Last week John Mutter of Shelf Awareness spent two days with New England Independent Booksellers Association executive director Steve Fischer visiting bookstores in Connecticut and New York. It was a great little working vacation! Here's the first part of a multi-part series reporting on what we saw.
Fran Keilty had worked for Atticus Bookstore/Cafe, New Haven, Conn., for nearly 30 years (most recently as general manager at a time Atticus still had three stores), when six years ago, her local bookstore, the Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, Conn., was up for sale. She nabbed it.
The store is nearly 60 years old, has had four owners and boasts of "a long history," Keilty said. "We continue to be custodians." After moving several times, Hickory Stick is in a 3,300-sq.-ft. space in a curved brick building in the center of this village in the heart of Litchfield County, which has rolling hills, many farms and many second homes, primarily for Manhattanites. The shopping area in Washington Depot includes a mix of stores, including a J. McLaughlin outlet, art galleries, a large, upscale hardware store, a delicious restaurant and food shop called the Pantry and more.
Recently Keilty became president of the area's business organization, which encourages residents and visitors to buy local. Keilty indicated that the group will become even more active. Likely it will because she has a history of getting things done: besides being general manager of Atticus, she has been president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and president of the Independent Booksellers Consortium.
As at many other bookstores, "business has been up and down this year," Keilty said. "And August has been good so far." She said she is also looking forward to a strong fall lineup of titles.
Hardcover fiction and mysteries have sold well during the time Keilty has owned the store although sales have slid somewhat lately. The travel section has shrunk. Among strong sections: business and cooking are growing; history, biography, paperback literature and backlist are strong. Sales of audiobooks and CDs are "not huge" but the sections "still bring people into the store," Keilty said. (CDs include Putumayo albums as well as selections by such brand names as Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.) Hickory Stick sells some remainders, mainly during the holiday season.
As in so many stores, children's books sell well, in part because Hickory Stick emphasizes them. Still, Keilty is looking for someone "to do more" with kids and expand children's programming. YA is hot, but Keilty said she believes that "there has always been a lot published, but it's getting more attention." The store features some YA titles that adults would like. Although Hickory Stick sold many copies of the Twilight series, "here it was not the phenomenon it was elsewhere," Keilty said.
Books account for 75% of Hickory Stick's sales. While sidelines are an integral part of the sales mix, Keilty said, "It's important to the community and to us to be a bookstore."
Those sidelines include toys, gifts, cards and an impressive range of other non-book products. There are four large cases of Vera Bradley bags, gardening tools, candles and several items that are made by local artisans, including bird carvings and clay horse models. "We try to have things that make us different and interesting," Keilty commented.
Sidelines also include something literally close to home for Keilty: yarn from Maple Spring Farm, the organic farm in neighboring Morris where Keilty has lived for more than 35 years. Her husband, Michael, who is a sustainable agriculture educator at the University of Connecticut, is the main farmer. (The yarn comes from the sheep on the farm.)
The store has events every week in the fall and from March to June, which draw on the many writers and illustrators who live and spend weekends in the area, among them Wendell Minor, Mary Pope Osborne, the late Frank McCourt, Ann and Denis Leary, Dana Shapiro and April Stevens. "People are always talking about the events even if a few are not well attended," Keilty said.
Despite the store's proximity to New York City and its many transplants and New Yorkers with second homes, Keilty said she believed the area is ripe for more author events. "Authors could see a lot of stores and sell a lot of books in two days," she said.
Hickory Stick works with libraries in Litchfield and Washington and recommends events that don't work at the store. The store has an in-house book club, and there are many book clubs in the area.
The store's website is used mainly for informational purposes. Hickory Stick has a Facebook page and sends event-related e-mails via Constant Contact. Keilty would like to do a blog, "but it must be meaningful," she said.
The store has eight people on staff, all but one of whom are parttimers, a staff that is down slightly.
Cool Ideas from Hickory Stick Bookshop
*To publicize events, the store uses a sidewalk sign (see illustration at left) that has a black background with white lettering, the reverse of most such signs. As a result, the sign stands out in a way the usual black-on-white signs do not.
*In Hickory Stick, Keilty has promoted the 3/50 Project, a national effort that encourages consumers to spend $50 a month in each of three independently owned businesses that they would miss if they disappeared. The project is not directly related to bookselling, but addresses the issue of buying local in a way that makes it easy for a concerned person to take effective, meaningful action, she said.
*Last but not least, for the past year and a half, the store has had a display that is changed daily on a table directly inside the front door. The staff, not Keilty, is solely responsible for the four or five books that are displayed, which can be from any section. "They're all kinds of things," Keilty commented. "And practically every day we sell one or two or more." The day of Shelf Awareness's visit the four titles were One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Summer on a Plate by Anna Pump and Gen Leroy, Gilded Youth: Three Lives in France's Belle Epoque by Kate Cambor and Antiques Inventory by Judith Miller. (See below.)
A key element of the table: a vase of fresh flowers!
