Booksellers celebrate local bookstore boom at annual conference

Books

“The region is thickly settled with a book-hungry customer base that eagerly supports their local independent bookstore.”

Last week, at the New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) annual conference, guests were given a book filled with interviews from past NEIBA executive directors, board presidents, and staff about the history and recent reascension of independent booksellers. 

NEIBA had a lot to celebrate: The conference, hosted every year in Providence, was celebrating its 50th anniversary. The book, distributed by Arcadia Publishing and compiled by NEIBA board director and Macmillan sales representative Ben White, gave the booksellers a lot of history to marvel at. 

Nan Sorensen, who worked on the NEIBA staff for 20 years before retiring in 2018, described in the book a fallow period in the late 2000s as outside forces put the clamps on independent retail all over the country. There was a two-year period where there was a “drastic drop in membership and revenue,” Sorensen recounted. “But we really tightened up on expenses, and the membership stabilized.”

Jason Rice, who was recently named NEIBA’s sales rep of the year for his work with Ingram Content Group, thinks there’s good reason for this. “New England has a long and storied tradition of being a fertile home to writers and diverse bookstores,” Rice said. “The region is thickly settled with a book-hungry customer base that eagerly supports their local independent bookstore.”

These days, it’s better to be an independent bookseller than at any time in the age of Amazon. I opened my bookstore, The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, in Acton, Massachusetts nearly six years ago, and we have grown significantly in that time. I also curate the Book Club that is hosted here at Boston.com, which highlights a book with New England ties every month.

“The recent uptick in stores in metro Boston has been fantastic news, and perhaps the only upside of the pandemic,” NEIBA executive director Beth Ineson told me. “NEIBA has seen more new stores become members of our organization during the later stages of the pandemic than in the previous decade combined.”

Many of those member stores were in attendance at the conference this past week, where they got to listen to and meet bestselling and award-winning creators like Crystal Maldonado, Ben Mezrich, Annie Proulx, Matt Tavares, Kacen Callendar, Tiffany Jewell, Oge Mora, Donna Barba Higuera, Frank Morrison, Lisa Ko, and Charles Duhigg. Equally as important was meeting new and upcoming authors like Jonathan Todd, Sacha Lamb, Rebecca Mahoney, Sophia Romero, and Antonia Hylton. 

“It’s just so damn fun to be among kindred spirits and to see all the new books to consider,” said Kate Layte, owner of Papercuts J.P. in Jamaica Plain.

Indeed, one of the things that consistently stands out the most about the annual conference — both in my experience (this was my sixth year attending) and in talking to others — is how much talking to our fellow booksellers energizes us just in time for the holiday push. Ellen Richmond, owner of Children’s Book Cellar in Waterville, Maine., has been to 43 of the 50 annual conferences, and the thread holds true for her as well. 

“I learn as much in chats with people from other stores as I do from official sessions,” Richmond said. “NEIBA is a great resource to educate and energize me.” And while the conference, and bookselling in general, have changed and modernized over the years, what hasn’t changed, according to Richmond, “is the collegiality. That makes NEIBA very special.”

Sanj Kharbanda, an associate publisher at local publisher extraordinaire Beacon Press, has seen this from both sides. “The bookstores in New England have always been collaborative,” Kharbanda said. “I speak as someone who spent over a decade as a bookseller and almost the same amount of time from the publishing side.” Emily Russo, co-owner of Print: A Bookstore, in Portland, and NEIBA board president, puts it more succinctly: “We lift each other up.”

You can see the evidence of that statement at all points in and around the city of Boston. In the past couple of years, new bookstores have opened in Beacon Hill, Chestnut Hill, Melrose, Roslindale, and the Seaport, and there are stores in the works in Dorchester and Quincy. One of those new bookstore owners is Andrea Iriarte Dent of Molly’s Bookstore in Melrose, which opened earlier this year. When she and her husband Brett arrived at the NEIBA conference last year, they didn’t have a background in books or publishing, but they were embraced in much the same way I was six years ago. 

“We found people with years of experience, and more importantly, the willingness to share it with us,” Dent said. “Without the opportunity to meet people at these conferences, I would be navigating all challenges alone, and the people who have used me as a resource would be doing so too.”

Just as important as people opening up brand new stores are those who purchase existing stores. Book Ends opened in 1984 and has been Winchester’s beloved independent bookstore ever since. When longtime owner Judy Manzo was ready to retire last year, she found willing buyers in Lauren Tiedemann and Jillian Hartline. Without them, nearly 40 years of community spirit and history might have vanished. Instead, Tiedemann and Hartline have stepped right in and are taking steps to grow the shop further, as evidenced by new initiatives like a monthly wine tasting. Tiedemann credits NEIBA. 

“As a new owner of an existing store, my business partner and I have been able to do so much more in our first year than we would have without NEIBA,” Tiedemann said. “I leave every meeting and conversation feeling invigorated and full of new ideas. I can’t wait to get back to my store and try.”

NEIBA is only as strong as its members. After all, when it was founded, it was completely volunteer-driven and didn’t have paid employees until the late 1980s. Now, with membership so strong, booksellers are supporting each other through a bookstore boom. When The Bookshop opens in Dorchester, it will only be four miles from Layte’s shop, Papercuts, but the two won’t be competitors. The real competitors are places like Amazon that reduce the art and magic of books to line items in their annual reports

“It’s been so good to see more stores open in and outside of the city. We need more bookstores: spaces of discovery and human curation,” says Layte. “It’s possible to go at it alone, but it’s easier and more fun when you find your people. NEIBA’s my people.”

In reflecting on her time in NEIBA this week, Richmond was struck by the fact that “the old guard” was gone. But while a shock, it wasn’t a lament. “I am thrilled to know that bookstores and bookselling are in good hands and that they’ll continue.” Both inside and outside of Boston, independent bookselling has shown its resolve. Through ups and downs, pandemics and predation from online retail, financial crises, floods, and so much more, independent booksellers have stood tall by betting on themselves and their communities. 

“Doing anything for half of a century is a major accomplishment,” said Ineson. Thanks in large part to NEIBA, we can look forward to the next half-century with optimism.

Paul Swydan is the owner of The Silver Unicorn Bookstore and a member of the New England Independent Booksellers Association. He also curates the Boston.com Book Club.