BookPeople’s Bookstore Day Strikes Chord With Local Community
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Readers in Austin, Texas, celebrated National Bookstore Day for the BookPeople Nation on Saturday, August 16, when BookPeople opened its doors to the local community for a day of entertainment, prizes, snacks, and conversations about books.
In the midst of the bookselling community’s discussions about creating a national Independent Bookstore Day, BookPeople co-owner Steve Bercu thought it would be a fun idea to organize an event to celebrate the local spirit of Austin during one of the store’s quieter sales seasons.
“We got terrific local press,” said Bercu, and “we were the number-one pick in the daily paper for what to do over the weekend.”
Customers responded enthusiastically to the invitation to the BookPeople Bookstore Day celebrations. Usual Saturday traffic in the store was up by more than 1,000 people on August 16, Bercu said. “It was a lot of fun. We got overwhelmingly positive responses from our customers.”
Sales were also up by 35 percent for the day, but, Bercu stressed, “I look at that as the absolute least important thing. I think that way more important is the goodwill and the fun that not only our customers, but our staff also had.”
National Bookstore Day for the BookPeople Nation was such a big success because it celebrated the local Austin community, Bercu emphasized. “In terms of our store, what matters is the enhanced connection with our customers that something like this allows. This is goodwill and this is relationship-building,” he said. “The idea is that our customers participate in the fun and appreciate the store more because we did it. It’s not about selling stuff, it’s about having fun and liking this place, because that’s what will bring customers back here forever.”
Throughout the day, customers were treated to activities and events, including a literary trivia contest, story times, a magnetic poetry-a-thon, author events, cake and champagne, a reveal of BookPeople’s fall author events lineup, a movie screening, and tours of the fourth-floor administrative offices. The customer tours of the “mysterious” fourth floor were thrown in as a joke, said Bercu, but proved to be surprisingly popular. About 100 people toured the administrative offices throughout the day.
A highlight of the celebration was the unveiling of the BookPeople 100, a list of the staffs’ top book picks. The titles, which are prominently on display in the store, drew crowds and brought customers together with booksellers to discuss their favorite picks. Booksellers also took the time to talk to interested customers about upcoming fall titles and to give away ARCs. Customers purchasing a book from the BookPeople 100 list were entitled to a prize, as were store visitors who came wearing BookPeople gear — some of whom made their own T-shirts. “That’s a display of loyalty that’s hard to beat,” said Bercu.
Producing the event was relatively inexpensive, with not much more purchased than the cake, champagne, and some T-shirts for the staff, Bercu added. Giveaways included BookPeople T-shirts that had long been in inventory, advance reader copies, and various, one-off publisher items the store has collected over time.
Bercu said that BookPeople will mark Independent Bookstore Day on May 2, 2015, but the store is planning to also celebrate National Bookstore Day for the BookPeople Nation again next August, when business is slower and people in the community are looking for something to do.