Basket Case
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 3/19/2001
It's hard to imagine a more apt subtitle than the one accompanying one of this week's nonfiction arrivals—Longaberger: An American Success Story. Never heard that name, you say? Would it surprise you to learn that the company, the largest manufacturer of handmade baskets in the U.S., racked up $1 billion in sales last year? Founded in 1973 by Dave Longaberger, who died in 1999 shortly after completing his unique entrepreneurial memoir, the Longaberger Basket Company is a direct-sales operation—its products are not available in retail stores. Based in Dresden, Ohio, the company is now headed by Dave's daughter, Tami Longaberger, who presides over 8,000 employees in a modern, seven-story basket-shaped building. The firm has 70,000 independent sales consultants, who these days are setting up book-centered home storytelling nights (50,000 were scheduled for the week of the book's publication) to promote the HarperBusiness title—which is up to 168,000 copies in print after three trips back to press. Clearly a success story in more ways than one.
