Booksellers Report Happy Holidays

A number of independent booksellers across the country reported sales gains this holiday season, reversing last year's trend. In areas of the country where unemployment rates remain high, holiday sales were down slightly from the previous year, but better than booksellers' expectations.

It was a record-breaking December for Vermont's 15-year-old Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, a small, rural town with a population of 3,000. Owner Linda Ramsdell told BTW that Galaxy's sales were 20 percent stronger than last year. She speculated it was because the season was "kicked off by our anniversary sale on December 6, when people shopped a lot on our 15-percent-off day. We had the highest sales day ever, and people kept coming back to shop." Additionally, Ramsdell thought that customers' increased interest in shopping locally contributed to the store's success.

Top sellers at Galaxy were a tribute to the state's former governor: the Dean Deck, playing cards that celebrate Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean and his policies, was an unexpected bestselling sideline, with Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President, edited by Dirk Van Susteren (Steerforth Press), the number one book.

Gift cards were also a hot ticket: 104 were sold by the small shop over the course of the month. "They did really well," said Ramsdell. "Part of what surprised me is how little explanation they took. People are accustomed to the cards from other businesses, and they thought the card itself was fun and nifty. The concept is so widely known that even here people know what it is."

In New York City, Oscar Wilde Bookshop's Kim Brinster didn't have the store's holiday numbers tabulated yet, but said the bookstore had a "pretty good season." She tempered that with the caveat, "though I wouldn't say very good." Oscar Wilde, the country's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, nearly went out of business last year, but was bought by new owner Deacon Maccubbin last February, so Brinster said she was just happy to still be in business. (For more on Maccubbin's purchase of the bookstore, click here.)

"We're heavily supported by tourists, and a lot of people have been in the city in the last month," she said. "It creates a lot of energy in the store, it's very upbeat. People are tired of the gloom and doom of the past couple of years. They're spending money again whether they have it or not."

The top titles Oscar Wilde's customers spent their money on were Bravehearts: Men in Skirts by Andrew Bolton (Victoria & Albert Museum), Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 by James McCourt (Norton), and Ellen DeGeneres' The Funny Thing Is (S&S).

Storybook Cove, a children's bookstore in Hanover, Massachusetts, didn't do as well as last year, said owner Janet Bibeau. "Overall, I don't know how much of a percentage we're down, but it's not a lot." Bibeau blamed an early December nor'easter for loss of revenue. "We had a snowstorm for two days over the weekend, and we never made that weekend back."

Though Storybook Cove's sales were down slightly, business was still bustling over the holidays. Top customer picks for kids were Book Sense bestsellers Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Knopf), Cornelia Funke's Inkheart (Chicken House), and How I Became a Pirate, written by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon (Harcourt Children's). Gift cards were also popular. "People were pleased that the cards don't expire and that they can spend the money on the cards in increments. I think they bought bigger [denominations] because they can use them in increments," said Bibeau.

Robert Sheard at the Bookshop by the Lakes in West End, North Carolina, had an incomparable holiday season this year: He only opened the store this past June. A published writer, retired academic, and part-time investment advisor, Sheard decided that the part of the state, close to Pinehurst and other popular areas for golfers and retirees, was underserved by bookstores.

Sheard sold a number of copies of Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley (Little, Brown), about World War II in the Pacific, to the older clientele of his 700-square-foot store. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday) was very popular, and, to his surprise, Sheard told BTW, a good number of political books sold. "Ann Coulter's books and some others, like Al Franken. People here tend to be conservative; I bought six copies of Hillary [Clinton's] book, and I still have four. People come in and are pleased that nobody has bought the rest of them."

At Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida, co-owner Leslie Reiner has seen a dozen Christmases come and go, and she pronounced this holiday season "peculiar." Reiner explained, "We had a slow November and a great December. Business in other years has been more consistent…. But this December was better than last."

Reiner found that the Southeast Booksellers Association holiday catalog drove many customers to the store: "People came in with them. I'd be surprised if there was a book in there that we didn't sell." Strong sellers included Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury USA), The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux (Knopf), and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead). Robert Sabuda's complex pop-up books were very popular. Many customers purchased Book Sense gift cards as holiday presents, noted Reiner. "We definitely sold more [gift cards] than [gift certificates] last year."

In Houston, Texas, Blue Willow Bookshop had a "very, very, very good season," enthused owner Valerie Koehler. Sales were "much stronger than last year. Last year we were up by five to 10 percent and this year sales increased by over 20 percent, not quite 30." Koehler said she thought that customers came to the store for books that "aren't available at the gas station or the supermarket."

