When Roxanne Coady decided to leave the world of bricks-and-mortar retailing and put RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, Ct., up for sale last month, she wasn’t sure where the online gift book program she developed and launched in November 2009, Just the Right Book!, fit. Now she's decided to hold on to it and take it national. Originally intended to boost the online shopping experience for her store customers by offering a site dedicated to helping them choose the right gift book for family and friends, Just the Right Book! is increasingly attracting people buying for themselves, according to Coady. Readers can sign up for a monthly subscription, or what the site calls “a personalized book-of-the-month club.”
For Coady, the potential of Just the Right Book! is similar to that of the soon-to-launch Bookish as an online vehicle of discovery. “I still think it’s an opportunity. I’d like to give that a shot. We might make it an umbrella Web site and work with independents,” says Coady. Close to 20,000 people have taken the site’s online quiz developed last summer to help readers figure out what to read next. Of the 10% who followed through, a whopping 60% either bought or borrowed the recommended book. For Coady, that’s indicative of the huge hunger for discovery.
Not only will Coady continue to own and operate Just the Right Book! but she is in the midst of taking bids for a complete redesign as the site expands its audience. In the meantime, Just the Right Book! is adding more content. And on its Facebook page it is launching a Battle of the Books, which begins later this week and closes April 2. The site’s 2,000 subscribers can vote on the best author. The first round begins with: Charlotte Bronte vs. Ayn Rand, Anne Tyler vs. Steven Westover, Richard Russo vs. Dorothy Gilman, and J California Cooper vs. Richard Paul Evans. The authors were selected based on a subscriber survey.
While Just the Right Book! continues to move forward, so does the bookstore sale, which has drawn a dozen interested buyers. Coady says that she plans to run the best store she possibly can as the selling process proceeds. That includes adding an Espresso Book Machine in May.
