Spotlight on ABA Board Candidate Steve Bercu

This week, American Booksellers Association member bookstores are receiving, via the U.S. Postal Service, a mailing including a ballot to elect directors for three-year terms on the ABA Board. The ballot, which must be postmarked by Tuesday, May 1, and returned in the postage-paid envelope addressed to Marks Paneth & Shron LLP, features the names of three director candidates: Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas; Tom Campbell of The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina; and Cathy Langer of Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver. (Langer is currently a member of the ABA Board and is eligible for an additional three-year term.) Space is provided on the ballot for write-in candidates.

The Board ballot also includes the names of Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, for president, and Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, for vice-president/secretary.

Over the next several weeks, BTW will be talking to each of the Board candidates about their bookselling careers and about their focus if elected to serve the interests of the community of independent booksellers. This week's profile is Steve Bercu of Austin's BookPeople.

When Steve Bercu was growing up in Dallas, Texas, his experiences weren't those of a kid in a candy store, but they were close. Bercu actually grew up as part of the family toy store business. "My grandmother, aunt, and my mother, and my uncle -- they had a family chain with five locations," he said, adding, not surprisingly, that he would spend a lot of time in his grandmother's store.

Finally, when he was 10, his grandmother put him to work as the store's hobby buyer. "That was pretty great to be a model airplane buyer," he told BTW with a laugh.

While Bercu's retail experience would eventually come in handy, initially he had no plans to follow in his family's footsteps, nor did he have any thoughts about buying or opening a bookstore. A University of Texas at Austin alum, Bercu explained, "I was a lawyer for many years in Austin and then in Seattle. I wanted to live in Austin, and there were business opportunities there. I thought it was a great place to come back and live."

While living in Austin, Bercu became friendly with BookPeople's former owner, Philip Sansone, who still retains a small interest in the business. In the early 1990s, Bercu learned that Sansone was hoping to move the store from its 7,500-square-foot South Austin location to its present location in the central part of the city.

Bercu, who had always had an interest in books and bookselling, began discussing with the owner his thoughts on "how the bookstore should look," and one thing led to another. "I became a financial partner in BookPeople in 1993 with several other people ... so it could move and acquire inventory," he said. "The plan was to move here with a Whole Foods moving next door." Initially, the store expanded to 40,000-square-feet, but today the square footage is a more affordable 28,000.

"From the beginning, I served on the board [of BookPeople]," Bercu said, "and, in 1999, I took over management of the store." Even with his retail background, "there was definitely a learning curve" in running a bookstore. But "compared to law, it's so direct and simple. The point of the business is to make a profit. It's very direct.... There's no screaming at strangers like in the law business! It was wonderful."

When he took over the bookstore, the establishment had profit concerns and, in Bercu's own words, "was not exceptionally healthy. Without even having heard about [ABACUS], I began to work on a two percent solution for the store. I took over and tried to cure the business. I focused on how to operate the business as a business. I thought that was the best thing for the store. The financial portion of the business was buried in aesthetics."

Today Bercu is a leader in the industry, known for his pragmatic and oft-times innovative approach to bookselling. As co-founder of the Austin Independent Business Alliance (AIBA), Bercu has been at the forefront of the national grassroots movement in support of locally owned businesses. AIBA was part of a group of organizations that commissioned a now landmark economic study on the value of independent retailers, and Bercu helped to spearhead a successful effort to keep a Borders Books & Music from opening across the street from BookPeople and Waterloo Records.

AIBA created "Austin Unchained" in 2003, a campaign that asked central Texas residents to forego chain store shopping for one day in favor of local merchants. The national American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) has since turned this idea into a national event, "America Unchained."

"I think of myself as having a practical overview" of book industry, Bercu said, and he explained that he would bring this approach to the Board. Furthermore, his focus would include "[ensuring] that ABA is financially sound" and making "decisions that will truly impact the bottom line of our members." Bercu added, "If it helps make a profit, amplify it. If not, discard it. We need to try to make sure members are more profitable." --David Grogan