Pagan Book Reviews

Drawing the Three of Coins: How to Open and Run a Pagan Store
Terri Paajanen
Spilled Candy Books, 2005
150 pages

This is an awesome small-press book from Spilled Candy. It’s the kind of book I try to write myself–a good, in-depth, no-frills exploration of something that hasn’t really been covered before. Additionally, the author very obviously has a good deal of experience with the topic she’s writing about, which just makes it even better.

Paajanen has written just about the closest thing to a perfect book on being a pagan shopowner. I know so many pagan folk whose dream it is to open a shop some day–brick and mortar, if you please! Unfortunately, while I’ve seen some wonderfully successful businesses, I’ve also seen failed attempts that either had too little capital behind them, or too little business sense, or some other fatal error. I think that Drawing the Three of Coins could go a long way in lessening the potential failures. Mind you, it’s not a complete book on owning a book store in general; the beauty of the book is that is specifically focuses on things that are primarily of interest to someone wanting to own a pagan (or occult) shop. You’ll need to supplement with other business-related books, but this is a must-have.

Paajanen covers a lot of ground nonetheless. There’s strong emphasis on the need for a good location, as well as how you lay out and design the interior of your shop once you have it in place (very, very important, let me tell you!). She also discusses actually getting ahold of inventory, what to get, and how much. Even seemingly minor details like hiring on tarot readers or putting up a website are given a good deal of attention. And if you want to organize events, the book has answers for that as well.

The author doesn’t pull any punches about the reality of small business ownership. If you think it’ll be a breeze–think again. After reading this text, you’ll have a much better idea of just how much work it really is.

On the other hand, if you are bound and determined to open a pagan shop–or, for that matter, just sort of hemming and hawing over the possibility, maybe someday…..read this book. As far as I know, it’s the only one of its kind–but it’d be tough to top.

Five pawprints out of five.

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