The Island Bookstore Turns 35

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Mary Jane Barnwell and her sister and brother-in-law, Diane and Joseph Brandonisio, bought The Island Bookstore on Mackinac Island, Michigan, in 1989. They have since expanded from a 300-square-foot space above a market to a 1,000-square-foot store. In 1996, they added a second, 2,000-square-foot store in Mackinaw City, on the mainland. Both locations are seasonal, and are open from May through November.


The Island Bookstore in Mackinaw City.

The Island Bookstore will celebrate its 35th birthday this summer with a giveaway of $35 gift certificates, a surprise sale for its Facebook and Twitter fans, and a series of events to be announced.

Cliff Olson, a retired banker from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, launched the Island Bookstore in the summer of 1975 in a 300-square-foot space above a grocery store, up 22 steps from Mackinac's Main Street. Barnwell and the Brandonisios bought the store when Olson retired from bookselling.

Barnwell noted that her introduction to bookselling has "an unromantic history." Her sister and brother-in-law were looking to buy a house on Mackinac Island, where real estate is difficult to come by. "Cliff Olson told them he would only sell his house to someone who would also buy the bookstore," said Barnwell. "I was teaching at the time, and I offered to be their partner and run the store. It very quickly became a passion, and I decided to quit teaching and become a full-time bookseller."

The Mackinac Island store is in a mall/arcade on Main Street underneath a hotel.  "We share a courtyard with Great Turtle Toysand Peace Frogs, a caricature artistic, and the hotel lobby," said Barnwell. "It's a very active place."

Within a small island community, there are many donation requests, and the bookstore is "happy to give," said Barnwell. "We contribute to the Mackinac Community Foundation, Mackinac Arts Council, Mackinac Horseman's Association, tourism bureaus, medical center, the school, and the churches. We also have a program in conjunction with the library, which allows people to donate books in honor or in memorial of someone. We give a 20 percent discount to the purchaser, and the library puts a bookplate in the donated book."

Running seasonal stores comes with a unique set of challenges. "It takes two full weeks to open the stores and two weeks to close them," she said. "That doesn't include the paperwork involved with making sure our bookkeeping is in order, or ordering for the new season. We miss the Christmas season, but we do take quite a few Internet orders in December through our website. We comb through our inventories carefully and try to keep a nice backlist going, as well as bring in the new titles."

The interactive publisher catalog platform from Above the Treeline has streamlined operations. "I must say that Edelweiss has changed my offseason work considerably by allowing me to add new titles for frontlist orders without having to key in every ISBN twice," Barnwell said. "I love it!"

About the book industry's transformation, Barnwell said, "When I began my Mackinac bookselling adventure -- and spoke the word 'Amazon' to someone -- we both thought about a river in Brazil … and 'Google' was a sound my infant son made."

But Island Bookstore has adapted "without deviating from core principles," said Barnwell. "One nearly yearlong initiative has been to develop an aggressive social media posture to share our uniquely 19th century Mackinac experience through 21st century new media. We're on Twitter and Facebook. The Island Bookstore's strategy is to leverage and lead the robust conversation that develops each season about all things Mackinac." 

Despite concerns about e-books and online sales drawing customers away from the bookstore, Barnwell said, "The Island Bookstore remains steadfast in our belief that nothing compares to snuggling up with a little one and a picture book, cracking a book that does not require batteries, and most of all -- browsing in a real bookstore and standing eye-to-eye with knowledgeable sales staff who know how to handsell a book. For an internationally known tourist destination with no cars -- only horses and bikes -- we hope we can always provide this irresistibly simple pleasure." --Karen Schechner