Holiday Sales: Indies Make Merry With an Emphasis on Local

Bookselling This Week's informal poll of bookstores across the country found holiday sales up at some and down or flat at others. But if there was one trend among those reporting an increase in sales, it was customers' heightened awareness regarding the importance of shopping locally.

Apple Valley Books in Winthrop, Maine had a banner holiday season. "This was the best holiday season we've had in five years or more," said Rita Moran. Although she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason for the 15 percent surge, Moran did note a "sea change" in attitude toward shopping locally. "I had an amazing number of people consciously decide to avoid big box stores and shop Main Street," she said. "People walked into the store committed to filling their Christmas needs here." One customer bought 10 $10 gift certificates to encourage friends to become loyal Apple Valley Books shoppers.

The rising gasoline prices that hurt many retailers worked in Apple Valley's favor. "Higher gas prices help us," explained Moran. "People don't want to drive 20 to 30 miles, they'd rather shop right here."

The store's holiday ordering strategy kept hot titles on the shelves, said Moran. "We ordered from Ingram and Baker & Taylor daily and were able to maintain stock levels based on the amount of business we had rather than order a bunch of books three months ago and hope for the best."

Moran's pet handsell was Here If You Need Me (Kate Braestrup, Little, Brown). "We first got the book through the Book Sense program as an ARC, and we've been handselling it ever since," she said. "It's been our handselling success of the year. Next spring it'll be the official community read of Winthrop."

Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon trading cards sold well as stocking stuffers. Moran said most of Apple Valley sidelines are from Maine, including jewelry from a collective on Chebeague Island and items from local potters.

Jan Owens credited several efforts, including a storewide 50 percent discount, for improving this year's holiday sales at Millrace Bookshop in the Gristmill in Farmington, Connecticut. She hadn't yet calculated the increase percentage, but said that halving prices the week before Christmas "really moved things along." Another boost came from inserting the New England Independent Booksellers Association regional catalog into the local Farmington paper.

To spread the "Buy Local" message, in mid-December Owens built on Scholastic's Main Street Gift Wrap Party (Scholastic donated 25 books to participating bookstores to be wrapped by customers and given to a local charity), to draw customers, as well as to involve them in community outreach. The event served to remind people "that we still exist," said Owens, and "how important it is to patronize local, independent businesses." The local paper covered the event.

Greeting cards always sell "beautifully," said Owens, especially the Papyrus and Caspari lines. Top titles that weren't the usual suspects included The Genetic Strand (Edward Ball, S&S) and Wood: Craft, Culture, History (Harvey Green, Viking).

Owner Andy Graves reported that sales were down for The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina. Although he didn't yet know the figures, it was "more than I would have liked it to be," he said, noting that while the final weekend before Christmas was busy, it wasn't enough to make up for an overall slower season.

Graves explained that the lackluster November and December wasn't entirely unexpected. "I had some trepidation going into the season," he said, adding that while doing his own Christmas shopping he hadn't seen the same kinds of crowds as in years past. "There was a general feeling of retail malaise. And we didn't have one book that everyone had to have like we did last year with The South Carolina Encyclopedia [Walter Edgar, University of South Carolina]. That was a monster of a book."

To offset losses to online retailers, Graves soft-launched a website just before the holiday, and customers immediately placed orders. Other tactics included a pre-holiday sale of 25 percent off all titles both in the store and special ordered. "That helped a lot," he said. Expanding the sale to include special-ordered books helped compete with online retailers, he said. The Happy Bookseller is discounting inventory by one-third after the holidays.

Graves reported that he sold hundreds of Book Sense Gift Cards. "They're awesome," he said. "Thank God for them. Every year our gift card sales go up." This year was about 20 percent above last year's gift card sales.

New booksellers Peter and Colleen Makin opened Brilliant Books in Suttons Bay, Michigan, on December 15. As if opening mid holiday rush wasn't enough of a challenge, the delivery of the store's shelves was delayed until the end of January. But the pair gamely made the best of it and issued a press release that explained the dilemma and announced the store would open, shelves or no shelves. A local, 150-year-old business helped out by loaning them tables to create displays, and a local TV station covered their soft opening.

Community response was "better than expected," Peter Makin said. "People really want to support us, and they've been telling us they are glad that we're here." The 850-square-foot shop sold 20 percent of its inventory. "People want to buy from a local business rather than go into the big town 20 miles to the south," he said, noting that Suttons Bay had been without an independent bookstore for two years.

