Embark on a literary adventure with Mandy Jackson-Beverly as she sits down with Eric and Jessica Green, whose love story with books has led them to become the proud owners of Mrs. Dalloway's, a cozy independent bookstore with a big heart in the Elmwood District of Berkeley, California. Their tale is not just one of passion for the written word but also a savvy move to keep the legacy of a beloved community hub alive, blending Eric's deep roots in book sales (wholesale and distribution) and book buying and Jessica's flair for branding, marketing, and sales. Together, they're writing a new chapter for the store, infusing it with their commitment to quality, eco-conscious selections, and a mirroring of the vibrant Elmwood community spirit.
The art of curating a bookstore is much like composing a symphony, where every book is a note that resonates with the soul of the neighborhood. In this episode, the Greens discuss the delicate balance between honoring the legacy of Mrs. Dalloway's previous owners and introducing their unique touch to the store's offerings. They reveal how they navigate the complexities of stocking self-published works and the intricacies of book pricing, providing a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to run a successful indie bookstore amid the ever-shifting tides of the publishing world.
Our episode wraps up with an inspiring call to action for literary enthusiasts to connect with and support their local independent bookshops. The Greens open up about the joys and challenges of hosting author events, nurturing a love of reading in their community, and the fulfillment that comes from seeing the wonder in a child's eyes as they discover their new favorite book. So tune in and let the charm of Mrs. Dalloway's, along with the passion of its owners, remind you why independent bookstores are the heartbeats of our literary landscapes.
Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore
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Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Bevillie.
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Welcome to the Bookshop podcast .
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Each week, I present interviews with independent Bookshop
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owners from around the globe, authors, publishing
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professionals and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the
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environment and social justice.
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To help the show reach more people, please share it with
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friends and family and on social media, and remember to
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subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this
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podcast.
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You're listening to Episode 237 .
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Mrs Dalloway's is a vibrant, full-service independent
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neighborhood bookstore located in the beautiful, historic
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Elmwood district of Berkeley, california.
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The store was founded in 2004 when longtime friends and
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residents of the Elmwood, marion Abbott and Anne Leahy, decided
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to pull their passions, talents and resources.
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In 2021, marion and Anne decided the time had come to
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retire and put the store up for sale.
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They chose Eric and Jessica Green as the best equipped to
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carry on the store's legacy and the couple took ownership on
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November 10th 2021.
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With longtime publisher, sales and retail buying and
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merchandising experience, eric and Jessica have carried on the
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Mrs Dalloway's traditions and maintained the store's
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attractive look and feel, spacious and inviting.
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Mrs Dalloway's offers an exciting and diverse selection
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of titles, both comprehensive and contemporary, and is
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renowned for its skilfully curated fiction, non-fiction,
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poetry, garden book and children's book sections, all of
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which feature a remarkable and relevant variety of rare and
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innovative small presses.
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The store also carries a variety of hand-selected
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merchandise geared to lifestyle, literature and gardening, a
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revolving art exhibition and fresh plants.
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Hi, jessica and Eric, and welcome to the show.
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It's great to have you here.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.
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It's a pleasure to be here.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a nice surprise to get the email to do
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this and say, yeah, we're excited.
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Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited to learn all about you both and the
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store.
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So let's begin with learning about you both and how you
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became independent bookshop owners.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I'll go ahead and start.
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So I had worked in the book industry on the sales side,
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working with publishers selling books to accounts for a long
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time 28 years and then got laid off in April of 2020 and had the
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luxury of a nice severance and so spent about a year and a half
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during that timeframe not having to worry about work at
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all or having to look for work, which was a pretty amazing
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opportunity.
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And then, in early 21, needed to start to try and find a job
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for the first time in decades, and so that was honestly kind of
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frightening.
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And so, you know, started, started that process kind of for
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real for only just about a couple of weeks.
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And then, you know, people always ask was it your dream to
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own a bookstore?
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And I put it.
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You know it was not a dream of ours, but it was something that,
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because of my involvement in the industry and you know both
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of us being big readers forever, it was something we talked
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about here and there over our life together.
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I just never really had the chance to like really think
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about it, making it happen as a reality.
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So, in April of 21, I Googled, as I do every once in a while
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bookstores for sale in the United States and there's always
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the handful that pop up, and one of them was Back of Beyond
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in Moab, utah, which is an amazing and wonderful bookstore,
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and the particular draw that made it of interest to us at
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that moment was my mother lives in Grand Junction, colorado,
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which is just a couple hours away, so the opportunity to be
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much closer to her was really something we gave consideration
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to for 24 hours, because then, truly, the next day, there was
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the press release that the prior owners of Mrs Dalloway said put
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out about putting the store up for sale.
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So we spent 24 hours thinking about a bookstore in Moab Utah
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and then immediately started to work on what it would take to
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become owners of Mrs Dalloway.
