They have empathy and there are thousands of studies that reading fiction makes you more empathic. It’s a given most readers are generally decent people. It’s been 20 years and it’s still the coolest thing in the world. She would do this all day long and I said, “you get to tell people this is the thing? Sign me up!” You get to turn people onto books.You get to care about something and tell other people to care about it too. She’d walk up and say, “hey, this is the one and this is why.” They’d come back and say this was awesome, asking for more recommendations. It’s the simple idea of people looking around, not having an idea, and just browsing. Years ago, we had an employee who taught hand selling. I get to talk about things that are truly wonderful and perfect all day to people who want to know. What do you love most about owning and operating a bookstore?Īs retail goes, this is about as good as it gets. Chuck and Trish walked and counselled us through it and they kept that up. There was a point in time one August that was particularly bad. The industry was not that great and it still amazes me. They built it and we bought it.įor the first couple of years it could have gone in the ditch. We have access to these people because Chuck and Trish were there from the beginning to feed and water that. It’s that people want to do the right thing for the right season. People who read everything and made a conscious choice to pay a little bit more to buy from a local book store. The one ace we had was that we bought a shop that has probably 350 loyal customers. Some normal years that aren’t that lucrative, but at least it’s normal. Year 3-4: Everyone’s enjoying the e-reader and we struggle. Year 2: Everyone gets an e-reader for Christmas. Year 1: Learn everything about owning a new business. It’s an old joke between Mandy and myself that we’ve been doing this for 10 years and there hasn’t really been a normal year yet. How has your bookstore been embraced by your community? It wasn’t a sale that was done – give us a cheque and they’re gone – it was always going to be a succession plan. It was a decent of them to make this particular plan for us. But they worked out a succession plan, including a bump in my salary, and a payment plan for us. At the time, we knew the e-reader was coming and few people were gonna buy a bookstore. I’m 40 years old at the time and I don’t know how to do anything else so I said, “okay, let’s do the new cool thing.” I felt I owed it to them a little bit, too. They recognized quickly they’d been here before. Chuck and I walked out of the conference and Chuck said, “look, we’re still cool right?” Then there was a conference and we came out of it with an introduction to the e-reader. That made a huge impression on all of us. They had a plan, stuck to it, and were relentless. Bookstores were dying left and right and Trish and Chuck steered us through. In 2003, a few years after I got there, we had gotten back to a pre-Chapters level. I watched them make decisions – watch the inventory, look at how things are shipped, save nickels wherever possible. For the first time in the 15-year history of the shop they were unsure of the ground under their feet. We thought we’d try certain things: coffee, trinkets, things other than books. After the first little while when things went down 30% we weren’t sure what we were gonna do. I thought I could make a difference at Wordsworth, too.Ībout a month before I got to Wordsworth, In the spring of 1999, Chapters opened up – the big new shiny box store. I wanted to run something new and cool and do something different. I got as far as coming to their door and I didn’t go in. I considered asking for my job back at KW Bookstore. For the first few weeks everything I touched turned to a dumpster fire – it was a different context from the used bookstore I had been working at forever. I introduced myself, got lucky, and got the job. In 1999 a position came up at Wordsworth and I was ready for a change. What motivated you to become a co-owner or Wordsworth when the previous owners were selling? There’s a great history of how your store came to be on the website. Wordsworth was the first independent bookstore I really fell in love with, so I’m excited this is our first interview. I (Jen) had the pleasure of speaking with David, co-owner of Wordsworth Books, about his experience of being a bookstore owner, the practice of “hand selling,” the single most important reason why the world needs novels, and more.
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