Sarah Henshaw

The true account by Book Barge owner Henshaw of giving herself six months of taking her narrowboat, converted into a bookshop, around England to try and turn a profit.
Mired in debt from low sales, a long term relationship recently ended, and feeling like she has made wrong decisions about her life, she has given herself six months more with her bookshop boat to decide if this is the right path. She tells the reader about the good and bad customers, receiving lots of kindness from social media, and the hardships of living on a narrowboat. Her boat was burgled while moored, by the men in the very next boat, and people scream at her for taking too long at the locks. There's an inordinate amount of time spent talking about locks, and waiting at locks and working the locks. I didn't care for the long pieces of her fiction stuck in, and sometimes her sentence structures had me rereading to understand, especially as she sometimes dips into fantasy willy-nilly.
I thought I'd like this more, that it would be more fun, but it's interesting.… (altro)

Many people have dreams. Some want to shrug off the ties that a property can have, others dream of opening a bookshop. Very few combine both of those dreams, but Sarah Henshaw is one that did. Have written an eclectic and unusual business plan and submitted it to her bank requesting £30,000 to be able to buy a narrowboat and a pile of books, the manager considered her request.

And said no.

Thankfully her parents had the capital to enable her to fulfil her dream and six months later the Book Barge opened. A little bit of a novelty, it attracted a fair number of eccentrics and a growing customer base, but as this was the time of the credit crunch and the rise of the eBook so business was hard. On a whim she decides to travel the round the country via the canals and waterways, with the hope of bartering books for accommodation, tea and cake. It was an eventful journey, as she had very little experience of travelling by narrowboat or navigating locks. On the journey she managed to flood her engine, had a brief sea trip, got robbed, provided countless cups of free tea, floated away and even managed to get banned from Bristol harbour. And all the way round she is hassled continually by her bank as the debts increase. B

What comes across in the book is her tenacity and her drive. She really believes in this venture, and is prepared to give it her all in making it a success. What you also get is the impression that business acumen isn’t her strong point either, as she struggles to make ends meet. In general it is a nice tale of her scrapes and successes. I ended up giving this two stars rather than three because of part 2. It is a fictional account of the narrowboat’s life from the perspective of the book, and for me didn’t really work. It might have been better to split it and have it as the lead in to each chapter. Apart from that it was good to read about someone who is prepared to follow her dream of owning a bookshop.… (altro)

I picked this one up as I work in a small indie bookstore. So the struggles of someone in a similar situation I thought would make for very interesting reading. The problems of customers using your store to browse and then telling you happily that they can get it cheaper online "but thanks for the ideas" and similar are very familiar. I have to say though that I think Sarah is possibly the worst business owner/sales person ever. She lives in fantasy land about cash flow and with such a quirky store she should be able to attract heaps of signings and events. I can't help but think the while 2011 was a bad year for bookstores ( there has been quite a recovery since) she is her own worst enemy to business success.… (altro)