Our Town Seward: Victorine Originals Rubber Stamps

By: Lance Schwartz - Email

Updated: Wed 4:25 PM, Aug 15, 2012

This is the story of tech savvy Seward family that is taking full advantage of the wonders of the computer age.

Needless to say, the Lieske's are making the most of their Internet service.

Not only do they have a web based rubber stamp making business that relies heavily on the Internet. They also boast a New York Times best-selling author that hit the prestigious list after her e-book shot to prominence last year.

Victorine Lieske released the her novel, Not What She Seems, as an e-book on Kindle, "No matter what it is you can just put your book out there and upload it to amazon and it's for sale."

It took quite a few months before Victorine's self-published book gained some traction, "It was about a month before my one year anniversary when it hit the New York Times best-seller list."

Victorine was blown away by the response to her romantic suspense novel, "In February of 2011, I was selling between Amazon and Nook and I was selling a thousand books a day and it was incredible and just a mind blowing thing to have happen to a self-published author that couldn't even get an agent."

Downstairs, the whole Lieske family takes part in the business of making rubber stamps and selling them around the world.

Richard Lieske says, "Without the Internet I'd be punching a clock somewhere and be gone a lot and this gives me the ability to be a part of the family, we just spend so much time together."

And to think it all started with a small storefront in Lincoln 16 years ago. Victorine says, "It really is amazing that anyone can get on-line and order our stamps whereas before we were in this little store and you had to know where we were and you had to walk in and actually go to us and now that we're on-line we can sell anywhere in the entire world."

Talk about broadening your customer base, the Internet has literally made a world of difference for Victorine Originals.

Over the past 16 years, Victorine Originals rubber stamps have been sent to every state in America and 115 countries around the world.

And Victorine has good news. She's currently finishing up novel number three and it will soon be available in both e-book and paperback form.

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