Emma & Kenda's Excellent Bookselling Adventure

When new booksellers Emma Stitt and Kenda Honeycutt were in their junior year at college and their friends were talking about vague post-college plans, they had decided on something more concrete -- to eventually open a bookstore together. "We probably should have gone the whole business school route, but couldn't bring ourselves to do it," said Honeycutt. So, after graduating this past May, they launched their big bookstore adventure -- a two-year road trip to apprentice with independent booksellers across the country.

"Basically, it was sometime junior year when I realized that college would end and that I needed some sort of ideas about what would come next," said Stitt, who majored in International Studies at Elon University in North Carolina. "I asked everyone I knew what they were planning on doing, and they all had grand plans of grad school or Teach for America. Except Kenda. She said something like, 'I don't know. I was thinking about opening a bookstore.' I said, 'Perfect. I'm in.'"

Neither wanted to suffer through getting an MBA or imagined there was more value in learning about business sitting in a classroom instead of living it firsthand. "That's why we decided to do the road trip/apprenticeship deal," explained Honeycutt, who studied International Studies and Sociology at Elon. "We wanted to learn how to do it through experience rather than lectures."

Their application process consisted of blanketing independent booksellers with handwritten, elaborate pleas for work. "We figured that no one could resist a handwritten request for employment," said Honeycutt. "So we came up with this epic long letter that we copied about a million times and mailed out to a whole lot of independent bookstores explaining who we were, our plans, and begging for jobs. We're still taking this approach, but the letter has gotten a lot shorter."

Their pitch impressed Cathy Stanley, owner of DeeGee's Gifts & Books, a landmark in Morehead City, North Carolina. "It came on a purple piece of handmade stationery," said Stanley. "It was handwritten. That's almost unheard of these days, particularly by that age group." Stanley, who said DeeGee's always needs extra help in the summer, took them on for three months.

"It's been excellent to have them here. They really want to know all about bookselling. They were probably overwhelmed at first with the mechanics of retail, but they've brought a fresh perspective. It's been great for us."

For their part, Stitt and Honeycut said they learned a lot about retail, customer service, and handling inventory at DeeGee's. "When people have asked our advice about books, we got a taste of bookselling," said Honeycutt. "Bookselling is exhilarating and terrifying. Recommending a book to someone is a lot of fun, but so much responsibility. What if they don't like it? We really didn't expect that sort of pressure."

Now that their turn at DeeGee's is over, they're off to Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, North Carolina, from mid-September through December. Beyond Quail Ridge, their dance card is open, and they are in the process of sending out additional applications. "We're open to offers," the pair said.

Their vision for a bookstore, however, is less vague. If all goes well, in about four years they'd like to open a store "in the mountains of Oregon with a distant view of the ocean." It will be a general, eco-friendly bookstore, with a focus on fiction and literary non-fiction and will have a cafe and wine and beer bar with microbrews. "We're hoping that by working in genre-specific bookstores as well as general bookstores that we will have in depth knowledge of each category of books that we will carry," they said. "We're picturing an extremely relaxed atmosphere with mostly new but some used books. A small venue for local musicians, as well as a meeting place for book clubs, poetry readings, and community groups.... We want to create a space where people can come and simply be there for hours. And we want a wrap-around porch. More than anything, we want a wrap-around porch." --Karen Schechner