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A Book Nerd’s Dream: Stories Toward Opening My Bookstore

This is the beginning of a story that (I hope) will have in it the part about me opening my own bookstore. I hope the story doesn’t end there – as you booksellers know, it’s the ongoing narrative that’s the stuff dreams are made of, not the single moment of opening the doors. I’m a bookseller too, and have been for quite a while, but I haven’t yet made it to that climactic moment of owning my own store. In hopes that it will prove interesting both for booksellers and for those with entrepreneurial ambitions, I’d like to offer my story, unspooling behind me as it unfolds ahead of me, for the Bookshop Blog.

Chapter I. The First Bookstore Job

Not to get all Dickensian or Salingerian on you, but I’ll begin at the beginning of my life – because I wouldn’t want to open a bookstore if I wasn’t the person that I am. I grew up bookish, which isn’t unusual. But I was homeschooled until sixth grade, with a mother for a teacher who believed that we’d learn just as much by reading for pleasure as by sitting down for lessons. I edited the high school literary magazine, wrote poetry, worked on the newspaper, did great in English classes, and everyone seemed to think I’d become a writer or a professor – and I guessed I did too. But I needed to find out somewhere completely different, so I left my California hometown on a scholarship to New York University.

And I almost went home after the first year. It’s a dark, dirty city when you’re far from home. Luckily, I made a few good friends, did okay in class, and got some good jobs – not jobs that paid well, but ones that gave me the safe place I needed. My first gig in a warm little family-run bakery probably saved my life, and I later worked as the night manager of a Dean & Deluca – I never thought that would come in handy for my career, but the diversity of nationalities and languages in that coffee shop taught me a great deal about how to talk to employees and coworkers.

I had a great poetry teacher my junior year – a grad student who understood what I was trying to do in writing and could help me find my way to doing it. She took our class out for an end-of-the-year party at a Mexican place (that served pitchers of Margaritas and never carded), and at some point asked casually if I was looking for a job. I was sick of the night shift in Rockefeller Center and said yes, and she revealed that she was leaving her job at a bookstore to finish her master’s. She gave me the proprietor’s number and told me to get in touch.

And then I totally forgot about it. I didn’t make the call until my teacher called to remind me, and it’s weird to think how nearly I missed out on my life. I went in to the bookstore, Three Lives & Company in the West Village, one afternoon. I later heard it described as a jewel of a bookstore – a tiny spot, but lighted well, with wood shelves and counters I later learned were homemade, and every book looking as though it had been specially placed in its spot, waiting to come under your hand.

The proprietor was a pleasantly brusque woman named Jill, and she took me down to her office and told me that if L.B. (my teacher) said I was okay then the job was mine. The place had always gotten its employees by serendipity, she said, and it always seemed to work out. She told me what shifts I’d be working and sent me on my way. I remember I bought myself a bunch of flowers (which I couldn’t afford) to celebrate on the way home, then pinned them on the wall of my dorm until they dried down to lovely husks – apparently I knew even then that that was a good day.

Much of the store’s history and lore I found out later. It was first opened in 1978 – the year I was born. The name came from Gertrude Stein’s novel Three Lives, and from the three women who founded the store together. The store was run by Jill and her partner, Jenny – the third “life” had left for California long ago. Though a Barnes & Noble was just around the corner on 6^th Avenue, the store never seemed to be in trouble. There were too many regulars, too many folks who came out of their way to go to the shop, too many people who came in just to look and came away with a book or three because of a recommendation, or just because they wanted to own a little piece of that place.

Why they kept me on there, I’ll never know. I was green and dreamy, sometimes forgetting to come in altogether, changing my schedule because of classes, and often making mistakes. But I’m grateful. I ran into Jill and Jenny a few months ago – apparently they’d been keeping up with my doings. “So you want to be a bookseller now, huh?” Jill said. “Who would have thought?” I didn’t say so, but it was partly her fault. Working at Three Lives made me fall in love with the bookselling life, and with New York, and started me on the path toward opening my own bookstore.

Jessica Stockton Bagnulo

www.writtennerd.blogspot.com

[editor’s note]

Stay tuned to the bookshop blog for the ongoing story. Jessica will be keeping us all updated with her dreams, goals and any progress made or pitfalls encountered. In order to not miss a story you can subscribe by putting your email address in the box on the top right or by clicking on the orange button if you are already using a feed reader.

