From Shelf Awareness:
After more than a decade of running From My Shelf Books & Gifts in Wellsboro, Pa., co-owners Kevin and Kasey Coolidge are “ready to move on to new pursuits. But they’re not selling their bookstore using a traditional method. They’re offering one person the chance to win a bookstore for $75,” according to the shop’s blog.
The contest is straightforward: pay a $75 entry fee and write a 250-word essay about why a bookstore is important to a community. Entries must be postmarked by March 31, 2018. If 4,000 people enter the contest, the Coolidges will select the top 20, then a panel of impartial judges will choose a winner. If 4,000 entries are not received, all entry fees will be returned, and the couple will continue to run the bookstore.
“My husband and I grew up here, and Wellsboro deserves a bookstore,” said Kasey. “Kevin thought it would be nice to be able to pay it forward and give someone else the opportunity, especially since starting a business is hard.”
“For $75 and an essay, someone could win their own bookstore,” Kevin added: “We need to at least 4,000 entries in our contest to cover our current inventory, shelves, signage and six months of paid rent.” At least 4,000 entries at $75 each would yield $300,000.
Link to the rest at Shelf Awareness
Didn’t someone already try something like this? It was in some place like Key West, or something. Whatever happened to that?
Personally, I think if you aren’t making money, can’t sell the store and don’t want to keep it going, it’s time to close up shop and move on.
I have no disdain for book stores. I love them. When they sell books. I haven’t been to one in years (outside of one visit to a local used book store that’s still hanging on), because I’m not interested in a small selection, coffee, useless overpriced crap, or any of the hundreds of weird magazines they sell.
But aren’t the desire for bookstores to be profitable and the desire for them to shelve every self-published book an author wants them to shelve mutually contradictory, no matter which way you flip-flop? A few hundred copies are considered great sales for a self-published book, and every spot on the shelf a store gives to a book that’s unlikely to sell well is a spot they don’t have for a book that might sell better and make them more money. (And if they have a lot of amateurish-looking books, they might even develop a reputation for not having good stock and sink further.) I can see how it would be consistent to say, “Bookstores shouldn’t care so much about making money, and they should carry more self-published books!”, and it would be consistent to say, “Bookstores should focus on making money, so it’s totally understandable if they don’t want self-published books.” But saying “Bookstores should focus on making money, but poop on them because they won’t carry my self-published book!” is not.
I’m not sure you’re really getting the point I was making. Self-published authors have no reason to have the interests of the bookstore in mind–not just because there are other places to sell their books but because indie bookstores are rarely even a place to sell their books at all (due to the choices and business practices of the bookstore).
Self-published authors having a bad feeling toward the “poor bookstores” because bookstores refuse to shelve indie books (for individuals who have such feelings for such reasons) don’t think, “Well, it’s totally understandable that you don’t want to shelve my book, or other indie books that I think are good, because our books are actually total crap so of course you wouldn’t shelve them. How do we expect you to make any money if you only shelve our crap?” It’s more like, “We indie authors are expected to succeed or fail based on the quality of our product, and yet you bookstores expect not to be held to the same standard. You want the public–including us–to support you just because you’re indie, you do books, and you deserve it. Whereas we, who are also indie and also do books, get no such equal consideration from you.”
I’m not saying this is how I personally feel. I’m saying this may be how some indie authors feel, and it’s a totally understandable feeling.
I’m a little shocked at some of the scorn heaped on a bookstore by people who are presumably readers and writers. Sure, it might not be the most profitable business, but money isn’t everything, particularly if you already have enough. For someone who’s independently wealthy or comfortably retired, but loves books and wants something to do with their time that’s not TOO extroverty, but still brings them into contact with people, running a bookstore would be pretty much perfect. In fact, if I came into a bunch of money (and wasn’t the sort of person who would just spend all my new free time reading and writing, happily going days on end without seeing another human face), I might like to open a bookstore myself. I hope this one is an enjoyable hobby for its winner (obviously someone for whom $75 is a non-negligible expense should think better of entering!) and continues to give pleasure to its customers, as few as they may be.
I think the thing is that bookstores are nominally a for-profit retail business, so they *should* be making money. But we’ve seen a lot of articles lately that make it sound like such-and-such bookstore is about to go under because it’s unprofitable, but because bookstores have some intrinsic value to society (as if they’re the only places one can access books), people ought to essentially give them money as as if it’s a charity or buy books there at full price even if they can get a better deal elsewhere. It’s this weird moral obligation that a lot of articles about bookstores want to put on people (“Support this bookstore or else you’re contributing to the downfall of society”) that has gotten a lot of people annoyed.
