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!! 📖🍫💖

Important Update | Order Fulfillment | Thank You for Your Patience!

Over 50 orders we sent out this past Tuesday.

On March 22nd, fellow Marylander and fashion queen Maggie Weber (RefashionedHippie) posted a video review of a few chocolate bars we sent her via snail mail. As of now, the video has almost 200K views on Facebook, almost 250K views on Youtube, and probably just as many views on Instagram. So that’s approximately over 650K views total.

Since then, we’ve received almost 600 orders placed on our online store, openbookchocolates.com/shop, as well as a significant number of wholesale orders for new and returning independent bookstores and gift shops. To put this into perspective, we had just under 200 orders on our online store for the entirety of 2025 (January through December). Last year, we had under 10 online store orders from late March to early May (the same time period as this year’s 600 orders). 600 orders is over three times the size of an average Open Book Chocolates Kickstarter campaign, and we continue to get more orders every day.

We’ve already sent out around 200 of the 600 orders. We have even more orders prepared to be sent out; we just have to add in ice packs for the warm weather. 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 (today through Thursday) on preparing and sending out orders. Friday, we will need to prepare for Saturday’s pre-Mother’s Day pop-up at My Big Finds. After that, we don’t have another in-person event until Saturday, May 30th. So we’ll be able to go into full gear on getting all of these orders out!

Every day, I receive multiple emails asking about an update on orders. I wish I could individually and personally message each and every one of you myself. But if I did that, I would have zero time to work on packing orders. (I’ve set up an automatic reply instead.) That’s why I wanted to take a moment to give a detailed update via Substack.

Again, we are just two people (Geri & Irene). When the video went viral, it was right before my wedding. As you may know, a wedding is a stressful and busy time for any bride. Post-wedding, in between packing orders, we’ve attended three events as vendors, which we booked months in advance, each with expensive vendor fees and each needing prep time. These three events were six days total (some days being as long as 11 hours for us) plus travel. This includes BookCon at the Javits Center in New York City, which had about 25,000 attendees and required us to take the train up to and back from NYC (with driving to and from the train station, that’s at least 5 hours each way).

We have visited River-Sea Chocolates twice in the past two weeks 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 both ways. 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. We are looking at our options to help us with the increased work load in the near future, but haven’t had the time or brain power to figure that all out yet.

For anyone upset about the delays, I am truly sorry and hope you’ll understand how overwhelming and stressful this has all been. We take a lot of pride in our business, and we don’t enjoy disappointing our customers. For those of you who have sent us encouraging words, and/or have just been patient and understanding, I truly appreciate your support!

As you begin to receive your orders over the next few weeks, we hope you’ll enjoy our unique, literary-inspired chocolate bar flavors.

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

All the best,

Geri

Open Book Chocolates