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Speaker 2: Just the idea of being able to.
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We were at the point in our lives.
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It was a perfect timing.
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Eric was out of work and looking to not work in a
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corporate environment yeah, and he didn't want to go back to
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what I had been doing and I was kind of fine at my job.
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I loved the people I worked with .
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I liked my job too, but it was never in your soul kind of thing
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.
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And I felt like now would be a really good time where, empty
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nesters, we have two grown daughters that are independent,
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beautiful women on their own, and it was just a perfect time
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to make a big change like that and then to be able to do this
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and not have to move anywhere.
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And the Elmwood I mean Mrs Dalloway's is a presence in
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Berkeley and we had frequented that location quite a few times
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and loved that bookstore and we're like are you kidding me?
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This is an amazing opportunity, yeah.
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Speaker 3: So the timing was just really perfect with where
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we were right at that point in our lives of being able to Look
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at each other go out.
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Speaker 2: we could probably make this happen right now, and
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here we are when you speak to other bookstore owners, a lot of
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times their stories have something like there's.
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There's one point of their story where the stars are
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aligning, you know, I mean, there's just something that was
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telling them it's the right time .
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And for that that was, that was for us it was the right time.
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Speaker 1: That's a wonderful story.
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One of the things I've noticed while speaking with independent
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book shop owners from around the globe Is how many of them
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decided to open an independent book shop at the start of the
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pandemic but, just like you and mrs dalloway's, things aligned
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and there was no way of stopping what was meant to be.
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I think moments like that are truly exciting.
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Yeah, really exciting yeah eric , you're telling us a little bit
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about your background.
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You were with ingram, is that right?
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Speaker 3: I, yeah.
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So I started working at publishers group west
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distributor in the bay area in ninety two and so I've been with
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them and through different iterations, as they were bought
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and as their parent company was bought etc.
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And then they were a division owned by ingram.
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Speaker 1: Yes, I worked on the ingram publishing services side
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of their distribution arm and for our listeners, publishers
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group west is a great distribution company.
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It's when you want to look for if you're an author and you're
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signing with a hybrid publisher, because that means that your
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books will get good distribution and that they have a good
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chance of being in independent book shops yeah, yeah, correct.
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Speaker 3: so so pj w, as they're known, they were the
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first independent publisher distribution company that
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collected a lot of publishers together, who and gave them the
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opportunity to have like a full sales force and, and you know,
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synergy of working together and doing a lot more with the
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distributor than they could as independent small or medium
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publishers.
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And you know, since then there's been, you know, a bunch
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of different ones over the years that now you know, ingram ended
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up buying a few of them and kept them Separate in terms of
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identity in the publisher mix and not all the sales reps sell
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across brands and whatever.
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But it.
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Speaker 1: You know it's a.
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Speaker 3: It brought an opportunity for smaller
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publishers to have more strength in the market just by their
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accumulation under a larger and brah and therefore better for
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the authors to yeah, and I have a soft spot for small and medium
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presses.
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Speaker 1: Many are doing brilliant work.
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One example is Natanya Jants, co owner of sort of books in
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London.
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Along with her partner, mark Ellingham, they edited and
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published author.
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She had Karuna to like his novel the seven moons of Malia
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Almeida, which ended up winning the twenty twenty two book a
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prize.
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Speaker 3: Like transit with.
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Yeah it's not possible.
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I mean, they're so small publisher.
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They were like blown away by by what happened there.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I think I'm for the courage to
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take all this in and nurture them.
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It's great.
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I have another quick question did they used to be another
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wholesaler in the US and now it's just ingram?
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Speaker 3: In terms of just wholesaling, it's really just
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yeah.
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So you know wholesaling as distinct from distribution is,
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you know they just buy the books and the publishers and resell
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them without you know having the full sales representation and
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marketing.
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And you know it does have actual reps, but it's a
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different situation.
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But yeah, in terms of wholesalers, it's just ingram.
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There used to be, well, you know so, baker and Taylor who
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still around only servicing, you know, the education market.
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They used to do general wholesale.
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There's place called Gordon's Book is the in the northeast,
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but they like really just have a regional focus.
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So there used to be quite a lot more over the years and yeah,
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now it's just ingram.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for that information, jessica.
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I'd love to know more about your background in merchandising
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, in brand management, and how that reflects on the gifts that
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you sell in the store.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it was a little scary to go into a
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bookstore because I don't like other than through Osmosis and
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being married to me and in the book industry.
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I don't know much about running a bookstore, but I worked for a
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prominent home furnishings and decor company chain Can I name
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them?
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Sure possible for a market for a long time and in that position
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I was able to.
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I was a buyer.
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I was able to build assortments from concept to the market.
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Go traveling.
