Local bookstores create success others can copy
They don't wear blinders but neither are the owners of three independent suburban bookstores profiled here overly worried about competition — from either the big box bookstores or e-books, the latest harbinger of the end of book selling as we know it.
In fact, the stores — This Old Book in Grayslake, Town House Books & Café, St. Charles, and Anderson's Bookshops in Naperville and Downers Grove — have built successful market niches that other entrepreneurs could use as a pattern.
• This Old Book. The Barnes & Nobles and Borders, which last week delayed payments to vendors, “are not my competition,” states Dick Navarre, owner of This Old Book. “Used books (Navarre's niche) are an entirely different business. They can order whatever titles they need. Our disadvantage is that we can't order specific titles. Our advantage is that our books are much cheaper.”
Navarre has developed other advantages, too.
“I can specialize,” he says. In 2009, for example, This Old Book bought a physicist's library — “heavy duty books” in Navarre's words. But, he adds, “I have a big community of scientists.”
Navarre also sells on Amazon.com, where he has “500-1,000 books listed at any time,” and auctions more costly items through Leslie Hindman Auctions, Chicago.
Military history and architecture are Navarre's biggest selling categories, but customers also can buy Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts at the Grayslake store.
E-books? “They're making an impact,” Navarre says, “but there was a time when TV was going to destroy radio. I still listen to my radio.”
• Town House Books & Café. Owner David Hunt bought the store in 1992 and, with partner Doug Bella, opened a companion café in 1996. With fresh baked goods to complement coffee and tea in the morning, and homemade soups and sandwiches for lunchtime, the 14-table café “helps provide traffic” for the bookstore.
Still, books matter. “We take a boutique approach,” Hunt says. “We've developed relationships with our customers. We know what they read, and we can give guidance about books we think they will like.”
ŸAnderson's Bookshops. You'll be hard-pressed to find a retailer more involved in its community, especially Naperville, than Anderson's. “We do whatever we can to partner with our community,” says co-owner Becky Anderson.
The store is an original sponsor with the Naperville Public Library and local schools of Naperville Reads, a citywide read-and-discuss celebration of selected authors' works. A subsidiary bookfair company works with nonprofits and schools to support book-oriented fundraisers.
The stores have dozens of well-publicized author signings each year, but, notes Anderson, “We also place authors in schools — free, because of our relationship with publishers.”
And Anderson's sells, and promotes, e-books. A hard-to-miss link on the store's website takes readers to a page that explains how they can participate in the Google eBooks program through Anderson's.
• Contact Jim Kendall at JKendall@121Marketing Resources.com.
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