Book Sense 76 top picks such as The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin) and The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor) were very popular. "We played up the convenience and service [of the store], and because Houston is very big with a humongous strangle of traffic, people wanted to shop close to home," said Koehler.

Mary Gay Shipley of Arkansas' That Bookstore in Blytheville said, "Our holiday sales were good, considering the local economy is not very good and [the shopping district] doesn't look so spiffy diffy right now."

Shipley, who founded the store 27 years ago, explained that she no longer pores over the sales figures from year to year. "I don't even look at that anymore," she said. "I did that when I was young and thought things were going to get better and better." She felt that sales were strong this year, despite the region's loss of many manufacturing jobs, because "we had good things to sell." Those included some books with considerable local interest, such as Cotton: A 50 Year Pictorial History by Harris Barnes (True Exposures Pub.) and Sleeping Bear Press' N Is for Natural State: An Arkansas Alphabet by Michael Shoulders, illustrated by Rick Anderson.

Gift cards "sold like crazy," Shipley said. "People thought they were really cool. We were probably up between 30 and 35 percent over last year's gift certificate sales."

In Illinois, Lu Ann Salz, owner of Green River Books in Princeton, said she had been anticipating lower sales this year due to the states' high unemployment rate and the closing of two of the local economy's major employers, but sales were only slightly less than last year. "Our holiday sales started later … the first two weeks of December were slower," but sales did pick up in the weeks approaching Christmas, Salz explained. "November as a whole was good, but the day after Thanksgiving was slow."

As with other stores, Salz reported that sales of The Da Vinci Code were strong, but, she noted, Ron Bluemer, a local author, was Green River's bestselling author this holiday season. "We couldn't keep his books on the shelves," she said.

Of Book Sense gift card sales this season, Salz reported that the store did not see a huge increase over last years' gift certificate sales, but "people loved the gift cards. We gave everyone a choice of a gift card or a gift certificate, and 100 percent of the time, people chose the gift card."

Lance Fensterman, general manager of Bound to be Read in St. Paul, Minnesota, reported that the store's third holiday season "went swimmingly … sales were up markedly," and one of the store's big sellers was Book Sense gift cards. "We sold our entire initial batch of 500 cards in about a month to six weeks time," explained Fensterman.

In addition to The Da Vinci Code, bestsellers at Bound to Be Read included Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (Dutton); Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham (Random House), which Fensterman described as a "big dad's gift book"; and photography and sports books by local authors.

In Utah, Betsy Burton of The King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City said her store experienced its best holiday season ever. "It was fabulous, we had a banner Christmas.... We're up by a healthy amount for the first time since the chains came [to Salt Lake City]. We were up somewhere above 25 percent." She noted that "all of the anti-Bush books" sold well, including Molly Ivins', Al Franken's, and Michael Moore's latest. "We placed them in a red sack with a sign, 'For the True Patriot in the Family.'"

Burton attributed much of her store's successful year and holiday season to the work of the Salt Lake Vest Pocket Business Coalition -- an independent business alliance that began four years ago as a means of combating the influx of chain stores into the region by educating consumers and local politicians on the value of locally owned businesses. "I think we're coming out from under the shadow of the chains," she said. "We're making changes in the government and in the way the public thinks."

In Pleasanton, California, Judy Wheeler Ditter of Towne Center Books, said, "We liked the holidays -- we want them back!" She told BTW that Towne Center was up 12 percent in December and about that for the year. "The only dip was November," she noted.

One of the pleasant surprises this season was that "there wasn't any blockbuster-type media hype [for one particular book]; it was so strange that it was a strong Christmas even though it was not media driven," Ditter said. "People were coming in for the inventory, not because of the media." Top sellers this season included The Da Vinci Code, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Hyperion), and Walter, the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, illustrated by Audrey Colman (Frog), she said.

Ditter noted that Book Sense gift cards were very popular this season. "We sold quite a few, and [customers] brought them right back in to redeem them," she reported. "We ran a series of ads promoting the reasons to shop here, and one of the ads highlighted the gift cards. We had a good reaction to it. And the cards are redeemed faster [than paper gift certificates] -- I'm surprised at how quickly."

At Idaho's Bookpeople of Moscow, sales were slow up until about December 15, said Bookpeople's Bob Greene. "After that, we did pretty well -- ahead of last year. The last seven days were quite hectic." So hectic, in fact, that the store set a record for the number of sales in an hour, he said. In terms of bestsellers, Greene reported that The Da Vinci Code was "the big one." -- Reported by David Grogan, Rosemary Hawkins, Karen Schechner, and Nomi Schwartz