channel, and I'm so excited to see you continue to grow and prosper
Well said. Proud of what you have accomplished so far this past year and looking forward to the journey ahead. Godspeed and a Happy New Year's Tom and your family!
👍 well done , I wish for a great 2025 for you personally and in your business. Your pasion about books is great and I love it
Being a fan of Tolkien made me watch your channel, but I enjoyed your telling about them more. I am amazed at your success. I'll keep watching!
Good luck, Tom! Happy New Year and all the best to you!
I’ve followed you since the beginning and love your videos! Yes, great success is definitely down to the agency of others and not just yourself Tom - so let’s appreciate them fully! Your greatest agency is your wife and family - who undoubtedly give you unfailing support and love while you’re working. She wasn’t mentioned in your gratefulness for your success and I’m hoping you have not been dismissive and just remissive only. Please acknowledge her publicly as you did Sienna, and us, your viewers. Thank you for your wonderful videos, but please - I’d like to see more appreciation for mothers looking after children while husbands follow their passions!! 🙏😍💕
Delighted your business is going well. Thoroughly enjoyed watching the videos. All the very best for 2025!
I think your passion really shines through in your work which is why you will continue to see success in this field!
Amazing vid and incredibly insightful! What a great way to round out the year, Tom!
Thank you Richard!
I think what this has shown me is the slim margins you must be working with! Good luck with your continued growth 😊
Great video 🎉 watching it bit by bit at the airport
Good luck and happy finds be yours for 2025.
I am so glad that I found someone whose love for books can be so inspiring and informative. I’ve learned a lot in just the few months I’ve been watching your channel. Here’s to a great 2025!
I remember watching your early videos. It never occured to me that you could ever fail at this. You knew your product and your market, and you were sensible with managing your risks. If I tried doing what you do, I'm not sure I could part with my purchases. I'd have an excellent book collection, and a business in bankruptcy within a month. You deserve your success and much more. It's been a pleasure watching you realise your dream and I wish you exponential growth in 2025.
'He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, who dare not put it too the touch to win or lose t all.' One of the the thing I admire most about your efforts is the ability to buy such wonderful things, and then sell them!
Came for the Tolkien content, have stayed to watch this journey you’re on. Thanks for sharing it all.
I've been folling your youtube channel for several month now without realising it was your first year in business. What a year it has been for you! Looking forward to seeing the new heights you will soar to in 2025! All the best to you and your family in the coming year.
What a wonderful story about success well deserved.
I've been watching these videos of yours since I first saw a "short". I do love reading, and as a archaeologist I do like old things. I think you should keep up the good work, and don't underestimate what impact your videos and enthusiasm have contributed to your success.
Happy new years! Best regards from Norway.
Cheers to your success this year. Love watching your updates and learning more about the books you are buying selling. A very refreshing outlook on the subjects your covering. Good luck in your first full year of business ahead. 😊
This is very impressive. I've always learned that setting up a business takes at least 3 years of hard work. So you being able to already pay for an employee is insane. Well done!
An incredible journey and accomplishment! May God's blessings be on your business and family in the new year and many more!
I can imagine the incredible feeling of someone in five hundred years from now, holding a beaux bought, managed, and sold by Tom Ayling himself, long ago. It will be in the streets of a city, with beautiful picturesque boutiques around, a fine day in march.
Holy crap! What a gamble! So excited to see where you go next!
Thank you for loving books, Tom. And for telling the world.
I have loved seeing this journey and will be along for the ride in the new year❤
Tom, what a great peek at how your business has progressed in its first year. By any measures, your scary start with limited financial resources and no existing stock was successfully overcome by the passion and dedication you have for your craft……one of the many reasons I enjoy your channel! Thank you for sharing! Wishing you much success and happiness in 2025!
I have a desire to open a bookstore... your experience and obvious passion is giving both insights and inspiration. Keep it up man and congratulations on doing what you love!
Glad to hear it :D
I love your work. You have been a great inspiration to start my own little home library.
Wow Tom, this is a fascinating and super honest video! I love the full year round up and so amazed at how the business has grown each month. Keep up the great work!
You will be surely pleased to know that as a result of watching your videos I now have two 19th century transport-related leather-bound books, and a series of four, small, French-related volumes dating from 1818. Not hugely expensive, and I didn’t realise at the start of the year that I needed them, but oh, how pleasurable to have them in my collection. All the very best for 2025.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now"
You did.
It does.
Thrilled for you.
Ps: esp loved the lecture.
Well done Tom..
Best wishes for 2025. May you and your business prosper.
I have enjoyed this journey you have taken, iv watched you from the start, I wish you more success , I will keep watching this journey.
