Canmore’s Café Books may appear to be something of an anomaly in the book-selling world.
Despite narrow margins and unrelenting competition from big box booksellers, Café Books is not only surviving, but also thriving, and owner Joy McLean has a pretty simple recipe.
It takes hard work, creativity, a sense of humour, a passion for books and a complete lack of fear (just like every small business), but the book world is made harder by one undeniable fact: booksellers can’t mark up their books – the price is printed right there on the cover.
In all of that, perhaps the key to surviving in the book-selling world is community, just as A.J. Fikry discovers in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, a new novel by Gabrielle Zevin.
Fikry is an independent bookstore owner who has lost his way. His wife has died, he’s lost his passion for books, his bookstore is failing, a valuable book meant to be his retirement fund goes missing and then, Fikry discovers a little girl named Maya abandoned in his bookstore.
Fikry and his bookstore ultimately thrive, just like Café Books, because he comes to embrace his community and his community embraces him and his bookstore.
“To me as a bookseller (the novel) was the story of my life and days,” said McLean.
“We have great support in Canmore and that allows us to support the community and I think that is what this book meant to me.
“The rep becomes his friend as the reps have become my friend and books seep through the pages and the description of the town. The community saves A.J. and A.J. saves his store; after all what is a town without a bookstore?”
It’s a valid question, and one many communities have been forced to ask when their independent bookstore closes.
“We hear all the time how sad it is that bookstores like ours are disappearing… and then they go and buy something from Costco.”
But when that happens, independent bookstores lose customers and towns and cities lose their bookstores.
“Publishers are losing their showrooms and authors are losing their chance to hit a market,” she said. “The bottom line is the author; the less you sell, the less the author gets.”
So then, what does McLean do to get people through her doors when a big box can offer deep discounts? And in the same vein, how does an independent bookseller pull in people who don’t automatically gravitate towards a bookstore when they see one?
It’s back to creativity, hard work and the lack of fear.
“That is where the fear situation comes in, you can’t be afraid to have the books, you can’t be afraid that they’ve got them in Safeway for the same price I pay the publisher for,” McLean said.
“We can’t mark it up more because it is on the book, so how do you survive? You can’t be afraid to make a full and inviting bookstore. You have to look for things that complement the books. The books will sell product rather than the product sell the books and that is the secret. Allow the books to sell themselves.”
To that end, McLean stocks gifts and other products that are literary in nature: graphic T-shirts, journals and other goodies that are all tied to the written word.
It also helps that McLean said she has an enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff that are encouraged to spend their day chatting with customers.
But there’s still the challenge of getting people through the door.
“I once heard someone say, when I was sitting outside the bookstore with a cup of coffee one sunny afternoon, ‘it’s just a bookstore’ and they walked past. I wanted to chase them!” McLean said. “So I thought, How do I get them inside? I’m not going to let them just walk away. I have to do something about this. How we draw them in is with imagination. We never stop looking for stuff that is different. You never get tired of trying to make people look through the door.
“And I never want to hear again, while a child is pulling his mother by the hand say, ‘look, look it’s a bookstore!’ and her to say ‘what do you want to go to a bookstore for?’ I wanted to say, ‘let’s go see what treats they’ve found for us and what adventures they have planned for us today.’”
That approach has made the difference as today Café Books has a loyal following in the Bow Valley and beyond to Calgary and even further afield to Seattle and New York City.
A customer from Seattle once recommended to a friend in New York City that if any bookstore had or could find a certain ice-climbing book it was Café Books: it was.
As part of her quest to never stop trying to find ways to link people to books, and vice versa, McLean has opened Café Books: Chapter Two, where McLean is now offering used books in a resplendent environment reminiscent of an old-fashioned reading room.
Chapter Two is in the same building as Café Books, just across the hall from the children’s section. It is filled with antiques, including an 18th century butler’s pantry, a workbench with vise and a tiny staircase from a Welsh chapel that all serve as counters and bookshelves.
McLean added a tiny kitchen so she can serve tea and coffee. She’s not trying to turn it into a full-fledged coffee shop. Instead, it’s just one more way to offer an experience.
“I want it to be a place where people can just come in and enjoy and drift,” she said.
Along with being a quiet tearoom offering used books, Chapter Two also doubles as a venue for events, readings and signings.
“You have to constantly think, What can I do? That is the only way we survive,” she said. “You are selling an experience. “We sell an experience. We sell nostalgia. We sell an environment. We sell an adventure.”
Café Books is a bookstore first and in that McLean strives to offer titles in all genres, including best sellers. From there, she strives to offer something unusual in every genre to allow readers – even reluctant readers – to make discoveries.
“It’s psychological. You have to get the people who would normally not go in. But you get them in and they usually buy a book.”