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I learned so much about sourcing and creating an assortment and
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focusing it in on your customer set and that kind of thing that
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it was a real attribute to bring to the bookstore.
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Books have a low margin and a lot of bookstores have.
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This is why bookstores have gifts and what we call sidelines
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, and in our store it's a small segment but it's.
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You can make a better margin with the gifts.
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I focus in my skills on bringing in gifts that are.
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You know Mrs Dalways has a high quality, eco friendly kind of
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vibe and a garden theme, so we have this, a lot of garden
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themed gifts, and it's really fun to to find new vendors
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source what we think will work with our customers.
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I try new things and sometimes they don't always work, but it's
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live and learn.
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And the customers just.
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It's such a thrill when they bring something to the counter
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to buy it and they make comment like positive comments about.
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this is perfect for my mother, or whatever it's really fun.
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Speaker 1: what you just said segues beautifully into my next
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question, because you talk a lot about being true to your values
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, and that is one of the things that drew you to purchasing, mrs
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Dalways.
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But I'd love to know how you're working to increase this aspect
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of the bookshop.
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Speaker 2: Well, I was telling Eric the other day we were
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talking about how all along in my career you know, climbing the
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corporate ladder etc.
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In different jobs I've learned so much and like had some
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amazing opportunities and worked with amazing people, but I
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never felt like it was part of me, like living with intent you
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know what I mean Like I'm getting stuff into stores and
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selling them but bring it home with paycheck and support the
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family.
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Mrs Dalloway's has this really engaging feel for the community.
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I feel like it's a gathering place for the community.
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They're looking for nice, quality, beautiful products and
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books and I wanted to make it a one-stop shop, like, especially
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at the holidays, they could come in and get something for
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everybody in their family, either a book or a gift or a
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combination, and sometimes they tie together, you know, a garden
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book and some seed collection, little chachkies.
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I feel like our values.
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You can feel them in the store.
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You walk in.
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It's engaging, it's airy and we want people to have you come in
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, is there?
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Speaker 1: a scent to the store.
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Speaker 2: If there is scent people say I love the scent of
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the store.
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I don't know what they're smelling.
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We have lovely soaps, yes.
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Speaker 3: In that area of the store.
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It's probably some of the soap, for sure.
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Yeah, I'm not sure it doesn't smell like a musty library it
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doesn't smell like a musty library.
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It doesn't smell like a used-to-use store now, which is
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a great smell, don't get me wrong.
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Speaker 1: But Ah yes, it's a wonderful smell, Although
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sometimes it tends to bring on a bout of sneezing.
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Speaker 2: Exactly.
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Speaker 1: What about you, Eric?
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How does Mrs Dalloway's keep you in tune with being true to
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your values?
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Speaker 3: You know I'm thrilled to be in the independent
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bookstore side of things for the sake of just, you know,
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literacy and spreading of knowledge, and you know just the
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opportunity to make information available to people that want
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it.
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You know, in a place that is safe and open and a gathering
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spot for people in the community , the ones that we see every day
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or every other day, or the ones , you know, people that are
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there for the first time and have never been there before and
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are enjoying themselves so much that they want to tell you that
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they're like oh, this is my first time in the store.
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I just love it so much.
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It's got such a great feel to it, you know, and it's like it
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just warms my heart.
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And you know we have to, of course, give tribute to Ann
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Leahy and Marion Abbott, the prior owners, because we haven't
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changed the store very much at all.
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You know, if you were there a bunch of years ago and you came
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in today, it's going to be recognizable, and so you know it
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was their vision.
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That was such a wonderful vision that you know we love the
00:14:34
store as is, and you know it'll probably change slowly over
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years but, not in any, you know not like we want to make big
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changes.
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You know so nice and people love it, as is.
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So, yeah, keep that going.
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Speaker 2: They're amazing women .
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Anyways, they're our mentors.
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We still have dinner with them every month or so.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, every couple months or so.
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They live in the neighborhood.
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They are in the store regularly , so it's great to see them on a
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friendly basis instead of, you know, like moving from the
00:15:04
business transaction relationship to actually like
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being friends and getting to know them more.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, life is about building relationships.
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That's the way I look at it.
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Earlier I was explaining to you how my time at the Elmwood area
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was when I was doing the old college visits with my sons, and
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I remember wandering down College Avenue and just thinking
00:15:28
about what a vibrant area it is .
00:15:30
And, of course, it features small businesses with these
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beautiful colorful awnings.
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Now, with UC Berkeley close by, would you say the Elmwood is a
00:15:41
tourist destination, and do you feel supported by your local
00:15:45
community?
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Speaker 2: I would say majority is the local community.
00:15:48
Mrs Dallaway's is in their heart and they let us know that.
00:15:53
Speaker 3: Like they were, like do you not mess this up.
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Speaker 2: We love this place and we're like we're in here.
