New Orleans’ Belated Independent Bookstore Day Deemed a Success

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Three bookstores in New Orleans held their very own celebration of Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, May 9, a week later than the rest of the nation, to avoid a conflict with the city’s annual Jazz Fest, which ran from April 24 to May 3.

The bookstores — Octavia Books, Garden District Book Shop, and the new Tubby & Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop — are all members of the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association (NOGSBA), which operated its traditional book tent at the Jazz Fest to raise money for literacy causes around the city.

With the blessing of the organizers of the nationwide celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, the three stores collaborated on their own unique events and promotions for May 9.

The day of the belated celebration, customers who took part in a scavenger hunt that brought them to all three stores had a chance to win $75 in gift certificates.

The stores also gave away Blackbird Letter Press New Orleans City Notebooks (printed in Louisiana) to customers who purchased a limited edition Independent Bookstore Day item or spent $25 or more that day.

“Saturday’s Independent Bookstore Day celebration was a huge success,” said Tom Lowenburg, who owns Octavia Books with his wife, Judith Lafitte. “We had our busiest day so far this year by far — but, more than that, our customers enjoyed showing up and being part of it all.”

Though the New Orleans stores may have lost out on some of the momentum generated by being part of a nationwide event, Lowenburg said, “Altogether, we did a good job of building our own momentum.”

Along with giveaways throughout the day and a kids’ story time in the morning, Octavia Books hosted Grammy and Billboard award-winning horn player Irvin Mayfield, who performed with his jazz quartet and signed his new coffee table book/seven-CD box set, New Orleans Jazz Playhouse (Basin Street Records).

Alabaman Carrie Rollwagen made Octavia the last stop on her Amtrak train tour across the southeastern U.S. to promote her self-published book The Localist: Think Independent, Buy Local, and Reclaim the American Dream, and, for the packed finale event, YA author Sarah J. Maas signed A Court of Thorns and Roses (Bloomsbury USA Children’s), which published last week.

At Garden District Book Shop, owner Britton Trice said sales on NOLA’s Independent Bookstore Day were double those of last year’s Saturday before Mother’s Day, though some of that, he added, may have been due to tourists staying on after Jazz Fest.

“It seemed to be a big influx,” Trice said. “People loved the Blackbird Press New Orleans Notebooks, and they also liked being able to pick out books from the boxes of ARCs,” which the store made available to anyone with a purchase of $15 or more.

Yelp, which partnered with the three stores to help publicize the scavenger hunt on social media, provided tote bags and mints to hand out to participants. Trice said some people even visited the stores specifically looking for the Yelp giveaways that had been advertised.

Garden City Bookshop also ran its own social media giveaway: those who posted photos from Independent Bookstore Day and tagged the store received 15 percent off their entire purchase.

At Tubby & Coo’s, owner Candice Huber said her store had its biggest sales day since its grand opening in September 2014, and the celebration attracted many new customers.

“Before I opened my store, I was a good customer of all of the other local indie bookstores, so I knew the owners already. It was really great to able to work with them,” said Huber. “We met a few times beforehand to brainstorm different things we could do for the day.”

Some of the creative events at Tubby & Coo’s included local authors reading mean reviews of their own books in the tradition of Jimmy Kimmel Live's “Mean Tweets” segment and a write-off featuring local authors, who were given a prompt and 30 minutes to come up with a flash fiction story.

Tubby & Coo’s also gave out free cupcakes and beer all day, typed up stories dictated by young customers into books, which kids could illustrate at home, and hosted a wine and book pairing party with a local wine connoisseur and shop owner.