Around Indies

Changing Hands Meets Fundraising Goal

Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, has reached its Indiegogo campaign goal of $80,000 to help fund a branch store set to open in spring 2014 in the heart of Phoenix. The campaign goal was met six days prior to the posted deadline of December 24.

A celebratory photo is posted on the Changing Hands Facebook page with a caption that reads “Here’s to you, book people! ... Changing Hands is coming to Phoenix in the spring, and you helped make it happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The 5,000-square-foot store will offer a full inventory of new and used books, unique gift items, and a 30-seat wine-and-beer bar called First Draft.

WORD Opens in Jersey City

Last weekend, Brooklyn-based WORD opened its second, much-anticipated location in Jersey City, New Jersey. Despite a snowy opening weekend, the new store welcomed many customers, co-owner Christine Onorati told Shelf Awareness.

Jersey City’s customer base is wider than at the store’s Greenpoint, Brooklyn, counterpart, said Onorati. WORD, Jersey City sold a little bit of everything over the weekend and sold out of Humans of New York entirely.

The completely renovated 2,400-square-foot storefront will be able to hold up to 250 people for events, and the café will be up and running in a few weeks. “It’s been a long slog, but we’re almost there,” said Onorati, who is planning a grand opening for January.

Curious Iguana Featured in Washington Post

Marlene and Tom England, owners of the Curious Iguana Bookstore in Fredrick, Maryland, were credited by the Washington Post with “defying the future” for opening a bookstore in a digital world. Despite the surge of digital reading and shopping opportunities, the Englands assert that the buy local movement is strong and independent bookstores have, in fact, made a comeback.

“We just never bought into the sky-is-falling mentality,” Marlene England said. “You see the headlines, but you have to dig deep to see what’s really happening.”

The Englands were part of an article that focused on the resurgence of indie bookstores as a whole. “In an e-tailing world, their resurgence is driven by e-book growth that has leveled off, dyed-in-the-wool print lovers who won’t (or can’t) abandon page flipping, a new category of hybrid reader (the latest mystery, digital; the latest John Irving, print) and savvy retailers such as the Englands, positioning their stores squarely in the buy-local movement and as a respite from screens,” said the Post.