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"Keeping school shelves stocked Simi book supplier sitting on a treasure trove of titles"
Article for the Simi Valley Acorn by Angela Randazzo

A cache of books rivaling any mega-bookstore or county library can be found right here on Easy Street in Simi Valley.

The inventory of Schwabe Books is so big, in fact, that three 20,000-square-foot warehouses lined wall-to-wall with shelves are required to hold it.

"We have over half a million books on site," said CEO and founder, Greg Schwabe. "There's every kind of book from kids' books to academic."

Offering thousands of titles, Schwabe Books is a large-scale book supplier that markets its books through fairs, trade shows and schwabebooks.com.

The company specializes in selling books at discount prices to schools looking to bolster their libraries.

"One of our focuses is providing trade books- the type of books you would see in Borders, like best sellers and reference books, not textbooks- to schools," said Schwabe, a graduate of Moorpark High School. "The schools are trying to build their classroom libraries and encourage students to read during quiet time."

Schwabe, 40, studied business and finance at USC. After graduating in 1990, he worked for American Express before striking out on his own a year later.

Schwabe got a taste of the book business from his father.

"I gravitated back to what I knew- selling books," Schwabe said. "I kind of grew up in the books business. My father worked for Cal Trans and, as a sideline, raised extra money for his family by selling used and rare books to bookstores."

Early on, Schwabe traveled all over the country doing niche shows- selling books about cars at auto shows, books about aviation at air shows and books about gardening at home shows.

"I would buy books from different wholesalers. Sometimes I would buy books and then figure out where to sell them," Schwabe said.

He still attends book fairs around the country, although he doesn't travel six months out of the year as he once did. The company sells in the California market as much as possible.

Schwabe added more warehouses to the first one on Easy Street as his business grew. He now has 18 full-time and some part-time employees. The Internet is a large part of Schwabe's book business, with 80 percent of sales coming from online purchases.

The Internet, in addition to helping Schwabe's business, has also played a key role in his personal life.

In November 1998, Schwabe met his future wife, Michelle, in an online chat room. Two months later, they met in person at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Pasadena. Romance and marriage soon followed.

Michelle Schwabe was up for promotion at American Honda Motors when she changed gears to join the family business late last year.

"I love working here and certainly don't miss the commute on the freeway," Michelle Schwabe said. "I pretty much do whatever is needed, from purchasing to personnel to running out for supplies."

The couple, who live in Chatsworth, have two daughters, Rebecca, 7, a second-grader at Chatsworth Park Elementary School; and 1-year-old Danielle.

According to Michelle, the book market, like the stock market, is hard to predict. Sometimes a book that has sat in a warehouse for years suddenly is in demand.

"We had over 100 copies of a book on Ronald Reagan that sat on the shelves for years. All of a sudden he dies, and we're in Simi Valley and we sold out within one day," she said.

Despite the fact that he deals in high volumes of books, Schwabe said, there's still a great thrill in making that one rare find.

"My most interesting find was an autobiography of Charles Lindbergh, signed by the aviator," Schwabe said. "The book was worth about $1,000. It was pretty exciting because I paid only a few dollars for it."

Schwabe said he isn't worried that the introduction of electronic books will replace printed books.

"The way technology moves, ebooks will someday impact the book business," Schwabe said. "However, in our lifetime, teachers are going to put print books in kids' hands. The book has been around for 500 years and it's not going anywhere soon."