With the 2024 holiday shopping season concluded, booksellers from around the country offer their assessments:
In Brookline, Mass., Brookline Booksmith had a "very successful holiday season" overall, reported co-owner and buyer Alie Hess. Broadly speaking, it felt "very similar to last season," and there were some titles Hess thought would perform better and others that did so much better than expected. Generally speaking, the store was "well stocked and where we needed to be," but the team did run into problems with books taking off that were "from smaller presses and [had] small print runs." Brookline Booksmith was unable to bring them back, and Hess noted that it seems that every year, "the pressure on the shipping companies is getting more intense," and the team finds itself waiting for shipments "a bit longer than we used to."
Lisa Gozashti, co-owner and manager at Brookline Booksmith, agreed that overall it was an "incredibly vibrant and successful holiday season," for which the team is "extremely grateful." She echoed Hess's disappointment in running out of the "beautiful smaller press-run books" that take off during the holiday season. She added that next year, the store plans to "buy for our special seasonal and gift tables earlier," and to go "proactively bolder on quantities of these kinds of titles." She said it was a "wonder to behold" the way customers responded to the store's booksellers and gift-sellers putting "their hearts and souls into the season."
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"It was a great season for us," reported Valerie Koehler, owner of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Tex. With no weather issues, the store was "humming along," and sales were slightly ahead of December 2023 despite having no big events last month. Koehler said there weren't any major problems with titles, though there were some that she "should have ordered up sooner in bigger quantities." She and her team have been making notes for next holiday season to "make some changes to our ordering."
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Calvin Crosby, co-owner of the King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, said the store has "ended with a good year." The King's English is up slightly over 2023, which had been its best year ever.
The past year saw a lot of changes, including a new POS and website provider, the retirement of several long-tenured booksellers, and a partnership with the nonprofit Brain Food Books. Crosby noted that he and co-owner Anne Holman have also supported a number of staff members in completing courses with the Professional Booksellers School. This has led to "a few new systems" being put in place, along with other changes, and "we can see the positive effect on our bottom line."
This holiday season saw purchases "all over the board," with customers "invested in our bookseller picks more so than ever." He added that it felt like "classic bookselling in a way I have not seen in a couple of decades." --Alex Mutter