Austin, Tex.’s BookPeople reached a milestone so big this month they had to celebrate it twice. On November 11, the store turned 40 years old, and took the next weekend to make it official with a family-friendly cake-and-balloons blowout on Saturday, and a business-casual party for publishers, authors, partners, and other industry friends on Sunday.
Asked about the longevity of BookPeople, named PW’s 2005 Bookseller of the Year and Austin Chronicle’s Best Bookstore in Austin for 20 years running, CEO Steve Bercu humbly suggests that, “sort of like anybody who’s been around a long time, some of it is just blind luck.” But the hands-on company head (who serves as president of the Austin Independent Business Alliance and helped found the “Keep Austin Weird” campaign) gives large credit to an enthusiastic, responsive community: “Certainly in the last decade we’ve been all over the concept of the value of shopping in locally owned businesses, and we happen to be fortunate enough to be in a community that actually does value their locally owned businesses.”
Of course, good ideas don’t hurt either. Case in point: the recent sign-up for BookPeople’s three summer day-camps (each themed after a YA favorite, like the Percy Jackson-inspired Camp Kane) drew a line around the block that began forming at 2 a.m. Just an hour after opening, every one of the 450 slots were filled. The same enthusiasm fills out the store’s dozen-plus reading groups, and supports a brand new focus on mystery titles called, naturally, MysteryPeople.
According to Bercu, the national economic downturn has been less hard on Austin than it has elsewhere in Texas, and big-box competition has been rebuffed thanks to efforts from BookPeople and the community. “Sales have been increasing year over year for the past several years,” Bercu reports, noting that the store has been up nine out of 11 months this year, and will definitely end 2010 in the black. In addition, the store plans to enter the e-book business, should delays on the launch of Google Editions ever end. “We’re just motoring on to our 41st year,” Bercu says, noting that fans can still get in on the celebration with a birthday t-shirt, just $6 dollars when you spend $40 (proceeds from which go to Austin Independent School District).
