Hello from the Conundrum Bookshop in St Francisville, Louisiana. It has been awhile since I have written so let’s catch up a bit.
2022 ended in a whirlwind of activity. We celebrated our seventh anniversary of opening the doors of our beloved bookshop in early December and though we have grown consistently every year (with the pandemic exception of 2020 when we didn’t grow but didn’t really lose ground either), 2022 was by far our best year of sales yet.
We owe so much of our success to our incredibly supportive community of booklovers, we truly wouldn’t be here without you .
So what fueled this increase ? We had a few amazingly popular books this year – if you follow us @conundrumbooks on Facebook , Instagram and/or Twitter then you saw us count down the 6 best sellers in the first week of the year as that week’s featured books in Chatting Books online. But in case you are curious they were :
# 6 : Little Southern Belle by Sarah Wise Dudak
# 5 : A Man for Others by St. Francisville’s own Kevin Couhig
# 4 : Early Camellia’s in Louisiana by F. Wayne Stromeyer & Trenton James
# 3: The Girls in The Stilt House by Kelly Mustian
# 2 : I’m Dead, Now What ?
# 1 : Wild Ride : A memoir of I.V.Drips and Rocket Ships by St Francisville native , cancer survivor and space traveler Hayley Arceneaux
Three of the six best sellers of the year were kicked off at hugely popular books signing events held at The Conundrum. We have plans to host many events in 2023 as well and you won’t want to miss them so stay tuned to this newsletter and to our social channels for announcements .
Speaking of our online daily posts on social media called “Chatting Books Online” it has really expanded our reach bringing awareness of a small bookshop in a tiny town to the attention of so many. Through this daily blog started to keep folks informed while our doors were closed during the pandemic we have gathered a following that extends well beyond St Francisville’s borders. We ship our featured books out regularly to folks both near and far but one of my favorite things is when someone shows up in the shop saying they follow us on Facebook or Instagram and decided to spend a day / weekend in St Francisville so they could come to the shop – and here’s the best part – they then pull out a list of the featured books they want to see , and usually buy, in person . I cannot tell you how validating it is to know that now, in Year 3 Day 293 of daily posts (can you believe it has been that long since the Covid lockdowns?) , folks are still reading and appreciating what we are sharing.
The final way we have been growing in 2022 is by expanding the amount of shows and festivals where we pop-up an onsite bookshop. We go to several every single month. Some are gardening events, some literary festivals, some marketplace and holiday events. At each one we curate the selection of books that we bring to fit the event and the attendees. We meet so many interesting folks at these events and we are signed up for even more in 2023.
The first of these events coming up will be the Gardens and Graveyards Symposium being held January 28 in neighboring Woodville, MS. which will be quickly followed by the return of The Writers & Readers Symposium in St Francisville on Feb. 4 (read more about this in this email) , and then The Natchez Literary & Cinema Celebration being held Feb. 23-24, 2023. These will then be followed by a flood of gardening festivals to welcome spring and then The Walker Percy Weekend in early June 2023. Wow, writing all that down sure sounds exhausting , but also like a lot of fun . Hope to see you at some of these events.
Again, thanks for your support in our first 7 years – here’s to many , many more !