Limpot shares joy of reading

MANILA, Philippines - Basketball legend Jun Limpot never thought he’d be a bookworm during his 14 years in the PBA because there just wasn’t enough time to read long chapters in between games, practices and catching up with family, friends and fans.

But when Limpot hung up his sneakers in 2007, he discovered the joy of reading. “I didn’t realize what I missed by not reading books when I was playing,” he said. “I found out you enjoy life more by reading and learning. The year after I retired from the PBA, I visited a bookfair in Los Angeles and thought why not share this joy with others? Since I read anything and everything from the sciences to history to biographies to sports to parenting care, I made it a personal advocacy to make books accessible to as many people as possible at the lowest price.”

 Limpot, 40, plunked in an initial investment of P5 Million to import all sorts of books and magazines from wholesale sources in Sacramento and San Francisco. Since starting the business four years ago, he has brought in over 50 40-foot containers each carrying 20 to 25 gaylords filled with 40,000 titles. For every container that lands here, Limpot spends about P500,000 for the cost of the goods, customs duties, shipment and delivery.

Limpot’s company is called Pick-A-Book and he once had 17 outlets in malls all over Metro Manila. He also became a registered seller with Amazon.com and opened a website to directly take care of customers’ on-line orders. Today, Pick-A-Book operates three of its own outlets at SM Dasmariñas, Robinsons Pioneer and ABS-CBN and has titles on consignment in 46 stores of Expressions around the country. The turnover isn’t as high as two years ago before readers turned to Ipad and Kindle to download books from the internet.

In Limpot’s 600 square-meter warehouse in Parañaque, there are about 120,000 titles in storage with 1,200 moving out every week to fill store shelves. At any time, Pick-A-Book has 120,000 titles out in the market.

“When I got involved in books, my father couldn’t believe it,” said Limpot, a Humanities graduate at La Salle in 1993. “He asked why books? Why not get involved in food? But I found a lot of gratification in books, I wanted to share my love for books with others and with my contacts in the US, I could make available low-cost titles to the public. I sourced from Goodwill and the Salvation Army and you’ll be surprised that the shipments include brand-new hardcover and soft-cover books covering a wide range of topics.”

To this day, containers continue to come in and only last month, Limpot brought in a new shipment of 40,000 titles. “Sometimes, I announce an open sale and book collectors come to the warehouse but I’m holding off on that at the moment because the best titles go first and I want the outlets to also stock good titles. Right now, we’ve got titles in a two-week book exhibit at UP.”

How to make Pick-A-Book’s titles more accessible to the mass market is a challenge for Limpot. “I think there’s a huge potential in moving libraries on wheels from barangay to barangay, promoting read-ins with people,” he said. “My concept is ‘Aklat For Every Pinoy’ where a town or city could promote reading and learning through books. We could assist in organizing a ‘silid aklatan ng bayan.’ It’s the best way to reach out to the masses, promote literacy and share the joys of reading and learning.”

Limpot has a proposal to local government officials for the promotion of reading and he’s looking forward to kick off the campaign. “While the access to the internet is growing, I think there is still value to promoting book-reading for learning,” he said. “We can do it all over the country and we’ve got the titles to support it. We can invite celebrities to lead in the read-ins like what they do in the NBA Cares program.”

Limpot said he’s hands-on with the book business, individually pricing each title and making sure the outlets are well-stocked.  Limpot’s other interest is real estate. “I played seven years with Sta. Lucia and luckily, with Mr. Excy Robles’ advice, I was able to invest in a lot of prime properties,” he said. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I have no vices so the money I earned in the PBA was put to good use.” Limpot lives at Citadella, a Sta. Lucia development, in Parañaque with wife Ian and their four children, Zion, 15, Arsenio Philip 13, Zoe 7 and Sofi 2.

This year, Limpot returned to basketball as an assistant coach with La Salle. It’s his way of giving back to his alma mater after enjoying a distinguished career in hoops, playing on the Centennial squad that won the Jones Cup title in 1998. Limpot was the PBA’s Rookie of the Year in 1993 and saw action on the Purefoods squad that won the Philippine Cup crown in 2005-06 with James Yap, Kerby Raymundo, Marc Pingris, Noy Castillo, Roger Yap, P. J. Simon, Rey Evangelista, Paul Artadi and Richard Yee under coach Ryan Gregorio. He averaged 16.2 points in 558 total PBA games for Sta. Lucia, Ginebra and Purefoods with a career-high of 41.

Limpot is an outstanding example of a former PBA player who found new meaning to life after basketball. His advocacy of promoting book-reading is a mission that is worth supporting all over the country. Collectors, librarians, school officials, local government administrators and book lovers may contact Limpot at Cell No. 0922-8926657.