Writers are often praised for evoking a vivid "sense of place" in their works. Seldom, however, is the compliment applied to bookstores, and almost never to bookstore websites.
Let’s change that today by showcasing the Bookloft bookstore in Great Barrington, Mass., which projects a distinct sense of place online. The "place" in question is the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts and the "sense of" originates with the bookstore's owner, Eric Wilska.
The Bookloft's home page tells us that when he isn't in the bookstore, Wilska "can usually be found at the world famous Sticky Fingers Farm, known for the best maple syrup this side of the Mississippi!" As a bookseller, Wilska deftly walks the line between technological sophistication and Berkshire country life.
The Bookloft.com uses a standard Booksense.com template with creative twists and links, some of which we'll explore in more detail next week. A few years ago, Wilska co-authored the bookstore's first website, but "it was just ridiculous." He is pleased with the current setup, even as he considers improvements.
He gives Booksense.com high marks for what it allows him to do. "I believe they're doing a good job," he said. "For the $225 per month, it's worth it for the content. This has been an expense, but it's also a leap of faith. I believe bookstores that don't have an active website two to five years from now will miss the next generation of readers."
Still, it's what Wilska and the Bookloft docreate within the Booksense.com template that gives the site its individuality and regional flare. At the top of that list is the beneficial relationship between Bookloft.com and the store's other website, BerkshireBooks.com. "I absolutely believe that the combination of Berkshirebooks.com and the Booksense.com site is key," said Wilska.
Location, location, location . . . BerkshireBooks.com was created to take advantage of the bookstore's advantageous setting in the heart of the Berkshires, an immensely popular New England destination spot--as anyone driving through Lenox or Stockbridge on a summer afternoon can attest--where thousands of visitors flock every year for outdoor activities as well as a lavish cultural menu that includes world class music, theater, art and literary events.
When you visit the Bookloft's main website, you'll notice a colorful banner for Bershirebooks.com occupying prime territory in the top right corner of the home page. If you click Read More, you stay within the Booksense.com site and link to a page with local titles available exclusively from the Bookloft. If, however, you click BerkshireBooks.com, you leave the Booksense.com site and link directly to the bookstore's regional showcase, where an array of titles and products are offered.
Let's say you click the link for Berkshire Regional histories, and suppose the book that catches your eye is Ghosts of Old Berkshire by Willard Douglas Coxey, which is described here as a "fascinating facsimile paperback edition of the original 1934 book. Full of curious early Berkshire tales, myths and traditions visualized in story form."
Should you decide to purchase the title and click on the cover, you are linked back to the Booksense.com site and given the option to add this esoteric, long out-of-print title to your shopping cart.
The ease with which a customer can move between the websites--taking advantage of regional sense of place at BerkshireBooks.com and the convenience of a Booksense.com shopping cart--has become a powerful online sales tool for the Bookloft, but there is another aspect of this transaction that is particularly appealing to Wilska.
While BerkshireBooks.com offers in-print books of regional interest and searches for hard-to-find titles, a more recent innovation allows Wilska to produce some of the public domain titles he sells here thanks to Troy Book Makers, a print-on-demand venture Wilska owns in partnership with Susan Novotny of the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza.
"We've sold 97 copies of Ghosts of Old Berkshire at $10.95 since last November," he said. "I paid $1.50 each to produce them. You give me 30 or 40 of those little niche books, and I print them, and that's real profit."
Did somebody say Long Tail Theory? Actually, Erik Wilska is happy to bring the subject up, noting that his efforts to find profitability through books like Ghosts of Old Berkshire "is a way of using that whole Long Tail thing. I love the Long Tail theory."
Next week we’ll explore Bookloft.com's subtle mastery of the Art of the Portal.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)