8 minute read
Beyond the Books
The story behind Tombolo Books’ success is a true page-turner about a genuine love for books, a strong sense of community and plenty of hard work along the way.
By Nick Steele
In December of last year, an enthusiastic group of customers and authors gathered to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their community bookstore, Tombolo Books, a local, woman-owned, independent bookseller in the heart of St. Pete’s bustling Grand Central District.
Co-owners Alsace Walentine and her wife Candice Anderson, who have built a vibrant destination for book lovers and those seeking a unique literary experience have also managed to cultivate genuine connections within the community—as witnessed by the many enthusiastic patrons and community partners who turned out to celebrate with them.
“There was an endless amount of love in this bookstore,” Walentine says about the event. “We feel so grateful for this community of kind, generous, wonderful people. We’re proud to be a place that ‘feels like home’ for so many.”
But this isn’t an overnight success story. The foundation for this home has been many years in the making and started far from the Sunshine City.
“The story starts in Asheville, North Carolina,” Anderson shares. “That’s where we met 20 years ago. Alsace was working at Malaprop’s Bookstore, which has been there for over 40 years now.”
Malaprop’s is that region’s largest locally owned independent bookstore, nationally known for fostering a strong sense of community, and it has grown into a beloved destination where book lovers gather to discover new books, meet authors and participate in literary events.
Throughout her sixteen-year tenure at Malaprop’s, Walentine climbed the ranks from working as a barista in the store’s cafe to eventually becoming the manager and the author events coordinator. And then, a chance to replicate her professional success presented itself when their lives took an unexpected turn.
“I had a corporate career and I got recruited to move to Florida,” Anderson recalls. “I moved, and she stayed there because, if you’ve got a great bookstore job, you don’t leave it. Then she came and visited me and fell in love with St. Pete. She loved the climate, the beaches and the supportive arts and literary community…But she could also see an opening for an author-events focused, indie bookstore.”
They also quickly realized that the values of the local business community aligned perfectly with their own. Even before the bookstore opened, Walentine established relationships with organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and Keep St. Pete Local. She even enrolled in a 10-week business course at the small business resource center St. Pete Greenhouse.
She recognized early on that there is a very strong “Go Local” movement here in St. Pete.
“I think the Go Local movement is hand in hand with the arts scene,” she offers. “People understand that it’s individuals that create a unique city.”
That led her to not only build a warm inviting space with a wonderfully curated selection of books and an engaging group of staff members, but to also forge meaningful relationships and partnerships with other local businesses and organizations.
“It’s been five years in this brick and mortar and seven years as a business, because we started as a pop-up,” Walentine explains. “COVID happened 90 days after we opened. So, all of a sudden, we had to pivot, shut down and deliver by bicycle, but having started as a pop-up, we were nimble enough to adapt. Candice came into the day-to-day a little bit later.”
In fact, a year after the opening of the Tombolo brick-and-mortar, Anderson left her former career to work full-time at the business.
“It was very exciting for me because I met her in a bookstore and I’d always wanted to be a bookseller,” she recalls. “It was my secret dream. We joke about it, but there were times when we were in Asheville when I was like, ‘I’d really love to come work with you at Malaprop’s.’ And she was like, ‘No, now’s not a good time.’ I remember thinking, what do I have to do to get a bookselling job in this town?”
In addition to their impressive collection of titles and close relationships with local authors, they currently operate about nine book clubs, host story times for children, book signings, launches and a slate of monthly special events.
What is most significant is that through the bookstore, they have brought a new energy to the community, as well as a place to find connections.
“It’s a wonderful way to spend your days—talking to people, listening to them, talking about what most inspires them or what they most need at that moment in their life,” Walentine shares. “It’s very personal and just a beautiful way to spend your days. I really love it.”
Anderson echoes the sentiment, pointing out that in a time when we spend so much time on our devices that we are hungry for real world engagement.
“I think that to find meaning in life, people need connection. And so in the same way that someone will show up for a tailgate market and feel like they’re engaging and serving their community, that is why people are drawn to the bookstore in a different way than they’re drawn to buying books online,” she asserts. “People want a human connection and that’s never lost on us.”
They take great pride in having created a space where people from all backgrounds can come together to bond, potentially making friends with others that they may not have realized they had anything in common with before visiting.
“People connect with each other all the time in the store and it’s beautiful to see,” Walentine explains. “This community has really developed, it morphs and changes. And each member affects one another. Oftentimes, we’re not the only ones hand selling books.
The customers are doing it. They bump into someone who is also looking and they want to help. I love to see that, because they’re getting a little moment of bookselling themselves.”
But the best bookstores are never just stores. A white paper from Ryan L. Raffaelli of the Harvard Business School titled Reinventing Retail: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores attributes the public’s desire for shops like Tombolo to the “3C’s.” And Walentine and Anderson seem to know these factors by heart. In short, they are “community” built through the idea of consumers supporting their local economy by shopping local; a focus on “curating” inventory that allows them to provide a more tailored customer experience through the personal relationships they cultivate, rather than filling the store with only trending bestsellers, while helping their customers discover up-and-coming authors and unexpected titles; and “convening” customers with likeminded interests— offering signings, lectures, children’s story times, book clubs and participating with other key events out in the community.
“Our engagement with other organizations in the community is very deliberate,” Anderson reveals. “Synergy is kind of an overused word, but we put our support behind the things we like and partner with those whose mission we share, for instance the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, the University of South Florida and The Museum of Fine Arts. It’s fulfilling in two ways, because we get to support and work with organizations that we’re excited about and it’s good for sharing audiences and customers. It allows us to get our message to other places and lets people know we’re here. As an independent business, we get to do it very intentionally.
And if you’re wondering about that name.
“I wanted something unique,” says Walentine. “A name people would remember.”
After hours of brainstorming and perusing Gulf Coast terminology, she settled on the English-appropriated Italian word, tombolo (pronounced “tombuh-loh”), because it means a sandbar “connecting an island to the mainland,” in the same way bookstores connect readers to stories, authors and the community.
In January, Tombolo has events scheduled with Gloria Munoz for her debut YA novel, Deborah G. Plant, who will introduce a never-before-published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, podcast hosts Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni of Frugal Friends celebrate their debut book and author Amy Buchanan debuts her first novel. In February, they will host a graphic novel workshop with local author and illustrator Jarod Roselló of the Super Magic Boy series and present a highly anticipated launch party for Lisa Unger’s latest book at Coastal Creative.
For more information, visit tombolobooks.com
