RELEVANT
READS TOP PICKS FROM LOCAL INDIE BOOKSTORES
WORDS BY LANGFORD WIGGINS
I
ndependent bookstores are accustomed to adapting and weathering storms, namely competition from large-scale franchises and online book retailers over the past few decades. Today, several shops in the DMV are working to overcome new challenges from Covid-19 and, in light of the recent resurgence in the national spotlight of the Black Lives Matter movement, are doubling down on their commitment to diversity. “We have flipped the script,” says Hannah Oliver Depp, owner of Loyalty Bookstore. “If you walk into most bookstores, even liberal ones, the representation on the shelves is very tokenized, instead of being a full breadth of representation.” Oliver Depp makes an intentional effort to focus on diverse and minority literature at Loyalty Bookstore’s Petworth and Silver Spring locations. “The books on the shelves are from ‘own voice’ authors, meaning the book is written by [the identity types of] person(s) who are featured in the book,” she explains. It’s not easy stocking shelves with diverse literature, but independent bookstores have unique footing. “As a bookstore owner, you have a significantly louder voice in the publisher community to be able to say, ‘we need more of this, we need more of these books,’” Oliver Depp says. “We are trying to put pressure on the industry from [the] inside to publish a greater number of incredible authors from these communities.” The role of the independent bookstore owner doesn’t end with placing the book on the shelves; there’s a lot of marketing behind the scenes. “Bookstores play a unique role in the sale life of a book, because while brick-and-mortar stores or online stores like Target or Amazon push a book the first two weeks after it is published, we as independent bookstores are interested in the life of the book,” Oliver Depp adds. “We care about books that are 3 years old, 6 months old, 10 years and 100 years old. We just care about great books.” A book older than 100 years on a shelf might be hard to imagine for some. But for Adam Waterreus, owner of used bookstore Lost City Books in Adams Morgan, that’s the norm. “We have books from the mid-19th century, and we have used books that just came in recently,” he says. 28 | AUGUST 2020
So how does one determine the shelf life of an old book? “I keep things as long as I feel I should based on what I think my customers want and what the community might want to see on our shelves, and what makes us a place people want to spend time in,” Waterreus adds. “It’s kind of a loose criteria. I think what is really magical about a used bookstore is the sense of time or timelessness to books. There’s this element of surprise and discovery that is harder to replicate in all new bookstores.” Being innovative in these times is a requirement for all small business owners, and independent bookstores are no exception. “I barely had a website when we had to shut down,” says Julia Fleischaker, owner of Greedy Reads in Baltimore’s Fells Point and Remington neighborhoods. “It was just a placeholder so people could find our address and phone number. Like most independent bookstores, I had to transform our business model completely; we went from being completely focused on the in-store experience to learning how to sell books online. We put up a shoppable website and spent a few weeks getting used to operating as a de facto fulfillment center. Once we’d gotten our feet wet with that, we were able to get a little more creative.” Bookstores around the DMV are putting in the work to stay relevant with new offerings, from themed book bundles and weekend sidewalk sales to author talks and virtual book clubs. To encourage your curiosity and aptitude for supporting local small and minorityowned businesses, we asked these book experts to share their top five reads for the moment.
Hannah Oliver Depp chats with customers at a Loyalty Bookstore Petworth meetup. Photo courtesy of location.