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As a new year begins people often daydream about some of the big moments of the past year; it’s no different in bookselling. For us it’s been a year of slow but steady growth. Our only big change came when we had an opportunity to increase the size of our shop. We’re in a commercial building and when our neighbour moved out we were able to carve a doorway through a wall and add a lovely little 10 by 12 room. Once we painted, put in the bookcases and a nice little rug it gave us a chance to enlarge many of our sections - and adding over two thousand more titles. After talking with many other dealers it has become clear that bookshops do need to be of sufficient size to do well. That’s not to say that you can’t make it with a little hole in the wall (after all that’s exactly what we’ve done) it will just take a lot longer. It’s quite easy to imagine that a patron walks in thinking of picking up a cookbook to try something a little different for dinner. You have all of forty cookbooks. Now he may find something or he may not. Now imagine you have three hundred cookbooks. He will buy one. Perhaps even two or three.

Now for a few memorable moments from some of our contributors.

* FrontPorchBooks - from our Forum - mentions moving from a home into a new shop. Wow talk about a big move.

* Paul from Prying1books has bought a huge library from a well known citizen. We were able to buy out another bookstore’s inventory of 5000 books last summer. I highly recommend mega purchases like this. Don’t think it’s too much for you, you’ll find a way to get it done.

* Jill Hendrix of Fiction Addiction shares this with us: “Our best investment in 2007 was joining our regional bookselling association, SIBA. The advice, enthusiasm and support of the group has been wonderful!”

* William Smith of Hang Fire Books offered us these remarks:
Best changes/additions to my bookstore in 2007

1. Beginning the Hang Fire Books Blog: It’s been my biggest driver for new contacts and repeat customers. I’ve gotten leads on new inventory and it gives me something fruitful to do when I’m sick to death of listing, pulling and packing. Also tweaking the design, adding widgets etc is nearly as satisfying as picking window displays and making staff selections in a 3-dimensional shop.

2. Starting an eBay store: My eBay store allowed me to go full time with bookselling and taper off my various freelance gigs. Unfortunately–with the abrupt fee increases and lower listing visibility–I’ve had to drastically trim my listings. One of my ‘08 resolutions is to more effectively surf the waves of eBay fees and make the store more viable.

3. Developing my areas of specialization and compiling mailing lists for e-mail and print catalogs.

4. Moving to the “Standard Book Loader” method for updating my Amazon listings. A dreadfully boring technical change, I know, but it allows me to upload 95% of my inventory from a spreadsheet and I’ve made some really unexpected sales for that venue (vintage magazines, 19th century children’s books, ephemera, and more). My increased Amazon sales picked up most of the slack from my reduced eBay store.

Plans for ‘08. A standalone website, shelving on wheels, another restoration class or two, down-time.

* Here’s what George of Fairs Fair books in Calgary looks back on. - Changes in 2007 that worked out well?

1. Opened a fourth store in a good location.
“Location! Location! Location!” does not mean “Cheap Rent! Cheap Rent! Cheap Rent!

[editors note: George wrote a great post on choosing a location for your bookstore a few months back.]

2. Our computer programmer has continued making many changes and improvements to the point of sale database program we have been building for the past 5 1/2 years. He has linked the stores to provide better customer service in many areas - also we can see if any of our other stores have the book(s) our customer is seeking. It has stopped us using the telephone and tying up two people to take care of one customer.
3. By constantly investigating, and investing in, ways to improve our methods and procedures we are developing a model which can be replicated. (Everyone in business should read Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited - and all his books).

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One last item for us of course would be the launching of this blog. It’s been much more fun than I imagined. The writing has come easier that I thought (especially with the help of our crack writers - you can learn more about them from the links in the sidebar), the encouragement and popularity far exceeded what I had imagined. Thanks to all of our readers - I really appreciate you coming by and participating (or just reading which is fine as well). Here’s to an awesome 2008. Keep in mind that if you’re interested in joining the gang and writing a piece or two just drop me a line or leave a comment and we’ll get in touch.

If you’ve made some moves that really turned out well, by all means please use the comments area to let us know.

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We had a lady and her daughter in the shop last night to use our PCs, we’re an Internet-Cafe-Bookshop. One of the computers had a touch of trouble and needed a reboot; wasted about 4 minutes of the hour she spent. I only charged her for the coffee not the Internet time. Now I’m sure the next time the topic of bookstores or Internet Cafes comes up in her daily life she’ll be pretty quick to let her friend know all about us and how nice a place it is. This could potentially give us one more lifelong customer translating into hundreds of dollars over the course of the relationship. This won’t happen for every customer but if you start looking at each customer as an opportunity you may start to see the effect.

Instead of racking your brain trying to decide between flyers that nobody will look at or a cross promotion with your neighbour that will cost more than it generates, pay more attention to the opportunities that walk right in your door.

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