The last couple of months have brought many changes to the book selling business, but then the last couple of months have brought many changes to EVERY business.
At first it was limit your exposure so we bought hand sanitizers, plastic gloves, and Lysol wipes. But we were still open at least half a day and we were still scheduled to attend several big off-site events that we take part in each year. I think it is one of those things I will remember for ever: “ the where were you when…” . I was scheduled to take part in the Vintage Market Days 3 day event in Amite so I left home at 6am that Friday morning. On the way I was passing a family dollar as it was opening so I stopped in. Though I was hearing horror stories on all social media about supplies the store had hand wipes, and toilet paper, and they even had Lysol and Clorox cleaning wipes on the CLEARANCE rack. Well that seemed like a sign to me that everything was going to be OK so I picked up a supply figuring I had 3 days of wanting to wipe down my cellphone every time I swiped someone’s credit card and I headed on my way. The event is held each year in a very large and spacious open air rodeo barn so there was no need to be close to people or breath their air. When I got there I built my 10x12 pop-up bookstore home for the weekend and by opening time at 9am when I looked out of the door there was a long line of folks waiting (spaced nicely) to come on in and shop with us. Everything truly was going to be OK. The show starts at 9am. At 10 am the crowd is already thinning and we start hearing rumors that the state of Louisiana may be shutting down all public gatherings. By 11am the place is a ghost town, and one of the other vendors shows me a social media post saying the event has been closed down. By noon the organizers had given us the word and told us we had to shut it down, pack up and head home. That was the beginning.
Over the course of the next week events started cancelling one by one, then retail shops were told they had to shutter their doors so the public could no longer come into the shop and any transactions had to be contact free. Hmmmm, how do you sell books behind closed, AND LOCKED, doors?
I have always been the first to admit that I am a blessed and lucky person. When we named the store “The Conundrum” 5 years ago and decided it was going to sell books AND puzzles we always thought of the puzzles as a sideline. As luck would have it a few weeks before the shut-in I had met with one of our puzzle distributors and ordered a fresh supply. When the boxes arrived on the very day people got locked in their homes we were able to ride the wave of the new found jigsaw puzzle craze. We quickly pivoted from a cozy bookstore you could browse in that sold a few puzzles, to an online puzzle store that also sells a few books. Like I said, I have always been lucky and blessed. Daily posts to social media accounts like Instagram and Facebook of the current stock of puzzles become a nightly feeding frenzy as people tried to get their favorites before they were gone. Suddenly puzzles were in short supply and huge demand everywhere in the USA but we had them – and keep get more every few days!
But we are a bookstore so I really had to figure out how to sell books behind closed doors. Social media was working well for puzzles, and when I am in the shop I love to chat with people and recommend my favorite books to them so it was only natural that my next step was launching “Chatting Books Online”. Chatting Books Online is a daily social media (and now blog) post where I get to recommend one book a day to anyone who wants to read it. I skip around between genres : a work of fiction today, a memoir tomorrow, a children’s book here and there, the occasional gardening or cookbook and then maybe more fiction, etc. I tell you why I am recommending it, and how to order it. If you decide you want that book I can then either direct you to our website to place an order or I can email and invoice directly to you. You simply click on the embedded link in the email and pay online and let me know if you want the book shipped via the US Postal service , or if you want to pick it up from our front bench in our newly created twice daily contact free package pick up times. You see, I still had to come to the store twice a day to feed and care for the chickens. For those of you who missed that blog about this time last year my Grandson gifted us with the baby chicks his kindergarten class had hatched. The girls: Princess Buttercup, Jo March, and Lizzy Bennett; live in the back yard here at the bookshop and Buster would not appreciate my bringing them home. So since I am going to be here to feed chickens , and collect eggs I might as well fulfill a few online orders each day. And the support and orders coming in from the community has been AMAZING. Then all of a sudden a certain giant online seller decided books were not important enough to ship, but we have never stopped shipping books to our loyal customers. Like I said, very blessed.
So yes, all of our events for the next several months (which comprise a huge chunk of our annual business) are cancelled. There was very little spring Vintage Market Days. There was no Market at the Mill, no Festival de Fleur, no Louisiana Federation of Garden Clubs Show, no Audubon Pilgrimage and no Spring Garden Tour . There will be no West Feliciana Children’s Book Festival this May or Walker Percy Weekend this June , and missing these events makes my soul hurt a bit and my mind and heart worry, but we are here, we are healthy and we are still going strong. We have so much to be thankful for and the biggest part of that is the support we have felt from our friends, customers , and community – you guys have been WONDERFUL.
What does tomorrow bring? When will be finally be able to welcome you back into the shop? Honestly, I have no idea but in the meantime we will keep pivoting and figure out our way forward one step at a time. This week we will even try out virtual book discussions on Zoom for the first time! I hope it never fully replaces the in-store events and that we can get back to those soon but in the meantime it is a way to hear about new books and talk to the authors when we cannot be together in person so we will give it a try. You are welcome to join us (more info in newsletter) .
Until we chat again, stay safe, be well and enjoy the new ways we are learning to interact. I guess you really can sell books (and puzzles) behind closed doors.