00:16:00
We're here for the long haul.
00:16:01
We do see certain times of year , the parents of the students
00:16:07
come through town, Some people stay at the Claremont Hotel,
00:16:10
which is just walking distance away, or tourists from out of
00:16:14
town.
00:16:14
So there's a segment that definitely are out of towners.
00:16:19
And then also, like the greater Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area
00:16:24
, we get a lot of customers from just all over the Bay Area and
00:16:28
we're so lucky to have local authors.
00:16:30
We have a ton of local authors in our area and then them, their
00:16:34
friends and the whole writing community.
00:16:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fun when they just drop in Look for
00:16:39
their book and they're always.
00:16:41
It's fun when they're surprised to be able to find, even if
00:16:44
it's just one copy or two that we have in the store of their
00:16:47
book as they're stopping by again.
00:16:49
Speaker 2: The Elmwood population is about 12, just
00:16:51
in that small regional area.
00:16:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, look at the Elmwood district.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: And we have a lot of regulars.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely a very, very devoted clientele
00:17:02
from the neighborhood.
00:17:03
A lot of them have lived there forever.
00:17:07
The space before it was Mrs Dalloway's.
00:17:09
That was closed for a bit of time but before that it was
00:17:12
Avenue Book.
00:17:12
So there's been a bookstore in that location even much longer
00:17:16
than almost 20 years Mrs Dalloway's has been there and so
00:17:20
there are a lot of them that bring that up.
00:17:22
It's like, oh, I've been here since it was Avenue Books and
00:17:24
the depth of their love for the store was a little surprising.
00:17:28
It's like we expected it.
00:17:30
I mean, every independent bookstore is beloved by its
00:17:33
community and I don't think it's just me when I say that Mrs
00:17:37
Dalloway's, I think, is a little deeper, just because of the
00:17:40
history and the store prior closed and the neighborhood sort
00:17:43
of got together and wanted a store again.
00:17:45
When I started working there before True Ownership, like
00:17:50
right away every day there was one or more people wanting to
00:17:55
introduce themselves, say hi to the new owner, Because I started
00:17:59
working there full time before Jessica.
00:18:01
She kept her prior job for about six months, so we sort of
00:18:05
had a transition and it was just amazing to start to feel that
00:18:10
love for the store on a daily basis like very genuine in these
00:18:14
short conversations with the neighbors.
00:18:17
Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker 1: And one of the things I was thinking of the other day
00:18:21
, actually, while I was in my own local indie bookshop, barnes
00:18:23
Books, here in Ojai.
00:18:25
Everyone who came in that bookshop was greeted by the
00:18:28
manager, matt Henriksen, who was on the shop floor at that time,
00:18:32
and I couldn't help but notice how the customer's faces lit up,
00:18:36
not just by his friendly greeting, but because he took
00:18:39
them to the exact place where the books they were looking for
00:18:42
were located.
00:18:43
I just couldn't help but kind of smile to myself, because this
00:18:48
is a place where relationships are made.
00:18:52
Speaker 3: They made me happy.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: And that brings me to your booksellers.
00:18:55
I would love to hear about them and the genres they enjoy
00:18:58
reading.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: We have an amazing staff that came with the store.
00:19:04
They all decided to stay on after when we bought the store,
00:19:08
which we were so lucky because they bring.
00:19:12
They're mostly part-time.
00:19:13
We have nine people on staff.
00:19:15
One is full-time, the rest are part-time.
00:19:17
They bring a cumulative just short of 200 years of
00:19:22
bookselling experience.
00:19:23
With these nine people Like it's amazing.
00:19:26
A lot of them are retired or, you know, some have a second job
00:19:30
, but we have.
00:19:33
I'll start with the children's, the children's department.
00:19:35
We have an amazing children's specialists.
00:19:38
We have three children's specialists.
00:19:39
They all focus on a certain area but then they work together
00:19:44
to build relationships with schools and have author events
00:19:48
at schools etc.
00:19:49
Jennifer handles the buying and the you know, curation of
00:19:56
picture books and the young readers Anne handle, and
00:20:01
Jennifer's like a librarian at an elementary school as well.
00:20:04
So she has she the in on what kids are reading now and what
00:20:09
they should be reading etc.
00:20:09
Anne brings a ton of experience and she handles a lot of the
00:20:14
middle grade buying and guidance to customers and then they work
00:20:20
together on the, on curating the whole department.
00:20:23
And Carolyn is our floor manager.
00:20:25
She handles the young adult segment, she the buying and
00:20:31
curation and then they all read just General, especially Carolyn
00:20:36
.
00:20:36
She reads in the general fiction and she she's able.
00:20:40
And in contemporary romance she's able to give guidance to
00:20:44
customers when they come in, just in any segment of the store
00:20:47
, which is amazing.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: And who does all the buying?
