'The Next Generation of Bookstores'

For sales representative Ted Wedel, co-owner of the rep group Chesapeake & Hudson, Atomic Books in Baltimore, Md., represents “the next generation of bookstores. It combines art books, hip lit, weird lit, alternative and retro culture, zines and sex—basically what the 20- to 40-year-old well-educated, nonbusiness-school folks want.” Others, like Craig O'Hara with AK Press, describe it as a DIY bookstore that not only sells books and CDs, but publishes its own—one or two zine-books a year, as well as country music under the Atomic Twang label. But at its core, Atomic Books reflects the tastes of its proprietors, 39-year-old Benn Ray and 38-year-old Rachel Whang, and of its city, the Baltimore of filmmaker (and store customer) John Waters. His fans can even send letters to him at the store, although Whang and Ray don't guarantee how soon he'll pick them up.

Scott Huffiness ran the bookstore from 1992 to 2000; with his blessing, Ray and Whang reopened Atomic in 2001 with an eclectic inventory of 15,000—20,000 titles and the tagline “literary finds for mutated minds.” Although Ray is quick to point out that Atomic Books is not a comics store, it does have a strong graphic novel selection, and emphasizes alternative nonfiction. And forget retiling the bathroom—the do-it-yourself books it stocks are more along the lines of titles about how to sneak into a movie theater or how to protect your community from zombies. “We tend to avoid mainstream titles of all genres,” Whang said.

Two years ago, the pair extended the reach of the 900-sq.-ft. store by opening a second location nearby, atomic Pop, which is almost double the size. There they showcase art books, magazines and vinyl toys that can sell for a few dollars or several hundred dollars. Sales at the bookstore started to flatten out this past year, but atomic Pop was up 30%. Ray and Whang also look to their Web site (www.atomicbooks.com) to reach customers around the world. “We're subsidized by our Web site,” said Ray, who puts its contribution to sales at about 30%. The Web store features dozens of new titles each week. Current selections range from Charles Bukowski's poetry collection The People Look Like Flowersat Last to Tiffany Godoy's Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion—Tokyo. In addition, Whang and Ray each juggle store blogs, a MySpace page and an e-mag, the Mobtown Shank.

Atomic Books' publishing program is equally diverse—not the regional titles or backlist gems favored by most bookseller-publishers. Instead, Ray and Whang launched the Atomic Book Company imprint in fall 2005 with a collection of weekly comic strips, Lulu Eightball by Emily Flake. It was so successful that this spring they're planning a second volume of her work.

After Atomic published I Keee You!!, a collection of Ray's columns from their e-mail zine featuring illustrations by various indie comics artists, O'Hara approached Ray and Whang about having AK Press distribute their books. China Martens's anarchist parenting book, The Future Generation: The Zine-Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others!, released last summer, was the first title under the agreement.

O'Hara said he was eager to work with Ray and Whang because Atomic Books is a good customer and he wanted to support them. So far it seems to be paying off, especially for self-promoters like Martens, who organized a nine-city tour with Annie Downey (Hot and Bothered) and Ariel Gore (How to Become a Famous Person Before You're Dead). Now she's getting ready to go back on the road with Jessica Mills, author of the newly released alternative parenting book My Mother Wears Combat Boots (AK Press). The tour will kick off in March at the San Francisco Anarchist Book Festival, with stops in New York and Baltimore.

Atomic Books also has a fourth book on its list, Julia Wertz's The Fart Party, which came out in October and hit a number of bloggers' best of '07 lists. “We hadn't been planning to distribute The Fart Party through Ingram and Amazon,” said Whang. “But there's been so much demand, we can't keep up with wholesaling it ourselves.”

John Waters said that “without obsession, life is nothing.” Substitute “bookstore” for “life,” and that's what makes Atomic Books tick.