Cultural white noise surrounds us like a blizzard, limiting what we can see. The steady stream of politically correct books, movies, and music has made many snowblind, not able to see past, present, or future clearly.
We’ve often considered Exodus Books a kind of way station in the midst of this chaos, a place to escape the present repetitive drivel and its legion of sequels, a place to refocus the present by looking to the past. In the years ahead, we want to retain this vision and embrace the future, looking ahead to the place all this blizzard navigation is taking us.
 These days, mega-websites and giant-box stores make browsing nearly impossible; uneducated staff and teachers offer little help; and bestseller lists inform available options. Wandering this wasteland leads all but the most determined to disorientation and starvation.
This is avoided by keeping the past, present, and future in perspective. In the history of Exodus we’ve often focused exclusively on the past, but increasingly we want to embrace the present and future. This means a lot more work exploring current options, but we believe it’s necessary.
We also believe it makes Exodus Books a much better shopping option for many people. What we offer is hand-picked, many series and individual items are described and evaluated in original reviews, and our love of quality over novelty means that a lot of what we offer is either hard to find elsewhere, or available but hidden in the vast snowdrifts of worthless content.
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Left: Our first crew: Eli, Leah, Jeni, Grace, Nathan
Top: The first Exodus
Right: The space Eli inherited
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PAST
Exodus celebrates 20 years in 2014, and as the store has grown and developed, so has my vision for it. And there has been a lot of development. Five expansions of the storefront have grown our usable space from less than 1000sf to more than 4000; there have been seven versions of the website; and our stock is constantly maturing and expanding.
Lately, my vision has clarified and solidified. To some degree, our five-point plan developed itself, out of necessity. The first three phases were:
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Survival
Develop identity and inventory able to support initial website and employees.
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Develop infrastructure
Establish reliable vendors and systems for filling online and in-store orders.
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Develop professional website
Shape original content and quality browsing tools for helping customers discover and understand our materials.
The next two points are currently being worked on:
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Vision Statement
Evaluate to ensure continued focus; drop materials that don’t support our focus and add ones that do.
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Marketing
Major focus on advertising for increased visibility and influence.
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PRESENT
Right now Phase 4 is taking up most of our energy, though it’s not very visible (we don’t have signs announcing our order fulfillment streamlining, checks for minimizing mistakes, reducing browsing clutter on our website, etc.). There’s some “shelf-ular regeneration” going on, as we clearance items that don’t fit our vision, and add vendors and inventory that do.
You will see packed clearance shelves, a growing number of original reviews (primarily focused on literature this year), and a refined—less defensive, more proactive—mission statement, still in the works.
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Top-Left: The big move! Click Here for more.
Bottom-Right: Current store! Click Here for more.
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FUTURE
What does all this mean for our future? For one thing, we’re expanding our physical space yet again (to 5500 sf), widening the storefront to include the west side space of our current building, where we hope to host classes and workshops, utilize more display space, host game nights, and more.
 We’re also working on launching an Exodus Books blog, where we can discuss our passions for literature, theology, family traditions, and good living. This will directly impact our transition to Phase 5 of our five-point plan, Marketing, as we look to make our store more visible online and in our community.
We don’t expect Exodus Books to single-handedly win the war against mediocrity, or to be the only beacon in the white noise snowstorm. What we do expect is to offer only the best products for you, our customers, as you each fight the good fight against mediocrity, obsession with the future, and political correctness in your homes, churches, neighborhoods, colleges, and anywhere else you find yourselves. If we can assist in any way, we’ll consider our mission fulfilled.
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