00:20:51
Speaker 3: so I do about probably 60% of the front list,
00:20:54
new buying with publishers and then certain segments Some of
00:20:58
the other staff handles and that .
00:21:00
So that includes so Allison, who's one of the longtime staff
00:21:04
members.
00:21:04
She does the buying for the garden and nature section and in
00:21:08
terms of what she likes to read , she's like literary fiction
00:21:11
and it's in narrative non-fiction.
00:21:13
Sydney works with the reps for a lot of the university
00:21:19
publishers and Also then curates the art section art design
00:21:24
photography Along with Haida and Jennifer from the children's
00:21:27
also has a background in art, so she helps out there too.
00:21:31
Sydney also, I'd say, probably steers mostly towards literary
00:21:35
fiction and some non-fiction to.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, he likes Russian.
00:21:39
Speaker 3: Haida general non-fiction and and narrative,
00:21:44
narrative, non-fiction and general fiction reader.
00:21:46
And then we've got hut, who is our mystery expert.
00:21:50
Cynthia is our sci-fi and fantasy genre expert, and then
00:21:55
and finally, we have Hannah, who reads everything, and I mean
00:21:59
that literally.
00:22:00
So she can recommend Something for everybody.
00:22:04
But you know she she likes quirky E fiction, you know likes
00:22:09
good mystery, good, good narrative.
00:22:11
If what is what draws Hannah in ?
00:22:12
Speaker 1: sounds like you've got every genre covered.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, thankfully yeah.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: And how many square feet is the book shop?
00:22:20
2800.
00:22:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's 2800 about 28 and about 2500 selling and
00:22:25
then 300 back office.
00:22:26
Yeah right, that's a big space.
00:22:28
You know, to me it feels like a medium-sized store.
00:22:30
Yeah, you know it's, having been into so many bookstores
00:22:32
over the years.
00:22:33
There's a lot smaller and a lot bigger.
00:22:35
Yeah, it's, it's.
00:22:36
You know, you always wish for more, always just need more
00:22:39
space.
00:22:39
But it's a it's a good size, for sure.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: Okay, space in a book shop brings me on to my next
00:22:45
question.
00:22:45
Suppose a self-published author has followed the independent
00:22:49
book publishing association publishing guidelines and
00:22:53
Publishers widely through Ingram spark.
00:22:55
Would you consider carrying their book if you felt it reader
00:22:59
worthy and complied with the traditional publishing standards
00:23:03
?
00:23:03
And the reason I wanted to ask you both this question is
00:23:07
because many self-published authors Complain that their
00:23:13
local independent book shop won't carry their book.
00:23:16
So my main question that I asked them is where do you buy
00:23:20
your books?
00:23:20
Do you buy them from your local independent book shop?
00:23:23
Have you built up a relationship with the
00:23:26
booksellers in your book shop?
00:23:27
Do you have wide distribution?
00:23:30
I'd love your thoughts on this.
00:23:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, no, this is an interesting question on on
00:23:35
your, your list of questions.
00:23:37
You know.
00:23:38
So a lot of my feeling comes from my, my background of
00:23:41
working, you know, trying to sell books, and and while a lot,
00:23:44
of, a lot of my time at PGW and Ingram Was on the special sales
00:23:49
side, you know, overseeing the, the entire special sales
00:23:53
department, for a bunch of years , before that I did work on the
00:23:57
trade side and with the, the field reps that would go into
00:24:01
independent bookstores, and so you know, I, my, my answer
00:24:05
largely comes from that.
00:24:07
But I'll say that I, you know I always consider a book.
00:24:14
When an author gets in touch, you know, prefer it via email.
00:24:18
It's just hard to like have conversations in the store and
00:24:21
so I would always caution people just approach email.
00:24:24
That's the best way at first and I'll always, I like always,
00:24:27
take a look at the book.
00:24:28
And so you know so the self-published books, I have
00:24:33
brought some into the store here and there that are local
00:24:35
authors, and what makes me largely decide to do that is
00:24:39
upfront, without any sort of prompting.
00:24:41
You know they'll say something like, you know I have friends
00:24:44
and family that are gonna want to buy the book.
00:24:45
I'll send them to Mrs Dalloway's to get it, and so
00:24:48
I'll get a copy or two, and sometimes those will sell and
00:24:51
I'll maybe reorder another one, and other times they'll sit on
00:24:54
the shelf and so, like from my prior life, what I say is what
00:24:58
are you gonna do to drive customers into the store?
00:25:00
Because that's what a traditional publisher does with
00:25:04
publicity and marketing and you know all that social media yada,
00:25:07
yada that makes people come into the store looking for a
00:25:10
book.
00:25:10
I can't just put something on the shelf and cross my fingers
00:25:14
and hope someone happens upon it .
