2018 has been a great year for the bookstore and we owe it all to our loyal customers for continuing to support our shop. We cannot thank you enough! More and more we feel like a novelty as customers actually seek us out when traveling and are humbled by all the kind words and encouragement to keep a real book shop alive.
As we wrap up 2018 and go into 2019 I thought it would be fun to give you a “State of the Book Shop” update.
The Shop has now been open for 34 years! 25 by former owner, Flora Faraci, and 9 now by the Elmore clan.
2018 statistics
- 19771 Items sold
- 25903 items added to inventory
- 2174 items donated to local charities and libraries.(We also donate thousands more for customers who drop books off at our store)
- $785 donated to local charities, schools and community events
People frequently ask us how we get all our books
- Most of our books come from you, our customers! You can drop books off any time we are open. We will give store credit for those we need and then you can either pick up the books we don’t need or we will donate them for local charities.
- Large estates. These go directly to our basement and then we cull out sections in the store to make room for the new inventory. The culled books are donated to charities and the library
- Donations-Thank You!
- The rest come from Judy and Susan shopping local garage and estate sales. It’s a rough job but someone has to do it!
Accomplishments in 2018
- Flipping Sections means new stock! We brought in several very large estates this year and were able to flip the books in many sections such as:
- Fiction
- Mythology
- Crafts
- Antiques
- Science
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Book Events! We participated in multiple book signings at the local libraries. Nnedi Okorafor, Colson Whitehead, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Nikki Grimes were just a few of the amazing authors to come into town.
- Chip and some mobile payments now accepted! We recently upgraded our credit card system so we are now able to process Chip Credit Cards. Also we can now take Apple Pay and other mobile payment options!
What can you look forward to in 2019?
- Floor lift! We are giving the carpet on the 3rd floor an update.
- Bi-Monthly newsletters! We will be sending out two newsletters a month instead of the more lengthy monthly ones so we can keep you updated on what is going on in the store.
- More Books Coming! We are still working on adding to the following sections, new stock added weekly!
- Art
- Architecture
- Science Fiction
- And of course, more pictures of Donnie and Stanley as they grow!
Again, thank you so much for your support of our Book Shop! We know how easy it is just to order books online but your patronage allows us to keep a brick and mortar store alive and we promise to do this for as long as we can and to give back to our community as much as we can.
We wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2019 is a great one!
Susan, Don, Judy, Trey, Kenton, Donnie, Stanley, Linda and Gabrielle
