Island Bookstore Weathers 13 Years of Changes

Island Books, Judy Crosby's 13-year-old bookstore, is located in Middletown, on Aquidneck Island, one of the earliest colonial settlement sites in Rhode Island. Until 1731, Middletown was a part of neighboring Newport, the seaside town long famous as a vacation spot for the extraordinarily wealthy.

But Island Books does not cater to the seasonal yachters and tourists. "Middletown is more of a suburban area, and our customers are mostly people from the community," explained Crosby. "We do get some visitors who seek out bookstores wherever they go."

A 1,600-square-foot general bookstore, Island Books has strong fiction, biography, and children's sections, and Crosby stocks some books on the area's rich history. People come in for story times, book discussion groups, and to browse the Book Sense Bestsellers table. Located in an appealing shopping plaza, called Wyatt Square, Island Books attracts customers who also come for the surrounding businesses, which include a cafe, a knitting and craft store, a hair salon, and professional offices. In 2003, the plaza's landlord turned Crosby's dream of a bigger space into a reality, when an additional 600 square feet was built onto the store's then-existing 1,000 square feet. The completion of the expanded Island Books preceded the October 2003 opening of the island's first large chain bookstore by a few months.

"It's been a challenge," Crosby told BTW, speaking of the opening of the chain bookstore, located two miles away. "Sales went down, as we expected, but the expansion helped to keep our business stable." Competition is all around, according to Crosby -- with local a Wal-Mart, and other big box stores on the island, and booksellers in cyberspace.

Crosby said, "We can't make them go away. But people are under the misconception that chain bookstores discount more often than they really do. Our customers like to come here, and they don't have to pay shipping. We didn't discount Harry Potter [and the Half-Blood Prince], but we gave a really nice party with a coupon toward a discount on a future sale. It was very well received and we got many of the coupons back."

With no previous bookselling experience, Crosby has often used resources offered by ABA and the New England Booksellers Association over the years. "I used ABACUS the first time it was available, and it has definitely helped me. Now it's back and that's great. We have had good success with the Book Sense gift cards; customers find them more convenient than the paper certificates."

Crosby was enthusiastic after attending this month's ABA Winter Institute. "The location was great," she said, "And the sessions were informative and very helpful." She found the sessions "Budgeting and Monitoring" and "Creating Effective Newsletters" particularly relevant.

"We are just launching our e-newsletter with Constant Contact. On New Year's Day, my husband went to work figuring it out, and it's going very well," she noted. "We know we need a web presence.

"I was also very interested in the session on independent business alliances ['Creating a "Buy Local" Campaign/Forming an Independent Business Alliance']. We don't really have enough independent businesses to start one here, but hearing about others gives one hope. I do believe there will be a backlash to all the chains and mass merchandising."

The next few months will be full of activity for Crosby and Island Books. The store's 13th anniversary will be celebrated on March 1 with a special sale. Also in March, Island Books is a co-sponsor of the third annual "March into Reading -- A Children's Book Festival." The week of activities, organized by an Aquidneck Island-wide group of school librarians with Salve Regina University, features authors and illustrators visiting each school and culminates with a day of literacy events involving early childhood centers and independent, parochial, and public schools, Salve Regina University, and the U.S. Naval War College.

According to Crosby, one of the major authors involved is David Macaulay, whose titles include Mosque and The Way Things Work from Houghton Mifflin. " [He] has been kind enough to participate in March Into Reading for the first two years and is helping us out again this year. He and his family live in Bristol -- just over a bridge -- and he's a great supporter of independent bookstores and community literacy events."

Crosby concluded, "I love my store, my customers and bookselling, and can't imagine doing anything else." Describing her sales over the past season, she joked, "As Avin [Domnitz, ABA CEO] said at the Winter Institute, 'flat is the new up.' So we haven't seen any growth [recently], but we haven't lost any ground." --Nomi Schwartz