| Bookselling | |||||||||||
Three Make Their Mark Barbara R ther -- 11/20/00
Three Bay Area booksellers have taken the business of selling books beyond the bookstore counter. One is writing the books he sells, another making waves on the radio and yet another is bringing out-of-print books back to his shelves. Yiddish Cards a Bookselling Brocha As a 24-year veteran bookseller at Cody's Books in Berkeley, Ira Steingroot knows how to spot a market need. When he noticed that there was no progressive guide to celebrating Passover that went beyond the Haggadah, he wrote the book himself. His 1995 book, Keeping Passover (HarperCollins), continues to be local favorite on the topic.
"We sell on average five or six decks a day, which, in terms of volume, is only slightly behind Harry Potter. So it is our second bestselling item," Steingroot told PW. In a store that carries more than 150,000 titles, that's enough to make an author feel a bit haimish, if not totally farshnoshket mit naches (at least warm and fuzzy, if not with joyous pride). There are advantages to being both the Judaica buyer and an in-store author, according to Steingroot, who can strategically merchandise his card decks on the front counter as well as plant them in other locations throughout the store. Shortly after the $9.95 deck of cards made its debut in January, Steingroot created a popular Yiddish display table with changing, seasonal selections. Other Yiddish books that have recently made appearances include a transliteration of A.A. Milne's classic honey-loving character, Vini-Der-Puh (Dutton) by Leonard Wolfe. Yiddish is a High German language, written in Hebrew characters, that is spoken by Jews of central and Eastern European origin. According to Steingroot, who based his 48 cards on important words his father taught him, the association and nuances of the Yiddish language provide the key to a rich cultural memory that is important to save. Pomegranate's initial printing was 5,000 copies, and the house has gone back to press for 5,000 more decks. By any standards, that's not chopped liver. Green Apple Across the Bay in San Francisco, another bookseller is broadcasting his love of handselling to a new audience. Kevin Hunsager, used book manager and a nine-year veteran of Green Apple Books, has begun a book spot on radio station KFOG's The Morning Show. Though book reviews are common fare on public radio, a book show on San Francisco's largest commercial rock station is a first. The show airs every third week. Hunsager, who has written book reviews for the Sunday Examiner/Chronicle as well as the San Francisco Bay Guardian, generally chooses nonfiction titles he enjoys handselling and titles that will appeal to the radio audience. The show consists of a discussion of various titles, with the deejays asking questions, followed by call-in questions or comments from listeners. Anything more formal wouldn't suit a rock station, Hunsager said.
KFOG producer Greg McQuade said the book show has been "surprisingly popular. We have a very educated audience in the Bay Area, and except for NPR, no one is really catering to the readers." KFOG and Green Apple are planning a monthly book club, with on-air discussions and author readings. The selected books would be available at Green Apple, an 85,000-sq.-ft. store with 200,000 new and used titles located in San Francisco's Richmond District since 1970. The bookstore's Web site (greenapplebooks.com) will feature live downloads of broadcasts from KFOG,. Though no launch date has been set for the club, the store and the station are committed to continuing the radio show. Lulu Lives at Booksmith As events coordinator at the Booksmith on Haight Street and a former NCIBA board member, Thomas Gladysz is well known on the local book scene.
The site frequently received requests for information about books on Louise Brooks. "As it turned out, two of the really important books related to Brooks were out of print," Gladysz told PW, citing Louise Brooks: A Biography by Barry Paris (published by Knopf in 1989) and Brooks's own memoir, Lulu in Hollywood (also Knopf, 1982). "I asked Web site visitors to add their name to a list promising to buy one or both of these books if they should be reprinted, and in a year I had collected 600 names. People were paying $100 for used copies of these books, so the market was obviously there." Armed with his list, Gladysz worked the trade show floor of the 1999 BEA, approaching publishers about the popularity of Brooks and the need for new editions of the two books. His words were not lost on editors at the University of Minnesota Press, which this season is initiating a series of film books, beginning with reprints of the two on Louise Brooks. The expanded edition of Lulu in Hollywood includes an additional essay by Brooks, "Why I Will Never Write My Memoirs," and the original introduction by William Shawn has been replaced by Kenneth Tynan's essay "The Girl in the Black Helmet." Both books bear an acknowledgement thanking Gladysz for his role in bringing the titles back to the public. The U of M officially launched the two titles at a Booksmith event on November 14--Louise Brooks's birthday.
Little Professor Loses Lease The Little Professor Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., lost its lease on October 3 after five years in business, and was given 30 days to vacate. According to owner George Isom, who owned the store with his wife, Rena, thousands of store patrons and community activists called or wrote letters to protest lease-holder Dillard's Inc.'s decision not to renew the Little Professor's lease.
Isom told PW that Dillard's wouldn't negotiate the lease and evicted without warning. The Isoms petitioned to keep the store open at least through the Christmas holidays, when they expected a rise in sales. "No deal. They wouldn't budge," said Isom. "We returned the inventory that we could, and sold everything else for 50%-70% discounts. At least that's something we can do for our loyal customers." Dillard's Inc. refuted Isom's claim in a memo to Bob Hill, a reporter for the CourierJournal last week. According to Wes Cherry, Dillard's vice-president of real estate, the bookstore had been in trouble for some time. Cherry wrote that Dillard's had reduced Little Professor's rent last August from $2,500 to $2,000, and that the Isoms owed $20,000 in back rent. He also told the Courier that the Isoms had agreed to a 30-day lease cancellation if business did not improve. "I can't say much more," Isom said when asked about the Courier Journal article. "My lease was up; Dillard's refused to renew it." According to Isom, he and his wife launched the bookstore on the Dixie Highway strip because 70,000 people live along the corridor from Shively to western Louisville--without a full-service bookstore. "Business grew for three years, and then Dillard's acquired the strip mall from Bacon's, our original leaseholder, in 1998," said Isom. "Businesses on the mall just started to fold as Dillard's raised the rents. Our profits flattened out as well, but we hung in there. We were doing over $500,000 of business a year." The original leaseholder charged the Isoms 6% of store sales instead of a flat rental fee. "For Dillard's, it's just business. They're not paying attention to the needs of this community," said Isom. --John High | |||||||||||
Three Make Their Mark
Nov 20, 2000
A version of this article appeared in the 11/20/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
