About Bookstores

Like so many towns across the country today, Kalamazoo, Michigan's local economy is hurting. Only recently, the Pfizer drug company pulled up stakes and left; National City Corp. is laying off employees; there's a lack of available jobs; and though there are three colleges in town, the community and its businesses are feeling the pinch of tough times.

But while Kalamazoo's economy may be stagnant, the area's independent retailers are not.

With the annual celebration of Earth Day less than three weeks away, booksellers across the country are steeped in plans to promote conservation, green living, and an understanding of our impact on the environment.

Brad Jones and spouse, Cinda Meister, left longtime careers in the restaurant business for bookselling. "We thought that after 25 years in the restaurant business we'd do something we thought was exciting and still in the field of enjoyment," said Jones. "We had retail but not bookselling experience.

On her way to a meeting of the Library of Congress' Reading Promotions Partners at the Center for the Book in Washington, D.C., ABA Director of Member Services Jill Perlstein stopped at several bookstores along the way to chat with their owners and snap a few photos for BookWeb.org's photo gallery.

In a trip covering over 600 miles in a little more than two days, Perlstein stopped at six ABA member stores.

Eleven years ago, Jamie Robinson, a third-generation retailer, and her husband, Scott, an experienced retailer himself, launched the 800-square-foot Bestsellers Bookstore & Coffee Co. in Mason, Michigan. Since then, the business has more than tripled in size, with further expansions in the works.

For Carla Ketner, an offhand comment from a friend started it all. Ketner, owner of Chapters Books & Gifts in Seward, Nebraska, never intended to own a business. That changed a few years ago, on a shopping excursion to Nebraska City, about 90 minutes from Seward.

"We were in The Book Clinic and my friend said, 'You should open a bookstore in Seward.' I said, 'Yeah, right. I don't want to work that hard.'"

Since Tuesday, March 11, when Publishers Weekly named Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California, its 2008 Bookseller of the Year, the staff of "129 incredible employees" has received "congratulatory phone calls, e-mails, and flowers from colleagues and publishers and authors and friends of the store.

The American Booksellers Association welcomed seven new bookstores that opened for business during the first two months of 2008:

Before The Book and Cranny opened on Main Street in Statesboro, Georgia, last April, "there was one used bookstore, the university bookstore, and a Christian bookstore, and that was it," said Deborah Campbell.

From 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, February 27, until midnight on Friday, February 29, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, are offering customers free downloads of Random House's Beautiful Children by Charles Bock via their websites www.northshire.com and www.powells.com, respectively.

Seven years ago, Jeanne Regentin began her career in bookselling at Between the Covers, a general independent bookstore, which has been serving readers in Harbor Springs, Michigan, for close to 25 years. "I did what everyone who wants to work at a bookstore does," Regentin explained about her entree to the book industry. "I thought someone would pay me to read.

In about one week, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, expects to officially launch its in-store Print-on-Demand publishing service. The focal point of the new service is the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), an on-site fully integrated book-making machine that can produce a high-quality, trade-size paperback book in minutes.

Since A Novel Idea opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2000, it has become the place for regional titles. "What most people in Chattanooga know us for are our books about local history and by local authors," said co-owner Karen Poole. "We carry a lot of books on Civil War history. There was a big battle fought here in Chattanooga, and battles fought on Missionary Ridge."

In the summer of 2005, when Kepler's Books closed its doors for what owner Clark Kepler believed was the last time, customers of the Menlo Park, California, institution rallied and refused to let it die. In the two and half years since, Kepler's has formalized community support via a membership program, restructured organizationally, integrated a number of on- and offsite events, and undergone an interior redesign.