Booksellers Express Cautious Optimism About Holiday Sales

Although media reports indicate that holiday shoppers were out in force during what the National Retail Federation termed a "blockbuster" Thanksgiving weekend, sales reports from independent booksellers around the country ran the gamut. If there was consensus about anything among independent booksellers in BTW's informal survey, it was a wait-and-see attitude, with many expressing cautious optimism. Booksellers such as Denise Mollenkopf of Thackeray's Books in Toledo, Ohio, and Carla Jimenez of Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida, noted that the "Black Friday" phenomenon is mostly mall-oriented, as many consumers begin the holiday shopping season looking for bargains and then wend their way to independent and "stand-alone" businesses as the holiday season progresses.

Carol Chittenden at Eight Cousins, a children's bookstore in Falmouth, Massachusetts, told BTW that after calculating this year's Thanksgiving weekend business, from Friday through Sunday, she was very pleasantly surprised to find that sales were up six percent, although, she said, "It's been a very tough year."

Chittenden said that a big factor affecting this year's sales was the June opening of a toy store next door to Eight Cousins. "It's had quite an impact," she said. "We did previously sell some toys, so we've tried not to overlap and have been carrying different sidelines, like journals, bookends, and booklights. [The toy store] has big windows right on the street with plenty of display space. We're set back and not as visible." All the more reason to be pleased about the weekend's increase in sales over last year, she noted.

The mood of shoppers was upbeat, Chittenden said. Customers were generously contributing to the store's 12-year-old 'Giving Tree.' The books donated go to local children "who probably wouldn't have any books otherwise. Customers are given the first name and age of a child; they select a book; we discount it, wrap it, and deliver it to the kids. We distribute to about 400 kids a year," said Chittenden.

Jeff Curtis, owner of Maine's three Sherman's Books & Stationery locations, saw encouraging sales at all three. "Our Boothbay Harbor store sales were up two percent for the week ending November 28. About 70 percent of the week's sales were done over Thanksgiving weekend -- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday," said Curtis. "The Freeport store had the largest increase, up seven percent over last year's sales for the week. At that store, 72 percent of the week's sales were done over the three-day weekend."

The newest Sherman's store, in Camden, was not open last Christmas. "We have no prior year sales figures to compare," Curtis explained. "But it did have a very busy weekend -- handily beating our projected sales. Sales were helped, in part, by a very successful early morning 'Sunrise Sale' held in downtown Camden on Friday."

The owners of The Book Vault in Wallingford, Connecticut, fear that a new area Wal-Mart has drawn traffic away from the unique shops in the historic New England town. Jan and Stuart Hecht have owned the store for only one previous Black Friday, but this year's numbers are, in Jan's words, "disappointing." However, Stuart added, "We didn't have a great day, but we came out even for the month."

The store, which occupies the former First National Bank building, built in 1921, has been a welcome addition to Wallingford, a town of 45,000, and one of few "with a true downtown," Stuart Hecht told BTW.

The Hechts expect sales to spike this week, as parents bring students back to Choate Rosemary Hall prep school, after the Thanksgiving break.

Morning Star Bookshop in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, also open for its first Christmas, experienced a busy Black Friday, according to owner Rebekah Ray. "We took out a group ad with other Main Street-area merchants," she said, "and many people commented on how pleasant it was to shop downtown and not have to fight the traffic and hysteria of the mall."

At Olsson's Books & Records, which owns seven neighborhood stores in the suburban Washington, D.C. area, sales were primarily up, general manager Virginia Powers reported. Powers manages the book departments of all the stores, which include locations in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. She told BTW that depending on the retail environment of the specific store, percentage increases over last year were variable. "We had a great weekend," she said, "and we're cautiously optimistic. It's been a whirlwind of activity here."

Powers noted that since the November 2 elections, "the world has come back to normal and people want to buy books for fun. We're hearing people say that."

Shoppers have lost interest in most all of the candidate- and election-specific books, said Powers. "Now books on 'where are we going to go now' and party strategy are selling. It's a time people are rethinking politics, books about that are now of interest."

Thackeray's Books in Toledo, Ohio, did quite well over the holiday weekend, according to inventory manager Denise Mollenkopf. Sales at the 12,000-square-foot store were up from last year, although precise numbers weren't available at press time. Mollenkopf said that Thackeray's did very well on Friday with business steadily increasing from Friday afternoon through the weekend. "Here, people tend to hit the big sales early Friday, then we start to get the crowds later in the day and through the weekend."

The store held a successful signing with Carl Sams (Lost in the Woods, Carl R. Sams II Photography). Other top sellers were Dr. Ernest Drake's Dragonology (Candlewick) and Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead).

In Wilmington, Ohio, Books 'n' More improved upon past holiday sales, said co-owner Dan Stewart. "We've definitely seen an increase." Like Thackeray's Books, Books 'n' More saw its share of crowds that came to the store after hitting the deep discounts at the malls. Stewart noted that titles on the Great Lakes Booksellers Association's holiday catalog table were selling well during the active weekend.

