In what's become an annual tradition, last month Shelf Awareness's John Mutter traveled to New England to spend a few days visiting bookstores with Steve Fischer, executive director of the New England Independent Booksellers Association, this time in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Steve and I started with a quick stop at Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass., which we visited last year. The store was hosting a reading by Celeste Ng (Everything I Never Told You) that evening, and at least an hour beforehand--even before the events area had been set up--fans were eagerly waiting for her.
Dina Mardell, who bought Porter Square Books in 2013 with her husband, David Sandberg, sounded as excited as Ng's audience. Speaking about owning the store, she said, "Every day, we say we can't believe we get to do this." She also praised the Porter Square bookselling staff, most of whom stayed on after the sale, as well as several new staff members. For every opening, the store gets 50 resumes from great people, she continued.
Like so many retailers in this part of New England, she was happy that spring had arrived, and the mountains of snow from the worst winter on record were gone. Independent Bookstore Day was a pleasant milestone--the store's sales were up 100% over the same day a year earlier.
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Bright and early the next day, we hit the road and traveled to Concord, N.H., the state capital, where in September 2013, Gibson's Bookstore moved about 100 yards up Main Street into a magnificent purpose-built space in a new building. Before the move, it had less than 4,000 square feet of space; now the store occupies 10,500 square feet plus a 1,500-square-foot café. Owner Michael Herrmann said that he had long wanted to expand, but "Borders was on top of us for 15 years. When they went away, we started planning immediately."
With expert design help from Kate Whouley of Books in Common, the new Gibson's is bright and airy, with great views to the east, and features many tables and displays with alcoves and space so that "people can find things easily" as well as have discrete areas to browse, Herrmann told us.
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There are several desks where anyone can work--often buyers and reps meet at the desks. The store can seat 100 people in the events area. Sales are especially strong at the front tables. "Kate advised that the more tables we have, the more sales we'll have," Hermann commented.
With the move, the store increased inventory across the board. "Some areas we didn't do justice to before," Herrmann said. The store's wall of fiction--"a real statement"--wraps around the core of the building. Poetry is a strong section and turns as well as current affairs, history or travel, Herrmann said. (The store hosts the monthly meetings of the New Hampshire Poetry Society. "New Hampshire values its poets," Herrmann said.) Other strong areas include "hearth and home," pets ("we're a pet-friendly store"), self-help, wellness, cooking and gardening.
The YA section is close to the children's section, "an island between adult and kids," as Herrmann put it. In the YA section, the store often displays reviews by customers aged 10 and up.
The children's section features a mural by Susan York, once a bookseller at the old Waterstone's in Boston, Mass. The mural depicts famous cats from literature--as well as Hermann's and Kate Whouley's cats.
Gibson's sells used books, which turn well, but limits the area to four bookcases containing about 700 books at a time because it doesn't want to "overwhelm" the rest of the store.
The store has also added more non-book merchandise, much of it toys in the kids' sections. (Gibson's bought Imagination Village, a children's store, several months before it moved.) The non-book merchandise represents 25% of inventory, which Herrmann called "a big number" for him. But the toys, puzzles, games and other products "give customers more reason to come in," he said.
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Among adult sidelines, cards are doing well, as are handmade leather journals and bags from Earthbound, which Bill Palizzolo, who lives nearby, owns. Herrmann buys non-book products that "I think are fun and interesting and what people will buy."
The café is in the front of the building, connected with the store but not integrated into it. Gibson's has hosted some receptions in the café, particularly with book clubs before events.
The store has 18 employees, five of whom are full-time. "I have talented managers and let them do the job," Herrmann said. He got into the business in 1994, starting as "a Jack of all trades," as he put it, and is the fifth owner of Gibson's, which was founded in 1898. Still, after more than 20 years as a bookseller, he said he's still learning. As far as we can tell, it's obvious he's learned a lot! --John Mutter