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Steve Bercu is big on bold ideas an incisive action. Just ask Borders, which withdrew a planned store in the face of a Bercu-mounted assault. Right now, he is irritated. "Why didn't we realize it before?" he asks himself aloud as he gives a tour of BookPeople, in Austin, Tex. He has just praised the initiative taken last year by a bookseller who suggested all staff picks be positioned face out at eye level throughout the store. What bugs him is that he—or someone at BookPeople—hadn't already thought of it.
A simple, creative and effective idea like putting staff picks at eye level makes Bercu impatient. He is restless as he wanders the aisles of BookPeople. From minute to minute, Bercu's focus ranges from the minutiae of book retailing—moving a misplaced book back to the right section; trying to fix the neon coffee-shop sign—to sales trends for the month and debating what a bookstore should be like in five years.
 PW’s Bookseller of the Year. |
Bercu is best known nationally for, in addition to dissuading Borders from opening a store next to his, being a founder of the "Keep Austin Weird" pro-local-business campaign, which has since expanded to other potentially weird towns like Boulder, Colo., and Raleigh, N.C. "Steve was out there on that issue, took charge and made it happen," said John Kunz, owner of Waterloo Records and Video, who partnered with Bercu on the original campaign. "A bunch of independent business owners wouldn't commit to it until they could see what was in it for them." Bercu commissioned a study that showed that BookPeople and Waterloo already contributed 3.5 times as much to the local economy as a new Borders would. "Steve made it resonate with everyone," said Kunz. "It was a huge endeavor on his part." Concurrent with the study, independent retailers in the city formed the Austin Independent Business Alliance, which now numbers 350 members.
The effort to organize independent businesses continues to help the store. "The city is extremely responsive to the IBA," Bercu says. "We're getting to be an established part of what goes on here." Moreover, the group's activities "keep everyone talking indies." The lesson: "It's possible to have self-interest converge with the community interest. It has been a pretty happy scenario."
"Austin is world famous for nurturing musicians, and it has lots of love left for its local poets and writers," said longtime BookPeople supporter and NPR commentator Marion Winick. "Back in the day, when Book People was tiny little Grok Books on the Drag, it was part of a vibrant homegrown scene of literary performance, small presses and booksellers. When the store moved to its huge downtown location in the '90s, what you saw was the the ambience and power of a major national independent bookseller combined with the particular pride and devotion Austin gives its own. This is a town that knows how to throw a book release party."
Bercu has more than enough nuts-and-bolts retailing issues to keep him occupied. After Borders decided in 2003 not to open down the street, a city road construction project last year caused such disruption that it knocked BookPeople's sales down 8.1% for 2004. "When I started as a bookseller in 1994, I worried about the chains and Amazon," Bercu says. "I never imagined that the biggest challenge would be having our street ripped up for seven months."
Sales recovered, but in early March, Whole Foods, the anchor tenant in BookPeople's building, moved to a huge new site across the street. Besides losing the walk-in traffic from the supermarket's customers, the new 80,000-sq.-ft. store drew so many curious people that traffic and parking at BookPeople became gridlocked, which "killed" sales the first week in March, Bercu says. Since then, the situation has improved and the month ended up 3%. (At press time, April sales were up 3.1%.)
When a new tenant or two moves into Whole Foods' old space, the bookstore will undergo a face-lift that will include new flooring and painting. But Bercu wants BookPeople to change in deeper, less cosmetic ways. The store should become, he says, "an entertainment venue. As the pace of life speeds up and people no longer have to go anywhere to buy a book, we have to give them a reason to come to us. We have to offer an experience."
There's already plenty of action on the store's floor, where "pre-selecting" and impulse-buying opportunities are the themes of merchandising. "About 80% of our customers have no idea of what they want," Bercu says. To help customers decide what they want, BookPeople booksellers "own" sections of the store, where many set up their own displays. "I give everyone total authority to do what they want, so long as it's in relatively good taste and with a sense of humor," Bercu says.
The store is full of shelf talkers, and in some sections, there seem to be more books with shelf talkers than without. The store is so promotion-minded that its monthly events schedules are posted in all bathroom stalls and at urinals.
BookPeople also holds a lot of contests, which, like so many store activities, are inexpensive but generate interest. A recent contest combined two promotional activities: contests and shelf talkers. Customers could win a $25 gift certificate at the store by voting for their favorite shelf talkers in two categories: best content and most creative.
In a related effort, late last year the store began a monthly book promotion called Top Shelf, which includes a large, central display and prominent space on the store's Web site. A bookseller picks a title, which he or she promotes to the rest of the store. "After we become enthusiastic about it, we promote it to customers," Bercu says. "The idea is to get us all talking about something beyond our areas."
The store is an author favorite, hosting some 200 author appearances every year. "Musicians have bars, actors have theaters, but authors rarely have a venue they can regularly count on to provide space, support and publicity to do random literary experiments," said Spike Gillespie, author of Surrender (U. Texas Press). "Every friend I have who has ever done a reading there always is overwhelmed with how amazing the experience is." Austin resident and national bestselling author David Lindsey (The Face of the Assassin, Warner) agrees: "I remember when a book signing was still called an autograph party. BookPeople still do it right. At the same time they always keep up with the local authors. I can't speak highly enough of what they've done."
"It's a gathering place of authors of all stripes—they're just as open to hosting self-published authors and big-name authors coming in from New York," said Cyndi Hughes, freelance book publicist and former director of the Texas Book Festival. "The store is important to the writing community as well as to the reading community."
BookPeople's "authorless" events also attract crowds. A recent example, "Hardcovers for Hardbodies," was created by events coordinator Erin Kelly, who says it "started as a joke, a fun thing to do during the January lull." Held monthly and drawing between 40 and 50 participants, the H4H program has included the "Literary Aerobics Class," which centered on exercises using the Random House Collegiate Dictionary, and the "Boxing with Babes" night, which featured introductory boxing instruction.
Bercu seeks to fill his store with employees who are social and cheerful. "We can't train a good personality," Bercu explains, "but we can hire the right kind of person and graft books on later. A reticent bookseller is not going to help the customer have a welcoming, pleasant experience."
Before a new employee gets used to the store, Bercu likes to make use of his or her fresh eye. After 10 days, before the person "gets invested in store culture," he asks new hires "what we should change in the store. In six months, they won't see it anymore."
The booksellers get high marks from Chris Roberson, publisher of Monkeybrain Books, who noted, "They are a very thoughtful and persistent promoter of everything good, everything Texas and everything Austin. It's a great store."
The store's sidelines, which Bercu calls gifts, have increased in sales in the past few years at a rate of 1% annually and now account for 21% of store sales. The gifts are scattered about the store and include T-shirts, chimes, candles, soaps and incense.
For its tchotchke gifts, the store has a rather ruthless buying policy. "Most gifts are gone in six months," Bercu says. "We don't do back orders or reorders. We just keep getting new ones. Even if we buy only six and sell out in a few days, we don't reorder." As a result, there's always something new.
Among the rare long-running gift bestsellers are the $6 Jesus action figure and the Austin Monopoly game, both of which have sold thousands of copies. Bercu laments that the game maker has gone out of business. Had the company followed BookPeople's approach, it might have owned Boardwalk—and Austin.
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