SCULPTOR turns barman then decides to sell his house to fund his dream business.
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Sounds like a novel's plot, in fact it's the story of Jason Roche – who has opened Splendid Books below Albury's Volt Lane car park.
"I've always wanted to open a book shop, it was always a dream, and I've sold my house and set up a book shop," Mr Roche said.
The university literature graduate moved to Beechworth in 2012 and used income from last year's sale of his Mornington Peninsula home on the shop.
"I was thinking about buying another house and thought maybe this is the time to invest and buy a shop," Mr Roche said.
The shift to online book sales has not deterred him.
"I went and did a lot of research about what the numbers were and it seems to me when the whole e-reader thing come in it took 20 per cent of the market, but it stopped there," Mr Roche said.
"So there's 20 per cent buying online but there's still a large group of people who want to go into a book shop."