In last week's column, Jamie Fiocco shared some of her early impressions as co-owner of three-month-old Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C. This time we'll hear from her partners in business and bookselling, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold.

Describing her experience since the bookshop's November opening, Sarah asked, "Can I say roller coaster? It has certainly had its highs and lows. Opening, the holiday rush, our grand opening event, were all fantastically exciting and invigorating. Temper that with occasional bouts of terror. I've been a small business owner previously, so I am not surprised at the amount of time and energy it takes to tackle the 'business' end of things, i.e., accounting, but thanks to Jamie all of that is going smoothly."

The word community gets a lot of attention in the bookselling world, and all three owners embrace the concept enthusiastically.

"I cannot say enough about the community support we've received," Sarah noted. "Customers have literally grabbed my hand to thank us for opening an independent bookstore. What this really says to me is that independent bookstores can really be considered to be part of a good civic infrastructure, just as libraries are. Local media were also very instrumental in spreading the early word and have continued to do stories on us. Industry support has been strong. Our sales reps were key to our opening on time with the stock we needed."

Land added that "word-of-mouth has been our best advertising--from friends and family, of course, but also from book lovers in the community. Friends tell friends, neighbors tell neighbors--a local hair stylist wanted some bookmarks to let some of her clients know about us. Social networking exists outside of the internet."

Under the category of "best laid plans," I asked whether the size of certain category sections in the bookshop had to be adjusted as they transitioned from the conception stage to the daily reality of customer demands.
 
"After placing our initial orders, I was a little worried that I focused too much on the kind of books I like," Land observed, "too much literary fiction, too many books in translation, too many cool covers. But they’ve been selling, those midlist authors on their fifth book who have never got a sniff at the bestseller list, but deserve to be read. But that’s our niche, giving Padgett Powell as much or more shelf space as Stephen King."

There were "no huge surprises, but still pleasant ones," Jamie added, "big demand for poetry, Spanish-language literature, cooking (this section was already big), eastern philosophy and used books in general."
 
As children's department buyer, Sarah hasn't made any section adjustments yet, since "it's playing out pretty much as I expected, but with a bump in interest in bilingual books and perhaps less of a YA audience than I had hoped for."

Appropriately enough, the books lining Flyleaf's shelves were cited by Sarah as her most pleasant surprise thus far: "From my viewpoint, I am extremely proud of our inventory selection. All three of us literally hand-picked almost everything in the store and we really never were caught short or lacking in too much. I was very pleased to have most of what our customers were looking for and have gotten very positive feedback on what a great selection we have."

Land gave high marks to "our patient and knowledgeable staff, especially our first two hires, Anna and Mike. It’s hard to open a store; it must be excruciating to watch it happen. They aren’t yet seasoned booksellers, but they are eager, intelligent and personable and know about a lot of things I don’t. What more can you ask?"

Having attended ABA's Winter Institute earlier in the month for the first time as an owner, he recalled that the "biggest difference was that this time I looked around at all the veteran bookstore owners and asked myself a few questions: How do I get our store as iconic as theirs? Is it still possible? What innovative ways are they facing the future? What am I bringing to the table?"

In summing up Flyleaf's brief history, Land's personal reaction may be representative of his colleagues' impressions as well: "I’m pretty dense at times, so it takes some time for reality to impress upon me. It happened in stages. When I first saw our cash wrap half-finished in a wood shop nearby, my heart leapt. When our logo was finalized, my heart leapt again. After the carpet and paint and bookshelves were installed, I had another moment. But not until a late night after one of our first days, when I walked through the dark store, with some books finally on the shelves, did all the elements come together to make me realize what I had had a part in creating."--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1125.

• Quirky is good! Everything else is boring.
• Quirky fits, also unique, fabulous, outrageous, fascinating, inspiring, blingful and totally Kathy!
• It's the quirkiest! That's why the world loves it and you!
• Quirky beyond measure. And I mean that in a nice way.

Besse Lynch, events and marketing coordinator at the Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, Colo., responded to the column by recalling her affection for the Bookmill, Montague, Mass., because "browsing the shelves felt like exploring in some long forgotten attic. There was nothing cookie cutter about the space or selection, yet it was somehow familiar and comfortable."

I asked her how that might translate into success for indie bookstores. "Quirky can be so different for different people," she replied. "I think of it as a feeling you can't find anywhere else, something unusual yet familiar, maybe nostalgic at the same time. In defining quirky in terms of a bookstore, it can mean at once being a place where a person feels like a unique individual, and a place where those individualities come together to form a cohesive community. When a person shops at an indie bookstore this is what they are looking for. Not a place where they buy a book and walk out, but a place where they buy a book and belong to community."

Can the "quirky" factor drive people away? "The trick is to define yourself as an individual while being careful not to exclude other individuals," she added. "The beauty of a truly quirky bookstore is that it must be accepting of the quirks of others." At the Bookworm, "We just try to do things that we are passionate about, and that have meaning within our community. We take our customer's needs and suggestions to heart and try to create an atmosphere that reflects the diversity of ideas that come into our store."

And, finally, is quirky something that can be planned?

Janet Geddis, who hopes to open Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga., sometime later this year, observed that she wants her shop "to be well-organized, friendly and cozy, but I'd also like something funky or quirky that instantly sets it apart from other bookstores (and other businesses, for that matter). But I believe there's a problem with setting out to do something deliberately quirky: I don't want my design decisions to appear contrived or manipulative. When I think about quirky places I like to visit, the thing that has drawn my attention is almost always something that evolved organically."

She noted that genuine quirkiness seems "born out of true individuality. People haven't made calculated decisions to be strange in order to stand out. Instead, their oddities come straight from the heart. I'd venture to guess that the proprietors of Wild Rumpus [Minneapolis, Minn.] genuinely love animals and children--they didn't make a choice to sell kids' books in a store full of animals purely because it was a good business plan. Their quirkiness arises from their passions."

As Janet plans her bookstore, she already knows it will include "some surprising and intriguing elements in the design, but I can't yet know what I'll say, do, or create that will give Avid that quirkiness many of my future customers crave. I suppose this strange and appealing element will evolve naturally as my staff and I settle in and share what we love with our customers."

To paraphrase Mr. Brautigan, there simply have to be bookstores like these.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1103.