The Bookloft in Great Barrington, Mass., has launched a $100,000 GoFundMe campaign, Help Keep the Bookloft Aloft, after a "drastic" decrease in sales. Owner Giovanni Boivin had experienced the usual post-holiday lull during the winter, but when sales numbers "didn't pick up like they should have come April and May, the anxiety started creeping in," Boston.com reported.
"It was unusual. Unusually quiet, to the point where I was getting really worried that if we don't see some kind of shift in revenue and foot traffic, I wasn't sure if we were going to make it through the rest of the year," he said.
The bookshop was founded in 1974 by Eric and Evelyn Wilska. They sold the shop in 2016 to Pamela Pescosolido, who moved it in 2020 to its current location. In late 2022, Pescosolido sold the store to staff member Boivin, who took the helm at the start of 2023.
More recently, after trying alternative ways to increase revenue, Boivin decided he needed help from the community. "It was mostly just a way of telling the larger community, 'Hey, we're in trouble,' " he said.
The crowdfunder "will help the bookstore pay its bills and develop a small nest egg in the event that the shop experiences another lull in sales in the future," Boston.com wrote.
"50,000 will get my bills paid, but if there's any kind of lull in the fall or next year, I'm kind of fighting the same situation," he said. "Then I've got something to fall back on."