At 25, Bloom Still on the Rose for Oregon Bookstore

When you celebrate a silver anniversary, whether it's a marriage or a business, people want to know the secret of your success. For Bobby Tichenor, owner of Annie Bloom's Books in Portland, Oregon, success was spawned by the realization that she had chosen the wrong career path. Tichenor went to law school and practiced law for "about three minutes" and realized that she 1) was "never going to be any good as a lawyer" and 2) wanted to devote all her attention to bookselling. So on October 25, Annie Bloom's will celebrate its 25th anniversary and Tichenor's freedom from the bar.

Annie Bloom's is gearing up for a proper all-day party; the store will conduct trivia quizzes with prizes (donated by publishers), including Captain Underpants tissues, a Harriet the Spy notebook, and Penguin canvas book bags. The bookstore will serve "decadent delicacies" and host a "booze and shmooze" as Tichenor called it, which will be a reception for local authors and their fans. So far, the roster includes Ivan Doig, Marilyn Sewell, and Susan Boase. Ursula Le Guin promised to help raise the roof, joking with Tichenor that it was on the condition she didn't have to sign books.

The original and sole owner, Tichenor has watched the store burgeon since it was 1,200 square feet with two staff members (including herself) in 1978. It started out in a space across from its current location in Multnomah Village. The old location is now occupied by Artemisia, an art gallery owned by Tichenor's daughter-in-law. Annie Bloom's still holds its author readings there. In '83, the store's current building came up for sale and Tichenor bought it, a move she said contributed to the bookstore's ability to survive. Now the store is double its original size, not including office space, and has a little upstairs lounge for book clubs. The staff has increased to 20.

Tichenor also watched her sons, Seth and Sean, grow up in the store. As kids they played in crawl spaces beneath the bookshelves. Throughout the years her sons wrote about their childhood spent in Annie Bloom's. In 1981, when they were nine and 10, they wrote a haiku "Let Down at 9 & 10" to commemorate, or commiserate, the nature of the business: "We are 9 & 10/ The bookstore is filled with ideas/ It's not a toy store."

After 25 years, Tichenor said she's learned to share the responsibility of running the business with her staff members. "I've finally learned to delegate things I'm not good at -- like bookkeeping. In earlier years, I'd go weeks with out opening the mail," she said with a laugh. "But I've since gotten a business education -- I have other people do the things I'm not good at."

It's the help she receives from others that Tichenor credits for Annie Bloom's staying power. "I've been lucky to have a superb staff," she reported. "Will [Peters] made the single biggest difference. He's a fabulous manager, very smart, and really knows the book business. He's worked in every aspect of it -- he's been a manager at a chain store, a rep."

Tichenor mentioned that many of the staff have been with her for a decade or more. Mary Fellows, who's the organizing force behind Annie Bloom's, went to law school with her. She wasn't in love with law either and approached Tichenor to enter the world of bookselling. "Having people help me with my weaknesses helped keep us afloat," noted Tichenor.

She also acknowledges Book Sense for increasing the store's buoyancy. Tichenor told BTW that before Book Sense she and 20 to 30 independent bookstores had formed an alliance in Oregon they called OIBA, the Oregon Independent Booksellers Association. Together they bonded, though warily at first, to create a unified front for publishers. Tichenor mentioned that Book Sense replaced the need for their group. "About a year after we formed OIBA, things we'd been doing … Book Sense started doing. We were one of the first Book Sense members. It strengthened all of us."

Annie Bloom's devotes a wall to the Book Sense 76, where a bookshelf holds all of the 76 picks. Peters, who's been a staff member since 1992, said, "[He] didn't know how [Book Sense] would work out at first, but now it's become an extension of our staff favorites table in some ways. We trust other booksellers. There are always books we didn't know about [on the list], and we're eager to get them in the store. Now customers ask for the new 76 lists."

Tichenor plans to be around for another 25 years, at least. "They'll have to carry me out of here feet first," she said. "I keep my slippers here in the wintertime. I love it. My husband, who's a lawyer, talks about retiring. I say, 'Well, go ahead and retire…,'" and she pauses to indicate the unsaid "but I'll stay here forever." --Karen Schechner