Spotlight on ABA Board Candidate Tom Campbell

By now, all ABA member bookstores should have received a mailing, via the U.S. Postal Service, that included a ballot to elect directors for three-year terms on the ABA Board. The ballot must be postmarked by Tuesday, May 1, and returned in the postage-paid envelope that was included in the mailing. (The envelope is addressed to Marks Paneth & Shron LLP.) The ballot features the names of three director candidates: Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas; Tom Campbell of The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina; and Cathy Langer of Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver. (Langer is currently a member of the ABA Board and is eligible for an additional three-year term.) Space is provided on the ballot for write-in candidates.

The Board ballot also includes the names of Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, for president, and Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, for vice-president/secretary.

Over the upcoming weeks, BTW will continue talking to the Board candidates about their bookselling careers and about their priorities if elected to serve the interests of the community of independent booksellers. This week's profile is of Tom Campbell of the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina. Last week, is Steve Bercu of Austin's BookPeople was profiled.

Tom Campbell claims he is not sure he can remember a life B.R. -- Before Regulator --the Durham bastion of book culture he helped found 30 years ago. "Like many booksellers, I stumbled into the business," he told BTW, "I didn't expect to stay more than a few months, then a few years, and now it's been three decades."

Not a son of the South, Campbell grew up outside of Philadelphia and attended Duke University as an undergraduate. He graduated, and stayed in Durham, working at a variety of jobs ranging from bartender to freelance writer. "I got a Master's degree in Environmental Management and thought about going into environmental journalism," he recalled. While his wife finished an advanced degree, Campbell joined with a group of friends, mostly Duke graduates, who raised about $15,000 to start a bookstore.

The bookstore continued to occupy most of Campbell's time. "Instead of writing or reporting, I ended up selling things that other people wrote. I've used my degree to 'manage the environment' here, at the store," he joked.

In 1978, John Valentine joined the staff, and the two bought out the business, which, at the time, was a "nonprofit." Campbell explained, "We were very idealistic at the beginning, our plan was to use the bookstore's great profits to underwrite many good works." The projected "great profits" did not materialize, and the two struggled to maintain the store "on a shoestring." Helen Whiting, who died in 1999, became a third partner in 1982.

The store succeeded in part because the owners had launched the business on a small scale, and, without dependents, they could afford to live very cheaply, Campbell noted.

Not like today, Campbell told BTW. "Everything has changed in bookselling. It is gone from [being] a sleepy backwater of the American economy to one of the most competitive businesses around." He enumerated some of the challenges for independent bookstores: "All the [non-bookstore] places that carry books, the Internet, chain bookstores."

He is concerned that neophyte booksellers may be starting without the understanding that bookselling is a business, and that they have to be able to make the numbers work. At the same time, he continued, "While paying attention to the business -- you can't be completely controlled by the dollars and cents. Independents have an edge in that we have the freedom to do other things -- we can take a stand on books, we can run the business while making it fun and enjoyable for our staff and customers."

Balancing those two aspects, Campbell thinks, is key to running a viable store.

"Things I've learned from the ABA in the last five years have helped keep the business going," Campbell noted. "[Educational sessions] -- like The 2 % Solution, increased use of co-op -- have been of enormous help.

"And these are the type of things I'd like the ABA to continue to do -- spreading very practical advice and providing tools to show how to run a business and ensure profitability in this climate."

Campbell has served on the Booksellers Advisory Board, and has been involved with both the Book Sense program and BookSense.com in their earliest stages. Becoming an ABA Board member seems like a logical next step.

"ABA has really helped me over the years, and I'd like to try and give something back," he told BTW. "[ABA] offers [booksellers] the opportunity to get great moral support and to share war stories. Since we do our work in relative isolation, our focus can narrow. We need to get other ideas -- it's essential." --Nomi Schwartz