00:25:15
I mean, sure, there is some of that that goes on even with
00:25:18
traditional publishing and front-list buying, but for the
00:25:21
most part I'm gonna want the author to actually be upfront
00:25:24
with what they're gonna do to bring at least a few customers
00:25:27
in asking for that book.
00:25:28
And sometimes it's worth a try and sometimes it's not.
00:25:31
And you know, as you alluded to in your phrasing of the
00:25:35
question, there's only so much space and you know it's a low
00:25:39
margin business and we want books to be picked up off the
00:25:43
shelf and brought to the counter .
00:25:44
And yeah, that's the key.
00:25:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would stress to self-published authors
00:25:49
when you're doing advertising for your books, consider posting
00:25:53
a picture of yourself with your book in the independent
00:25:57
bookshop that is carrying your book, rather than just putting
00:26:00
an Amazon link along with your ad.
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Makes all the difference.
00:26:04
Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: And I'm not just blabbing about this, it's
00:26:07
something I have experience with because I self-published my
00:26:10
three novels and novella.
00:26:12
The first one was not ready to go out.
00:26:14
It needed another couple of editing runs.
00:26:17
By the third and fourth book I felt confident because I had a
00:26:21
great team behind me, which brings me on to another point.
00:26:24
Self-publishing to a high standard that equals
00:26:28
traditionally published books is expensive and it takes a lot of
00:26:32
time.
00:26:32
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, and it's a business where no
00:26:37
one's making a lot of money in book publishing and book sales.
00:26:41
You know, sure there's the top CEOs or whatever, but generally
00:26:45
no one in the business is making a lot of money and the general
00:26:49
public doesn't understand the fact that books have pre-printed
00:26:53
prices on them.
00:26:54
Nothing else on retail is like that.
00:26:57
I understand why people want to buy their books at a discount
00:27:00
and whatever you can do that you know.
00:27:02
And just then what Jessica's referring to is like inflation.
00:27:06
So, having spent years working with small publishers, they
00:27:09
never wanted to raise their prices.
00:27:11
You know, there's always the fear of like oh, people aren't
00:27:13
gonna buy it because I raised it a buck.
00:27:14
And there's always these like artificial benchmarks, like I
00:27:17
can't, paperback can't go over 1999.
00:27:20
There's no way, you know.
00:27:21
And then at a certain point they had to.
00:27:22
And it was interesting to see like, right when we bought the
00:27:26
store was when inflation generally was going crazy and
00:27:30
going out of sight.
00:27:30
And you know, there's a period of time where our expenses are
00:27:35
going up because everything's going up, but publishing took a
00:27:39
while to catch up and actually start to raise their prices.
00:27:41
It's noticeable.
00:27:42
Now, you know, now you've got like our best price at 40 bucks,
00:27:46
which is huge and that's expensive.
00:27:48
But you know, it was just.
00:27:50
I was glad and I was telling the reps like I'm glad your
00:27:54
publishers are actually starting to raise the prices, they're
00:27:56
catching up with inflation, because there was this like nine
00:27:58
month gap where they weren't yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker 1: I remember at the early stages of the pandemic
00:28:03
there was a paper shortage.
00:28:04
You know it was difficult shipping and everything stopped
00:28:08
for a while.
00:28:08
So that also raised the prices and it was difficult to get
00:28:12
certain books.
00:28:13
Another issue that comes up is discounting books.
00:28:16
If you look at the slice of the publishing pie, you have the
00:28:21
author, who spent years writing their book, you have the agent,
00:28:26
the publisher, and within the publisher you have the editors,
00:28:29
you have the marketing team, the cover designer, the formatter,
00:28:34
the sales team, the booksellers and bookshop owners.
00:28:37
And if you go discounting books , slashing their prices, the
00:28:42
piece of the pie involving everybody who has put together
00:28:46
that book that is now in your hands gets smaller and smaller.
00:28:50
And the truth is many authors are lucky if they make a living
00:28:55
wage from book sales.
00:28:57
They have second and third jobs .
00:28:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, yeah, I'm sure most authors don't make
00:29:02
a living.
00:29:03
Speaker 1: While we're speaking about publishing and pieces of
00:29:05
the pie, I was wondering since taking over Mrs Dalloway's, do
00:29:10
you see ways publishers and distributors could do more to
00:29:13
support independent bookshops?
00:29:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't really have an answer to that question,
00:29:18
even having had a chance to think about it for a while, and
00:29:22
definitely my history is skewing my thought process on this,
00:29:27
because I think the only things that I could think of would cost
00:29:30
more money some point along the line.
00:29:33
It would cost the public, like having more reps to visit the
00:29:37
stores, the independent bookstores, because there used
00:29:41
to be all the publishers used to have larger field force and
00:29:44
that meant that they could actually go into physically,
00:29:47
visit for their sales calls more stores than they do now, and a
00:29:50
lot of that over years moved to tele sales, which is good.
