Here's an unusual new bookstore story: on July 1, three well-known book world people--Jack McKeown, industry consultant and former co-founder and CEO of Perseus Books Group; Denise Berthiaume, president of Verso Advertising; and Mitchell Kaplan, owner of five Books & Books stores in southern Florida and the Cayman Islands--are opening Books & Books Westhampton Beach, in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., which will be owned by McKeown and Berthiaume (above) and be an affiliate of Books & Books. 
Kaplan (left) will serve as a consultant, and his company will provide a range of support and will consult on marketing, author events, website development, e-mail newsletters and inventory management, giving the store access to what McKeown described as "a database of sales history going back 25 years." The owners will also use the resources of the Verso Digital online network to reach consumers directly. Staff members will go on "exchanges" between New York and Florida.
The principals expressed great enthusiasm about the new store and their cooperation.
"The idea is to leverage all our strengths," said Kaplan. "I am learning from them, and they are learning from me. This is exciting and proactive."
"Denise and I would not be doing this if we did not have this association with Mitchell," McKeown said. "We're pooling our knowledge." The arrangement "means we can jump-start the store and gives us an even greater likelihood of success. It's an enormous advantage for a startup."
"We're all in an era where we have to look for new business models and new ways of operating," Kaplan continued. The arrangement is similar to the one under which Books & Books operates in the Cayman Islands. Kaplan said he could implement the model with local people in other areas "that aren't my markets."
Eventually Kaplan may help Books & Books Westhampton Beach in other ways, such as using his experience as a founder and head of the Miami Book Fair International to help establish a book fair. Kaplan stressed that the Hamptons and southern Florida share many demographic characteristics and help make the new affiliation a good fit.
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The new store has 2,000 square feet of space and is in the center of Westhampton Beach, in the Hamptons at the eastern end of Long Island. McKeown and Berthiaume have been working on the project for two years and "waited until the exact right storefront opened," McKeown said. Part of the delay resulted from needing two adjacent storefronts. 
Books & Books Westhampton Beach will look "very sleek and modern," combining elements of several Books & Books stores, such as "the room-within-a-room effect" of the Miami Beach store and the moveable gondolas of the Bal Harbour store, McKeown said. Just as the Books & Books stores each have their "own distinct layout and design, while managing to convey a similar sensibility and character," Kaplan said, the new store will adapt well to its community. McKeown and Berthiaume are long-time residents of the area.
The store will stock some 10,000 titles. About 2,000 will be of local or regional interest, and the rest will overlap with stock at other Books & Books stores.
McKeown is working full-time at the store, and Berthiaume will continue to head Verso but hopes to scale back her time there so she can spend "as much time as possible" at the store. For now, the store is hiring an assistant manager and two full-time junior people, as well as some part-timers at the height of the season, July through September.
Several key staff members from Books & Books will come to Westhampton Beach to work in the store this summer. As Kaplan noted, summer is not the height of the season for his stores, making it easier to send people north. The addition of these staffers will contribute "enormous stress reduction," McKeown commented. The trio is also working on a regular "exchange program" to allow Books & Books employees in Florida to work at the Westhampton Beach store in future summers and have Westhampton Beach staffers work in Florida stores in off-peak times.
Besides their home in nearby Remsenburg, McKeown and Berthiaume have what McKeown called "a small beach cottage" that is about five minutes from the store. They usually rent it out during the summer but will use it this year for Books & Books staff who are working in the store, making it a kind of B&B B&B. "We can put up three or four people there," McKeown said. Eventually the house may be used as subsidized housing for a full-time manager.
Books & Books Westhampton Beach will have a strong author event schedule that will rely in part on Books & Books's established event program. McKeown noted that the store is 70 miles from New York City, so "we can have an event at 6 or 7 in the evening, and authors can still get back to the city that evening." The store will have space in-store for events with up to 50 people. Other venues in town can provide space for up to 300.
McKeown and Berthiaume have spent much time at the Books & Books stores, and McKeown worked for a week last November at the Lincoln Road store in Miami--an experience he called "Bookselling 101."
In addition to the Verso Digital online network, the vertical ad network and online marketing platform for book publishing that McKeown called "a great way to target readers interested in particular authors and promotions and more," Verso's 2009 Survey of Book-Buying Behavior provides data that have helped McKeown and Berthiaume in planning the store. (In a highlight of the Winter Institute earlier this year, McKeown presented survey findings that were encouraging about the role of bookstores and traditional books; Shelf Awareness, February 4, 2010.) "Our research has indicated that the market for consumer books will be a hybrid of physical books and e-books for decades to come," McKeown said. "Older Americans, especially the retiring baby boomers, are disproportionately avid book buyers; more and more they want the intimate browsing experience that neighborhood bookstores afford. Younger readers as well express a preference for independent bookstores. We think this association with Books & Books can help us tap into these trends in a big way."
Books & Books Westhampton Beach is located at 130 Main St., Westhampton Beach, N.Y. 11978.--John Mutter