Check Out Our September 2026 Substack Post!

I’ve just posted our September newsletter to Substack. As always, this edition features numerous updates and more. I post to Substack about once a month. We hope you’ll check it out, and give us a follow! 📖 🍫 😊

RefashionedHippie Maggie Weber Tastes Our Chocolate & Interviews Open Book Chocolates Owner 📖🍫💖

Our connection with local Marylander and fashion queen Maggie Weber (RefashionedHippie) all began with Key City Steampunk Festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This past March, I realized we would both be tabling at Key City in August. Watching her content over the years, I already knew she was a champion of small, creative, women-owned businesses. So I decided to reach out to her! 

One thing led to another, and we at Open Book Chocolates were able to arrange a private factory tour for Maggie at River-Sea Chocolates in Reston, Virginia. There, Maggie received firsthand knowledge and experience of the bean-to-bar chocolate making process. You can watch her talk about River-Sea in detail on YouTube: 

During her visit to River-Sea, Maggie sat down with me (Geri, Owner of Open Book Chocolates) to ask me about my business and what goes into making our literary-inspired chocolate bars. You can watch Maggie's in-depth Open Book Chocolates tasting, as well as the interview (which starts around 19:34) on YouTube:

I can't thank Maggie enough for all that she's done to help our small business grow. She is truly just a delightful, bubbly, enthusiastic, and authentic person. Thank you so, so much, Maggie! Your support means the world to us!! 📖🍫💖

Another Order Fulfillment Update

Late March, Maggie Weber (RefashionedHippie) posted a video review of our chocolate bars, which went viral. As of now, the video has approximately over 650K views total. Since then, we’ve received over 600 orders. That’s more than three times as many orders as we received for the entirety of 2025.

The good news? We’ve already sent out about 400 orders! Of those 400 orders, we sent out 200 orders in just the past two weeks. We have around 200 more orders to send out. We’re working hard on preparing everything, and hope to send out the rest as soon as possible.

This is what our shipping process looks like:

1. Print out order invoices.

2. Pull chocolate bars for each order.

3. Purchase shipping labels, and print them on my Brother QL-1100 label printer.

4. Prepare ice packs (soak in water, place in freezer; once frozen, wrap in sandwich bag and paper towel to protect chocolate bars from condensation).

5. Make sure gift orders go out ASAP, and include a gift note.

6. Include the printed invoice (except for gift orders) and Open Book Chocolates menu in each order.

7. Wrap each order in tissue paper, newsprint paper, and insulated bubble wrap. Wrap orders in padded envelopes in corrugated cardboard.

8. Stick the shipping labels on each order.

9. Bring orders downstairs, and load into the chocolate-mobile.

10. Drive to the post office, and drop everything off at the loading dock. A special thanks to Anthony, who always helps us with our packages!

We’re meticulous about packing these orders, making sure the correct number of bars and flavors are included, and protecting everything from melting. We will be working all this week on preparing and sending out orders.

Unfortunately, the weather is currently not ideal for sending out orders. Yesterday through Wednesday, the temperature here is over 90 degrees. It’s supposed to cool off a bit Wednesday afternoon/evening with the rain. Thursday is a high of 60 degrees, and Friday through Saturday is in the 50s. Our current plan is to drop off as many orders as possible at the post office on Wednesday around 4:00 p.m. Then, even more orders will go out next week.

Again, we are just two people (Geri & Irene). When the video went viral, it was right before my wedding (a stressful and busy time for any bride). Post-wedding, in between packing orders, we’ve attended four events as vendors, which we booked months in advance, each with expensive vendor fees and each needing prep time. These four events were seven days total (some days being as long as 11 hours for us) plus travel (being anywhere from one hour to five hours each way).

We have visited River-Sea Chocolates three time in the past month to pick up more chocolate bars to help us fulfill orders. Typically, we visit River-Sea just once a month. This is about an hour drive for us each way. We will need to visit River-Sea at least once or twice more during the next few weeks to keep up with demand.

We are working very hard to fulfill everyone’s orders as quickly as possible. This has been extremely challenging for us both mentally and physically. River-Sea has offered to help us with order fulfillment, which is extremely generous of them, and would be extremely helpful to us. We haven’t had the time or brain power to figure this all out yet. But, once we’re done with this last group of orders, we will work on ironing out the details with River-Sea.

Thank you so much for all your support, understanding, and patience!

All the best,

Geri

Open Book Chocolates