On Tuesday 27 April 2010, JoylandBooks.com (the world's largest specialist supplier of amusement park, fairground, circus and seaside books) celebrated 10 years of retailing the oddest, most nostalgic and quirkiest publications around with a series of light-hearted articles on amusement park nostalgia website themagiceye.co.uk.
JoylandBooks.com was the first online retailer focussing only on amusement park and fairground books when it launched in April 2000. It was the idea of founder Nick Laister, who actually set it up as a way of promoting his own book, which was expected to be published that year:
“I would like to say that I had a eureka moment when I came up with the idea of setting up a bookstore specialising in books and DVDs that celebrate everyone's nostalgic memories of seaside holidays and classic amusement parks. But, in fact, I was writing a book on the history of seaside amusement arcades and the fascinating characters that worked in them and decided I need a website to promote it. As it turned out, the book (Pennies by the Sea) was not published until 2006 and rapidly sunk without trace, by which time Joyland Books had grown beyond all of my expectations into probably one of the most successful specialist retailers in the world.”
Nick, who works in the visitor attractions industry as a planning and development consultant to several major theme parks, is interviewed on themagiceye website, one of several behind-the-scenes features celebrating this anniversary.
Nick says: “I have to admit that the success of Joyland Books took me by surprise, but really it shouldn't have been surprising that it has captured the imagination of so many thousands of people. Virtually everybody has memories of walking along ornate seaside piers, or riding big wooden roller coasters. We celebrate everything from the smallest vintage slot machine to the biggest ferris wheel and visit everything from Butlin's holiday camps to beach huts passing through numerous colourful travelling fairs and thrilling theme parks on the way! We search out the oddest and quirkiest of books, many of which are not available at mainstream bookstores because they are self-published or produced by historical groups.”
JoylandBooks.com became nationally famous in 2003, when it set up a campaign to save Margate’s Dreamland Pleasure Park and to build the world's first amusement park exclusively made up of thrilling historic rides. JoylandBooks.com founder, Nick Laister, is now chairman of the Trust that is building this exciting new attraction using several million pounds of grant funding awarded by the Government and Heritage Lottery.
Nick says: “After spending several years celebrating the heritage of Britain's seaside resorts and amusement parks, it seemed such a perfect fit for Joyland Books to lead this exciting project, which we hope will transform Margate's fortunes. Joyland Books continues to be centrally involved with the project and still hosts the websites http://www.savedreamland.co.uk/ and http://www.dreamlandmargate.com/.”
JoylandBooks.com started out being operated from a residential property on a free website domain, but is now based on a 5-acre site in the heart of the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. The website now attracts an amazing 11.3m hits per year and has expanded to now include hundreds of rare and out-of-print books on the same subjects, covering everything from seaside piers and Madame Tussauds guide books to books about Disney theme parks and Carousel horses.
The anniversary articles are now live at www.themagiceye.co.uk. Joyland Books is at http://www.joylandbooks.com/.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
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