This year marks ABA’s 125th year of helping indie bookstores thrive. As part of our 125th anniversary celebration, we’ll be sharing interviews with key figures in the industry and exploring how the organization has changed since its inception in 1900.
Bookselling This Week: I felt it was important to talk to you because you’ve played a big part in Binc’s growth into the Foundation we know it as today. You were also a bookseller before Binc. Would you tell us a little about your time in bookselling and how you ended up where you are today?
Pam French: Goodness, it starts a long time ago. I was born and raised in Flint, but I graduated from the University of Utah, and I answered an ad in the newspaper to be a manager in training for Waldenbooks. Linda Goode was the regional director who hired me.
Like pretty much everybody, I thought, “You know what? I'll do this for six months, and then I'll figure out my real career — whatever that is.”
Now it's 2025 and I am still working in the book industry, and it's been fantastic.
My very first apartment was just over a mile from The King’s English Bookshop. I could walk there while I was in school. That was one of my sanctuaries, one of the places I used to go long before I was in the book industry.
I started right out of college as a manager training in Salt Lake City. I traveled and managed a bunch of different stores for Waldenbooks. In Idaho, Denver, Florida, up to South Carolina, DC, New Jersey, North Carolina.
I lived in seven states in 10 years, and that was a great way to start my career and to see the country. I learned bookselling from the ground up — operations, display, supply chain, hiring and managing — and I realized I just loved everything about it.
From there, I moved back to Michigan to work for Borders, and I eventually moved into home office positions. I created their learning and development department. I led internal communications.
Then I moved into leading the Borders Group Foundation. I was looking for a new challenge and I loved the mission of the Foundation, so I stepped into that role.
When borders liquidated in 2011, we had a big decision to make. What do we do with the Foundation?
The Foundation was created by booksellers for booksellers. When there was a natural disaster on one side of the country, booksellers had wanted to know how they could help out, and the leadership at the time said, “we could create a sort of internal United Way.” So, they did.
They created a completely independent 501(c)(3), funded by voluntary donations from the employees. (The average donation from an employee at Borders was $4.17, and the company did 50% match.)
So when Borders liquidated, we were lucky. The Board of Directors and I realized what a valuable resource the Foundation was for folks who fell on hard times.
We thought, “If booksellers at Borders could use this, maybe booksellers across the country could use this.”
We decided to expand the mission nationwide, and we gave ourselves four years to prove there was a need for what we had to offer and to earn our credibility.
BTW: Do you remember when Binc first started working with ABA?
PF: One of the very first calls I made, in August 2011, was to the head of ABA. It was Oren Teicher at the time, and he took my call. I don't know why he took my call, but thankfully he did.
That started a conversation with him to say, “This is who we are. I know that Borders and ABA were not always necessarily aligned, but we have this mission to help booksellers who fall in hard times. And if we expanded our mission nationwide, would there be a place to partner with ABA? What might that look like?”
Oren basically said, “Yeah, let’s figure that out. How we might be able to work together?”
It started right there with Oren. My next call was to the executive directors of the regional trade associations.
I really can't understand how much those relationships with the ABA and the independent regional associations helped us.
We were able to build the Foundation that we have today — one that’s now supported by individuals across the whole industry.
In a lot of ways, we were like an independent bookstore — or any small business — when we first went to expand our mission. We had to find office space. We had to run payroll. Who was going to supply us with paper for our printer? Who was going to get there in the morning to open the doors?
I kept calling us a 20-year-old startup, because we had to learn all those things after being in business for 20 years.
The unique thing about our mission is that we help any book or comic seller with a brick-and-mortar location throughout the country. If they have a qualifying need, we help them, whether it’s an independent bookstore, Books-A-Million, or Barnes & Noble employee. And since we expanded our mission, over 90% of our aid has been to independent booksellers.
BTW: How has your view of the industry changed since you went from being a bookseller to heading an organization working to support booksellers? Or did it at all?
PF: It’s definitely changed. Now I better understand how we're all interconnected, and the critical role that the book community plays in our country, in our freedom of speech, and in our sharing of ideas.
The Foundation was built by book people who wanted to help each other, and I believe that continues to be the case today.
But now there's all of these folks behind us that make this possible: the authors, the trade associations that help with training and advocacy and support, and the publishers.
BTW: We’re celebrating 125 years of ABA, so we’ve talked a lot about the strength and history of booksellers. Hopefully, we’ll be around for another 125 years and maybe Binc will be right there alongside us. When you look forward, what are your hopes for the future?
PF: Well, first, congratulations! That's an amazing milestone, so congratulations to the whole organization and everybody who's had a hand in that. You guys do such a great job.
I would say two things: book and comic stores becoming sustainable, and every community having their own bookstore.
Those are things that I think about.
Bookstores play an essential role in community, and not every community has the same access. I truly believe that every community deserves a place where ideas can be shared and explored, where people feel safe and valued, and where they can come together.
And I hope that we can be a part of that conversation, and work together with not only ABA, but the regional associations, authors, agents, publishers, and suppliers, to make sure that every community has their bookstore.