Today we’d like to introduce you to Geri E. Gallas Brando.
Hi Geri, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
For as long as I can remember, I have been telling stories through words and images. I wrote, illustrated, and self-published my first graphic novel in high school. After studying Japanese language, literature, and culture for many years, I spent a year abroad in Tokyo, Japan at Sophia University. I am a graduate of New York University: Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where I created my own major: a cross-cultural study of storytelling within film, literature, graphic novels, etc. In all my endeavors, I adapt this interdisciplinary approach, pursuing my diverse interests with in-depth research and imagination.
I conceived Open Book Chocolates because I wanted to create a small business that combined my love of classic literature with really unique craft chocolate. In 2017, I ran and successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign in order to produce our first Open Book Chocolates flavors. Since then, we’ve run six subsequent Kickstarter campaigns to help us add flavors to our collection. And we’re planning another that will launch September 2026.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I wouldn’t say it’s been a “smooth road,” more like a “slow and steady” road. This is our 8th or 9th year, and we’re still a pretty small business. But I’m thrilled to grow a little bit every year. I would say we’ve never had any impossible struggles with Open Book Chocolates. I tend to take everything in baby steps, and chip away at challenges a little at a time. For instance, our chocolate bars are currently carried in approximately 60 independent bookshops and gift stores across the U.S. Over the years, I’ve reached out to many (perhaps hundreds of) bookstores, spending hours and hours sending out emails and physical mailers to whatever stores I thought might be a good fit for our products. I’ve put in a lot of hard work, and every little success helps inspire me to keep going.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Open Book Chocolates?
Open Book Chocolates is a small, Maryland-based, women-owned business specializing in handmade, bean-to-bar, fair trade, craft chocolate bars with literary-inspired flavors.
Open Book Chocolates is a marriage between two passions: literature and chocolate. Food can be a powerful instrument in storytelling, from the bilberries Jane Eyre gathers on the heath to the ever-present tea shared by Holmes and Watson. Our signature flavors embody the stories, characters, and themes of our favorite classics.
Our chocolate bars are gluten free and soy free. We use dedicated equipment for flavors with nuts. All our chocolate is fair trade with no child labor. We work with River-Sea Chocolates in Reston, Virginia to make all our chocolate from scratch.
As the owner of Open Book Chocolates, I’m a jack-of-all trades — creating the flavors and recipes for our chocolate bars, designing all the packaging and sending it off to our printer, running our online store and social media accounts, selling our products at in-person events in Maryland and Virginia, handling wholesale orders from independent bookstores and gift shops across the country, etc.
Every year, we come out with one or two new literary-inspired flavors. This year, we’re launching a Kickstarter campaign in September to help fund our two newest flavors, The Odyssey (Olive Oil and Rosemary in Dark Chocolate) and The Time Machine (Hibiscus and Jasmine in Milk Chocolate).
Furthermore, you can find us at a number of in-person events around Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania (including DMV Chocolate and Coffee Festival, Maryland Christmas Show, and Annapolis Chocolate Binge Festival).
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I’m not much of a risk-taker, but I sometimes have to take calculated risks to help grow Open Book Chocolates. Every time we do a new in-person event, it’s a calculated risk. In-person events can have expensive vendor fees. There’s also travel time and the cost of gas. Every event is many hours of work, standing on our feet, including physically setting up and breaking down our booth, which can be exhausting. In other words, for every event, I invest money, time, and energy. Sometimes all the hard work pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t. Some events sound great on paper, but then it might not go as planned. Or an outdoor event might have bad weather that scares customers away. You just never know what’s going to happen at an in-person event, in both good ways and bad ways. In a way, calculated risks like this are the building blocks of our small business.
Pricing:
- All our chocolate bars are $12.99 each.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.openbookchocolates.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/openbookchocolates
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OpenBookChocolates
- Twitter: https://bsky.app/profile/gegallas.bsky.social
- Other: https://openbookchocolates.substack.com