00:29:54
They can't afford to hire more reps.
00:29:56
But I think that would maybe be the one thing, because having a
00:29:59
sales rep for the big publishers that comes into the
00:30:02
store and therefore knows the store physically and is in there
00:30:07
like three or four times a year because there's so many books
00:30:10
published and I can only fit so many in the store, having good
00:30:14
reps to help you make those choices, who know your store, I
00:30:18
think that's a huge thing that tends to get forgotten at the
00:30:21
corporate accounting level of seeing how much it costs to have
00:30:25
a rep out in the field and having seen my teammates over
00:30:29
the years like fight to keep the field reps that visit the
00:30:34
bookstores and it's always a shrinking sales force.
00:30:37
It's always a shrinking sales force.
00:30:39
Speaker 2: I've been taking classes through the professional
00:30:41
booksellers school and the other people taking the like.
00:30:45
Right now I'm taking inventory management and a lot of the
00:30:48
other people attending our work at bookstores or their owners.
00:30:53
I surprising how many of these smaller bookstores don't have
00:30:58
reps visit them.
00:30:59
You're like who is my sales rep ?
00:31:00
Do I have a sales rep?
00:31:01
You know things like that.
00:31:03
And I was like, oh my God, we're so lucky, yeah, yeah,
00:31:06
because of where we are in a city.
00:31:11
Speaker 3: And a certain side of the door.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: I mean it's a building benchmark whether you
00:31:15
get a wrapper in a lot of cases, it would be really hard to
00:31:18
choose what to put in your store .
00:31:21
Speaker 3: The flip side is, I would add, winter Institute is a
00:31:24
great opportunity for the stores that don't see reps to be
00:31:28
able to meet with at least some of the publishers that are
00:31:30
there.
00:31:31
Speaker 1: And are you attending Winter Institute in a couple of
00:31:34
weeks?
00:31:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, we went last year, we're going this year and
00:31:37
I also think about that in terms of the gallery room.
00:31:39
I don't want to take those because we get them in the store
00:31:42
and we automatically get a lot of advanced reader copies that
00:31:48
there's a lot of small stores around the country that hardly
00:31:52
get any.
00:31:52
It's like when I go to Winter Institute I'm super selective
00:31:55
because, oh, that should be for the people that don't get that
00:31:59
automatically.
00:32:00
Speaker 1: When you were talking about the sales reps, I
00:32:03
couldn't help but think how sad it is that the indie bookshop
00:32:06
owners living in smaller communities are missing out on
00:32:10
their visits.
00:32:10
That's really sad.
00:32:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, they probably don't know what they're missing
00:32:14
in a lot of cases.
00:32:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
00:32:16
Okay, what do you both enjoy most about being independent
00:32:20
bookshop owners?
00:32:21
Speaker 2: I really enjoy.
00:32:23
Well, other than working with these amazing people our staff
00:32:26
is so great and they're so smart and just well read.
00:32:30
I really enjoy the events.
00:32:32
Last year we put on almost 100 events author events in store,
00:32:38
meeting the authors, bringing the community together.
00:32:40
It's really fun and a lot of times almost every time we have
00:32:46
people commenting oh this is the first time I've been here, and
00:32:49
things like that, like, oh, I really like this space.
00:32:52
That's really fun.
00:32:53
We also do the school assemblies, have authors visit
00:32:58
schools in the local area and that's our team sets that up.
00:33:02
And we do pre-order campaigns and it's really neat to see
00:33:07
books getting in the hands of kids and sometimes the parents
00:33:11
of one school will buy books for the title one school down the
00:33:14
street.
00:33:15
You know that kind of thing.
00:33:16
It's just really community building and it's just like.
00:33:20
You know, it's just a like, just the experience of being in
00:33:23
the store and the engagement of the community.
00:33:26
What do you say In addition?
00:33:30
Speaker 3: to that on a sort of really straightforward level.
00:33:32
It's great not having anyone to report to and, you know, just
00:33:36
being in charge of our own destiny.
00:33:38
You know, of course it's a little nerve wracking.
00:33:41
It's just buying a successful business and hopefully
00:33:45
everything goes well and it'll stay that way as long as we need
00:33:48
it to being able to.
00:33:50
You know, every once in a while just sort of take a deep breath
00:33:53
and step back and look around and go like, wow, this is all
00:33:56
ours and it's a place that you know again I said this earlier
00:34:00
that people just enjoy so much and it's super fun to have those
00:34:06
customers comment on how much they're enjoying the store.
00:34:10
And then the kids you know like early on early on, starting
00:34:13
working in the store and having the parents with the little kids
00:34:15
and realizing I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to see that kid
00:34:19
grow up here probably and now seeing that like a couple you
00:34:22
know there's a few of them that are in the store all the time in
00:34:26
there, you know, like two and a half years older than they were
00:34:28
when I first started to meet them.