In Marquette, Michigan, Snowbound Book's Ray Numi reported that Friday was a good day for the 20-year-old store. "In years past, it's been quite a bit slower," he said. Snowbound, a small, 1,000-square-foot space, nearly doubled its sales from last year. Hot titles over the weekend were America (The Book) by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show Staff (Warner) and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton). Numi told BTW that his customers have been more interested in buying trade paperbacks than hardcovers, though the store does discount hardcovers.

In Nebraska City, Nebraska, Keitha Thomson, co-owner of Book Clinic, said of the holiday weekend, "We were busy, but it wasn't overwhelming." Thomson noted that the five-year-old general bookstore, which does especially well with children's and inspirational books, had a signing on Saturday with author James Solheim (Santa's Secrets Revealed, Carolrhoda) that helped boost sales. Peter Sis' books sold well, and Thomson said she couldn't keep Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express (Houghton Mifflin) on the shelf. Overall, Thomson told BTW, she believes that the holiday season began well. "Friday was busy, Saturday, Monday. There are a lot of people buying books."

At Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida, Black Friday is not the store's biggest day, said co-owner Carla Jimenez. "We're a stand-alone operation and [on Black Friday] people go to the mall," she said. "It was a nice Friday -- it was bigger than Saturday. Everybody was busy…. Judging by the last couple of days, I am more encouraged than I was just 10 days ago." She noted that at the front of the store, Inkwood has a "big table" with about two dozen staff picks, pre-wrapped at 20 percent off. "It's doing very well. We just add a ribbon, and they're out the door!"

At BookPeople in Austin, Texas, Black Friday lived up to its reputation as a big sales day, though owner Steve Bercu reported that the "store's best days come in the 10 days before Christmas -- and not necessarily Saturday." Nonetheless, "Black Friday was pretty spectacular," he told BTW. "The whole weekend was. We did our first-ever bargain book sale and that may have been a part of it.… It was that weekend only, and we offered remainders and damaged books and put them on sale and cleared a lot of inventory."

Some 700 miles northeast, in Blytheville, Arkansas, Mary Gay Shipley of That Bookstore in Blytheville described the past Friday as "medium good…. We did pretty well…. We like to be swamped but that wasn't the case, [but] we were pleased with sales at the end of the day. You know, in retail, it's just never enough! Now, the weekend was less enchanting."

Shipley reported that the Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life (Nan A. Talese) was the biggest seller over the weekend.

At Fact & Fiction bookstore in Missoula, Montana, Barbara Theroux said that she was "very pleased" not only with the Thanksgiving weekend, but with the whole week, beginning on the Monday before the holiday. Moreover, "Friday and Saturday were both great, and typically they're not," she said. "We received Book Sense orders online, gift card orders, and we sold atlases and other high-ticket items … so that was a good sign. The season got off to a really great start…. I'm excited. We wait all year for this month! I think in general our downtown was busy and active."

Heather Carter, manager of Blue Heron Books & Espresso in Casper, Wyoming, declared that Black Friday was "pretty good. We're in a downtown area and usually we don't get the big crowds [on Black Friday] because they go to the mall first. But we had a really good day and a good weekend. It wasn't better than last year, but not bad -- I wasn't crying. We also had a big snow storm."

Carter reported that big sellers over the weekend included An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg (Knopf), Trophy Hunt by C.J. Box (Putnam), and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (Doubleday).

Debi Echlin at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, California, compared this year's holiday weekend sales with last year's and found that sales "were pretty flat." She expressed some concern, because the store was "averaging greater than 15 percent growth for the rest of the year," but is hopeful that business will pick up again.

"No one book will make or break this holiday season," said Echlin, who is working to encourage steady sales by emphasizing staff picks, continually changing window displays, and by offering Book Sense gift cards and gift certificates. The store's bestselling books so far this season have been Oakland Hills by Erika Mailman, part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series. Also selling well are Lonely Planet's The Travel Book, which Echin noted was "incredibly priced" and the Encyclopedia of Animals, published by the University of California Press this fall.

At Title Wave Books in Anchorage, Alaska, co-owner Steve Lloyd said post-Thanksgiving-weekend sales were up a little more than 17 percent compared to the same weekend last year. "We noticed good sales in all categories, books and sidelines. Although we have the related movie tie-ins, we've been out of Polar Express for a week … we had some unfilled customer requests there, but we're well stocked on most other bestsellers, which did well over the weekend," Lloyd said.

"Our sales of gift cards and paper gift certificates ran between $400 and $450 per day over the Thanksgiving weekend. Historically, this number climbs each week until a few days before Christmas, when it goes completely nuts." Looking back at sales of gift card and gift certificates in December 2002 and 2003, Lloyd said, "If that trend holds, we should be close to $40,000 in GC sales for this December."

Linda Torres, owner of The Book Barn in Bend, Oregon, reported good sales for the holiday weekend, "but not as good as last year…. My expectation for this season is to do as well as last year. I had hoped to do better, but with the last weekend's numbers, I am not too optimistic."

Titles featured in the catalog put together by the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association were the choice of many of Book Barn's shoppers over the weekend. --Reported by David Grogan, Rosemary Hawkins, Karen Schechner, and Nomi Schwartz