If all the people who thought they’d like to own a bookstore one day actually looked at it as either 1) a for-profit retail establishment that, like all retail establishments, needed to earn its place in the world and therefore they needed to do real work in figuring out how to run a profitable bookstores, or 2) looked at is as a fun thing to do/hobby/way to contribute to their community, funded by some other income source or, as you say, through the proprietor being independently wealthy, I’m pretty sure no one would have a problem with it.
In short, it’s not that anyone here is against bookstores. It’s that people are tired of bookstores being portrayed as the last bastion of literacy and we should all chip in and do our part to keep them running so our society doesn’t fall into illiterate chaos.
Also, some of that ‘scorn’ you mention might be because independent bookstores seem to want all of us to help them stay in business while refusing to shelve many/any independently published books. There are exceptions, I’m sure, but the ‘scorn’ most bookstores (including independents) have for indie authors is pretty well known. One could say “Why should bookstores stock books that aren’t very good/haven’t been vetted/there’s no market for?” and that’s true enough. But that “why should we support something there’s no market for” can be turned right back around to the bookstores. “Prove your worth/value in the market and we’ll put our money/resources behind you. Until you do that, you’re on your own.” The sentiment can go both ways.
If there were truly a person like this, with money to burn who wants to set up shop in the middle of nowhere, they could have just bought them out at the $300,000 and skipped the essay writing thing.
Or they could open this type of bookshop in a much bigger and busier area, possibly ensuring a better chance of survival and success for the store.
Like you, I wouldn’t mind owning my own bookstore if I were independently wealthy. But I wouldn’t be doing it in Wellsboro, PA.
I have no doubt there are some people with a romantic enough notion of running a bookstore to go for this. I have many doubts that there are 4,000 of them willing to shell out $75 for a 1 in 4,000 chance to have that opportunity. $75 is a not-insubstantial amount of money for most people. Most of us need a little better assurance that we’d actually be getting something in return for that money. It’s not a lottery ticket you can buy with pocket change. On top of that, the 4,000 people would need to be either already living in or willing to move to the physical location this bookstore is located.
On the whole, while I commend them for thinking outside the box, I also think this approach is kind of offensive to the entire concept of real estate and business ownership.
Uh, I think I’d rather buy $75 worth of Lotto tickets. Even if I won only $2, at least I wouldn’t have an albatross of a business around my neck… and talons into my wallet.
Oh, BTW, winning Lotto tickets aren’t curated, as this “contest” will be. Hit the numbers and win, or not. No committee chosing the winner from the finalists.
This reminds me of the old joke. First prize is a bookstore in Wellsboro. Second prize is two bookstores in Wellsboro.
No, thank you.
I don’t know…if someone has a secret dream to own and run a small bookstore, this might be worth a $75 gamble. If you actually won, you would have several months to try and make it a viable business for the long haul. And if you have to liquidate at some point, you probably would still come out ahead with an up front investment of just $75.
And I doubt it is limited to local residents…anyone want to move to the country?
http://www.wellsboropa.com/
They should just start selling their inventory online via Amazon. I bet they could get rid of some of their stock that way.
They were doing that before they opened the store, and sometime in 2011 ‘something’ went wrong. It was totally not their fault though.
http://www.wellsborobookstore.com/our-amazon-scandal
I have found it hard sometimes to get info or resolve issues with Amazon. It does seem strange that they were never even able to learn what got them kicked off.
Or they tell us that, knowing that Amazon will never bother to call them on it.
One question is them claiming that there was no prior notice and Amazon telling them there was. Since they had ‘joined’ their accounts, were the warnings going to the wrong email? (Yeah, yeah, then how’d they get the ‘you’re done’ message, I know.)
Hey, now I know where to send that “bookstores are dying” essay I have nothing to do with.
Careful there, you don’t want to ‘win’ by accident! 😉
Good luck with that. Wellsboro is out in the middle of nowhere. The 2000 census of about 3,200 people hasn’t appreciably changed since 1920. There is no way 4,000 people pony up $75 for a raffled off store full of used books.
One seeming advantage to doing this (for them) is that entrants aren’t going to be requesting – or getting – financial information about how the business is doing.
Any bets that the ones that ‘pony up’ that $75 will have to ‘ask’ for it back if they don’t hit 4000+? If it’s a year later many will have forgotten all about it.
As I said above: Run. Run away.
Well I guess there’s one born every minute.
Maybe I should try this with my old cassette tape collection, for $30 and 300 word essay on Music, you can be the proud owner of a heart cassette tape.
To quote the kids these days: Oh My God.
No, just no. Looks like they were hoping to be ‘bought out’, but since no one person seems interested in paying them 300K for it they’re trying to get some 4000+ fools to do it at $75 a pop.
And there’s no guarantee the ‘winner’ won’t end up the actual ‘loser’ by being ‘stuck’ with this bookstore.
Run. Run away. Save yourselves from the madness! 😉