00:34:30
And the cutest thing is when you're working behind the
00:34:33
counter and it's a tall counter and the first thing you see is
00:34:38
the little hand.
00:34:39
Like slap the book onto the counter.
00:34:40
You don't see the child because they're shorter than the
00:34:43
counter and just the whole thing appears up there.
00:34:45
And then the parent comes behind and say it's just
00:34:48
adorable, you know, knowing that like wow, these kids are going
00:34:51
to be readers for life because of the space that we're
00:34:55
providing open to them and that's all we're doing.
00:34:57
So I think that just the joy the joy I get from seeing other
00:35:03
people's joy in the store is the biggest.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: You can't get from the efficient way of buying a
00:35:08
book, if you know what I mean.
00:35:09
Yeah, I know what you mean.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree with you.
00:35:14
Okay, let's talk about books.
00:35:17
What are you both currently reading?
00:35:20
Speaker 2: I'm reading Granted, we always we read a lot of
00:35:23
advanced copies, so they're probably not even out yet, but
00:35:26
like Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange he this comes out in
00:35:31
March.
00:35:31
Tommy Orange is the author that wrote there there that was just
00:35:36
blew out and I really like his writing, so I'm reading that now
00:35:40
.
00:35:40
At the same time, I'm trying to insert backlist books into you
00:35:47
know we read for events and we read for you know, upcoming
00:35:50
books.
00:35:51
But I'm trying to insert backlist.
00:35:53
And the success of Tom Lake for Anne Patchett got me thinking
00:35:58
about her and I had never read Anne Patchett.
00:36:00
So I'm reading right now Belcanto.
00:36:02
So I just started that.
00:36:03
But yeah, those are the two I'm into right now.
00:36:06
Speaker 1: Lyric Opera of Chicago I think it was in 2016,
00:36:10
2017, something like that they turned Belcanto into an opera.
00:36:14
I'm sure it's fantastic.
00:36:17
That's cool.
00:36:18
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:36:19
Speaker 1: Eric, what are you reading?
00:36:21
Speaker 3: I'm actually between books.
00:36:22
I just finished the Morning Sight from Taya Albright and
00:36:26
that comes out in March.
00:36:27
Very good, I really enjoyed that.
00:36:30
I think I'm going to start Last Acts, which just just came out
00:36:33
this week and this seems like a rollicking.
00:36:37
Interesting it's fiction.
00:36:41
It's about like a father-son gun store owning father and son
00:36:46
forced to live together after a near-death experience.
00:36:49
Speaker 2: Sounds like a relationship.
00:36:50
Speaker 3: Sounds like one of those that, like, gets a little
00:36:52
crazy.
00:36:53
Speaker 1: I just finished reading Danielle Trissonis the
00:36:56
Puzzle Maker.
00:36:57
Speaker 2: I know a lot of those , did you like?
00:36:59
Speaker 1: it.
00:36:59
Yes, I did.
00:37:01
I love a good thriller and you definitely hit the spot.
00:37:04
It was great.
00:37:04
Jessica and Eric, thank you so much for being guests on the
00:37:09
Bookshop Podcast.
00:37:09
I know your days are extremely busy and I appreciate you taking
00:37:14
the time to have a chat, Mandy thank you so much for all you do
00:37:16
.
00:37:18
Speaker 2: This is really fun to have to be on your show and I
00:37:20
listen to you all the time and it's a great show.
00:37:23
I love when you interview authors and then just supporting
00:37:26
independent book stars it's just amazing.
00:37:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much for having us.
00:37:30
It was a lot of fun.
00:37:31
A little nerve-wracking, a little nerve-wracking.
00:37:33
Speaker 1: I did okay.
00:37:33
You did better than okay.
00:37:36
You were fabulous and you both have such a great story.
00:37:40
Speaker 2: I would love for people to do this for themselves
00:37:41
, Like realize you can live with intention, you know you really
00:37:46
can.
00:37:47
Speaker 1: Ah you see that will make a great bumper sticker.
00:37:50
There you go.
00:37:52
You've been listening to my conversation with Jessica and
00:37:56
Eric Green, owners of Mrs Dalloway's in the Elmwood
00:38:00
district of Berkeley, california .
00:38:02
To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to
00:38:06
thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a
00:38:11
review wherever you listen to the show.
00:38:12
You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram
00:38:18
and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast.
00:38:22
If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to
00:38:25
suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via
00:38:29
the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom.
00:38:32
The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy
00:38:36
Jackson Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly,
00:38:40
executive Assistant to Mandy, adrian Otterhan and Graphic
00:38:44
Design by Francis Barala.
00:38:46
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
