From Patch:
The second romance-only bookstore in the country opened in Tinley Park in mid-June. Love’s Sweet Arrow is owned and operated by mother-daughter team Roseann and Marissa Backlin, who were inspired to open the business by their love for romance novels.
“Romance is one of the most widely read genres in publishing, and yet there were only two exclusively romance bookstores in the world before we opened. And the only other one in the country is on the west coast,” Marissa Backlin said. “We wanted to do our part to change that and give romance readers a place to find their favorite books in the Midwest judgement-free.”
Developing the store from idea to actual opening took about a year.
“We had to do a lot of research into authors, publishing houses, form a business plan and attempt crowdfunding,” said Roseann Backlin, who also works as a food service manager at a local elementary school. The Backlins did a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $12,000 and are now accepting donations on Patreon. “We reached out to friends who had spare bookshelves, went to a resale shop [for furniture] and were lucky enough to get some of our used stock from a retiring bookstore owner.”
. . . .
In the age of impersonal ordering on Amazon, Love’s Sweet Arrow aims to be more than just an independent bookseller offering new and used novels. Marissa and Roseann hope to make it a community space, with events centered on bringing local residents together.
“In part of our research, we found that independent bookstores that focused on that community space feel and provided events for the community at large were more successful and were embraced by the community,” Marissa said.
Love’s Sweet Arrow hosts its own book club every other month, but encourages other local clubs to host meetings at the store.
Link to the rest at Patch
PG went to school and lived for several years in the Chicago area. While he vaguely remembered the name, Tinley Park, he had no idea where it was located.
A quick search revealed that Tinley Park is a village of 56,000 in South suburban Chicago east of Joliet.
While 56,000 people sounds a bit large for a “village,” if PG recalls correctly, under state law, Illinois has Cities, Towns and Villages. They are each forms of municipal government and PG seems to remember that no more Towns are being created, just Cities and Villages.
Terrence, we all know you’re not romance’s target market, but romance is often accorded unwanted-cousin status in the chain bookstores. So no harm, no foul that you did not know this.
I plan to visit Tinley Park in the near future, simply to support this bookstore. We once had a romance store in the northern ‘burbs as well, but that closed down in the early 2000s. I’ll have to look up where Tinley Park is actually located, not being from the Southtown myself.
“We wanted to do our part to change that and give romance readers a place to find their favorite books in the Midwest judgement-free.”
I didn’t now judgement was a problem at Barnes & Noble or the independent,community oriented bookstores we keep hearing about. But, if judgement is a problem, Amazon is an obvious answer.