A big seller at Brilliant Books was The Snowflake (Kenneth G. Libbrecht, Voyageur), and one of their bestselling sidelines was the award-wining Xeko, a role playing game featuring endangered animals and imaginary eco-systems.

In Salida, Colorado, "the holiday season was better this year than last year, and this December was better than last December -- in fact, the whole year was better," said Haven Stillwater of four-year-old The Book Haven. Store sales in December were up 9 percent compared to December 2006. "If I had another December and another July, I'd make money!" she added with a laugh.

To help drive traffic to the store, Stillwater said the 1,600-square-foot Book Haven participated in some co-op advertising in conjunction with several events in town, and, as a member of the Salida Business Alliance, helped to sponsor the Holiday Parade of Lights. In addition, prior to Thanksgiving, the store placed Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association catalogs in bags with every purchase.

This year's big sellers included Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin) and the Daring Book for Girls and the Dangerous Book for Boys (both Collins). As for sidelines, Stillwater reported that Chocolove chocolates were hot, as were Impeach Mints, Anti-Establish Mints, and Empowermints.

Snowfall on December 22 and 23 slowed things down a little at Micawber's Bookstore in St. Paul, Minnesota, but overall, the holiday season "went pretty well," said co-owner Hans Weyandt. Perhaps due to the snow, "we were busier on Christmas Eve than we were last year," he reported. "We had a good fall and a good December." Sales were up between five and 10 percent this season, in part because the store sold books at the National Historic Trust Conference in downtown St. Paul. "That was five days, and it was really busy."

Top sellers at Micawber's this past holiday season included Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Graywolf Press). "That was a good seller, it was incredible," Weyandt said. One surprise for Weyandt was how many copies of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks (Knopf) the store sold this holiday season. "We also handsold a lot of The Farther Shore [Matthew Eck, Milkweed]," he added.

Eso Won Books in Los Angeles, California, had a flat year co-owner James Fugate told BTW. "Sales were about the same as last year, maybe a bit higher." But this didn't come as a surprise to him. "There wasn't a book that was really hot in the African-American community," he said. "There's nothing people are really looking for."

Fugate sold several of the $200 boxed set of August Wilson (August Wilson Century Cycle, Theatre Communications Group), fewer of Come on People (Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint, Thomas Nelson) than he anticipated, and somehow sold out of Walter Mosley's latest, Blonde Faith (Little, Brown), on Christmas Eve. "We're still trying to figure that one out," he said. "We thought we had more on hand. Somehow there was an error in the inventory system."

To position the store for the holidays, Eso Won stayed open late and had various promotions on rotating titles. Still, he said, "It never got as crazy as I would have liked." Fugate was looking forward to Black History Month in February to make up for a slow December.

About the news, first reported in the fall of 2007, that Eso Won's future was in jeopardy, Fugate said prospects looked good as a result of public response. "It's looks like we're doing pretty well. We'll have to see how we do in January and March.... But with all the attention we've been getting, it may be enough for people to realize that if they want to keep us around, they need to keep shopping here."

In San Francisco, sales at Alexander Book Company were down just slightly this holiday season as compared to last year, said Michael Stuppin. "I was expecting to be up -- we've been up all year ... but it didn't materialize." One contributing factor, he noted, could be the store's location in a financial area of the city. "We've seen the Christmas season trend downward each year," he added, "and this could be attributed to any number of reasons."

Alexander Book Company's bestsellers this year included Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead), Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (Penguin), and Eat, Pray, Love. "It seemed to me that customers were shying away from hardcovers and buying more of the trade paperbacks this year," Stuppin observed.

Despite bad weather and area flooding, Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo, Washington, enjoyed a 15 percent jump for the season and 20 percent for the year, said owner Suzanne Droppert. She attributed the climb, in part, to staying open late, often the only store open in the neighborhood, and to huge sellers such as Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Penguin); The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett, NAL); and Hearts of Horses (Molly Gloss, Houghton Mifflin). "And we would have sold tons more of Gallop! if we had it in stock," she added.

Another bump came from the three author events in the beginning of December including a signing with Debbie Stoller (Stitch 'N Bitch, Workman). Holding the events during the holiday crush almost led Droppert to "lose her marbles," but brought out dozens and dozens of customers.

Liberty Bay did well with sidelines from Kikkerland. "We loved Driinn mobile phone holder," she said. "They come in fabulous colors, and they're made in Italy. They appealed to the young and old. And pig and cat flashlights continue to sell well." --Karen Schechner with reporting from David Grogan