That was an excellent video, thank you Tom, I look forward to watching your business continue to grow in 2025 and beyond!
love your channel so interesting and informative hope you go from strength to strength Happy New Year😊
Dear Tom. I love your content so much. Your passion and dedication is truly splendid. All the best in 2025!
Such a journey so far. Wishing you all the best in 2025, Tom
Greetings from Australia. I enjoyed this video. Best of luck in 2025.
Your best video, and my favourite, is the one where you revealed the beautiful book given by a bookbinder to his fiance prior to going to war.
What a sad story!
Did you keep that book yourself? I couldn't part with it.
Thanks again.
Hard work pays off eventually. Well done!
Congratulations. You are off to a great start!
What a wondrous year full of spectacular works…📚
Very much looking forward to seeing those unique Papal bindings…
Even for someone who definitely knew his trade from the beginning and had the right connections, that's really impressive. "Great success is in the agency of others" is the kind of thing you can only legitimately say when you have yourself done a lot. And you definitely earned the right to say it. Congratulation for that astounding year and best wishes for the next !
Keep smashing it mate.
Nice to watch it ...even though can't buy it ♥️
Love your channel❤. A favour... could you look a bit higher at the screen? The camera is probably at the top. Thanks😊
I enjoy these videos. Thanks
That is a lot of money Big Dog !😳
Love your videos!
Literally me right now with art, I keep sinking money into it and selling it very slowly. Just keep on reinvesting 5:38
Funny I am not a reader but love your videos congratulations on your on going success 👏
Interesting 🤔
It's all in the buying, isn't it? You had to know what you were doing.
Indeed! Only one or two mistakes early on would have been pretty fatal
So educating oneself is foremost. How best to do that without apprenticeship? @tomwayling
Is the antiquarian book business generally dealers selling to other dealers until an item ends up in the hands of a collector at some markup? I'm more familiar with the general used books business but I'm fascinated with the rare book trade and how an item can exchange hands multiple times, presumably with some profit to the dealers. Is the crux of the business then knowing "I personally know customer X or customer Y who would like this and I can possibly sell this to". I've gone to the NYC antiquarian book fair a few times and loved hearing deals being made between booksellers.
Booksellers often buy from each other, but for the most part it’s a very small margin deal when we do so. E.g. I see a bookseller has a book my customer wants for say £250. I’ll try and cut a deal with the dealer so I can pass it onto my customer for £250 or less
Starting with 2k and basicly just being a flipper, turning it into 30k+ after taxes, is amazing.
In Bulgaria you can buy the whole accursed kings series for 14 leva = 7 pound. Here you can be poor for playstation or Nintendo but you can always have books. The new books are 15 pound at most and after half year will be the half of this price second hand and will be in very good condition
My dream job.
As student,I prefered bought old books than 3 meals and a warm appartement.
Tom- It is still cheaper than start-up costs for a new restaurant. You might as well flush the money down a toilet if you ever want to start a restaurant.
It ain't what you spent, It's What You Sold -- and the net net.
Would you recommend others to consider the rare book trade? And for advice, what would be the most important thing one should do before venturing into the trade?
Tolkien is the patron saint of booksellers
You had to pay cost of items, sales tax, and income tax on 770 books and still paying yourself and growing the company. How does someone find that many first edition/rare/antiquarian books at are so cheap that you can do that?
I too want to spend 250k on books.
How many books do you take on consignment?
😊
So in 9 months you spent a rather sparse 2,000 Pounds but managed to convert the final spend into 263,000 Pounds.
I'd say that, monumental worries aside, your business acumen is fairly sound Tom. Good luck for 2025.
This channel should have more subscribers.
I wish I could have contributed to your total earnings, but you can't exactly control what books come across your desks.😅
Gran and I are losing hope Mick, losing hope of ever hearing you sing with Simply Red again. Every few days there's another video about the money you've made from selling those fuddy duddy old books, with not a word to the Simply Red fans who I know are becoming despondent. Your little book hobby is all very well Mick, but it's us fans who have got you there. We are losing faith in you Mick.
Ps. And what do you mean "My name is Tom " ???
Is Simply Red over then ??
Just tell us ?!?
I really appreciate your efforts! Could you help me with something unrelated: I have a SafePal wallet with USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?
For God`s sake.....stop waving your hands about!
Just leave and go watch cartoons, little boy
I’m a fellow book lover. I totally get it. All the best for 2025.
Tom, thank you! I don't feel as bad for dropping $300 on Pokemon cards now.
I’m a professional enabler
@@tomwayling In all seriousness, your channel and what you do is fascinating. Have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.