For Janet Boreta, founder and owner of Orinda Books, it is an article of faith: "Bookstores, particularly independent community ones, can be havens." And in its own small way, her store demonstrated the validity of her belief last fall on a date no one will forget: September 11, 2001. Boreta was set to cancel a scheduled event for Margaret Little, but the local author wanted her reading to go on as planned. Janet acquiesced and was surprised when about 100 people came into Orinda Books that evening and stayed well into the night to talk, mostly, of course, about the infinitely larger events that occurred that morning. "People just didn't want to be alone that day," recalled Boreta. And that evening, Orinda Books offered a familiar, comfortable place to affirm its ties to the community.
Boreta said that the store has evolved into "a kind of informal community center for this town." But what she doesn't say is that the way Orinda Books fills that role for this community—Orinda is an upscale suburb of about 17,000 people some 20 miles from San Francisco—is through 26 years of energy, effort and dedication on the part of the community-minded Boreta and her staff. They've made the store a haven by staying focused on their customers and by filling a real need.
Launching a Dream
"We didn't have a bookstore in this town when my children were growing up," Boreta told PW. "After they got a bit older and a space opened up downtown, I decided it was a good time to launch my little dream."
Her "little dream" became a 1,900-square-foot reality in 1976 in a leafy, centrally located shopping district, just a few doors down from the present location of Orinda Books. The store was owned and operated by Boreta and a small circle of friends who were also her partners and co-managers, but she soon discovered that management by consensus was time-consuming and ineffective. She was eager to run things the way she wanted to.
"By 1980, I had bought out all the partners and was the sole owner of Orinda Books," she said. By that time, her idea of a bookstore—"a complete community bookstore," to use her words, with a broad selection and a special emphasis on good fiction and children's books—was well on its way to becoming what is now the largest independent bookstore in the county in terms of size and sales.
Even on a lovely late spring weekday in the middle of the afternoon, the place is bustling. The 4,500-square-foot store is divided into distinct sections through clever shelf arrangements. Artwork is everywhere that books aren't: the work of a prominent local ceramist greets customers inside the front door, and what wall space is left above the shelves serves as an informal gallery featuring a changing selection of local artists. A small, carefully chosen selection of music CDs occupies a small niche to the left of the door, and there's a visibly separate space that holds course books and required texts for the students of John F. Kennedy University, a small local college offering degree programs for adults. ("I thought it would be a good idea to be involved with a university and a good way to generate revenue, so I lobbied hard to serve as the bookstore for JFK back in 1978," noted Boreta. She's been selling textbooks to the 1,200 students of the campus ever since.)
The atmosphere is both homey (a cat named Fish lolls on a wicker rocking chair) and professional, with a relatively large selection—Boreta currently stocks about 80,000 titles. She aims for a top-notch staff, too. "I've always tried to have a staff composed of readers, people who care about books and like to talk about books," said Boreta. Each member of her staff of 15 part- and full-time employees specializes in a particular subject area; they're responsible for shelving and knowing what's in their purview. Elise White, for example, is in charge of children's books, and she is clearly not only knowledgeable about her niche but also a convincing, committed advocate of books for young people.
The expertise of the staff pays off when customers come in with only a vague idea of a book they are interested in. "You just can't ask Amazon.com about 'that new book with the red ballet shoes on the cover,' " said Marian Nielsen, a staffer who edits the customer newsletter, Orinda Booknotes. "But you can ask us, and chances are one of us will know it and be able to find it." (The book was Knopf's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, translated by Ina Rilke.)
That kind of hands-on customer service—"literary detective work," as Nielsen called it—is a point of pride at Orinda Books and a source of great pleasure. "I think all booksellers like to match the right book to the right customer," said Boreta.
Fostering Customer Loyalty
A high degree of service is also, of course, one of the ways the store has responded to the greatly intensified competition in the industry, first from superstores and then from Internet booksellers. For special orders, Orinda Books orders from Ingram every business day.
Boreta and her staff have initiated other activities to generate sales and foster customer loyalty, such as running book fairs for local schools and publishing a quarterly newsletter. And there's a substantial and active book group program, developed by the store's general manager, Catherine Jordan, and managed by Marilyn Stoddard. "We use e-mail to stay in touch with more than 100 active book groups in the area," she said. Every group that registers with the store receives a 10% discount for its members. Jordan also leads the discussion at two monthly book groups held within the store itself. "People want to connect with others about the books they read," she told PW.
Book groups, readings and other author events often keep the store busy after its official closing time of 6 p.m. The current newsletter lists 10 upcoming events, focused mostly on local authors, but Boreta noted that the store can attract big crowds and sponsor "huge events." An appearance by mystery writer Dick Francis, for example, brought in 1,000 people and generated sales of more than 500 copies. "Mr. Francis was delighted," she said, "and called it his best-ever signing."
All this effort has helped Orinda Books survive the bookselling wars of the 1990s and come out a winner. While some shoppers come from the two closest cities, Oakland and Berkeley (easy access to the highway and free parking is part of the draw), it's the book-buying citizens in Orinda and the surrounding towns that generate most of the sales at Orinda Books.
Boreta has long been a vocal advocate for independent bookstores as an active member of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. "My principle is simple: if you live in Orinda or the nearby towns, you should buy your books here," she said. Boreta has worked hard to make that principle easy for customers to follow and proven herself a shrewd, competitive businessperson. By combining old-fashioned marketing savvy with a heartfelt commitment to customer service, she has shown that bookstores can indeed be havens within their communities and an integral part of the local landscape.
