Here are the secrets of successful Seattle neighborhood bookstores

Neighborhood Reads

Bookstores have always been my favorite places. Before I became a professional writer, I was a bookseller — first at the flagship Borders in Boston and then at Elliott Bay Book Company from 2000 to 2008. 

I loved just about everything about bookselling: the weird customer requests, the access to free advance reading copies of upcoming blockbuster titles, the giddy moment when you connect the right book to the right human at the right time. But my favorite thing about bookselling was the booksellers — the eccentric, funny, brilliant people who devote their lives to books. 

So when The Seattle Times asked me to write Neighborhood Reads, a monthly series profiling Seattle-area bookstores, I enthusiastically accepted the offer. I thought writing about independent bookstores would help me reconnect with the region’s booksellers, to tell the unsung stories of the fascinating people who make Seattle’s literary culture among the best in the world, as proven by our UNESCO-recognized International City of Literature status. 

I figured it would be a fun project that would take up, at most, a couple of years of my life. Dear reader, I’m happy to report my math was dreadfully wrong. This month marks the five-year anniversary of the Neighborhood Reads series. We’ve visited (at least) one bookstore together for every month of the last five years, with no repeats, and there are still some local bookstores left to go. 

And even after the pandemic shut down large swaths of the city for months, I’m happy to report that though there is no official tally of bookstores in the Seattle area, by my own informal count, 20 independent bookstores have opened since I started writing Neighborhood Reads, and seven independent bookshops have closed. This roughly corresponds with national trends: Statista reports that America added nearly 500 new bookstores since the depths of the pandemic, and according to the American Booksellers Association, more than 70 independent bookstores closed in 2020.

But to dwell too much on quantity would detract from the breadth of quality we enjoy in the Seattle area. As a former bookseller, I’m humbled by the skills of this modern wave of Seattle booksellers. These are small business owners who deeply understand their craft — they’re professional, they’re enthusiastic and they’re thoughtful about how they engage with their communities. 

All of this is to say that Seattle is in a golden age of bookselling. Lifelong Seattle residents are right to lament the loss of beloved bookstores like Red and Black Books, Shorey’s Bookstore and David Ishii, Bookseller. But the spirits of those old neighborhood haunts are very much alive in local bookstores that have opened over the past year, like Charlie’s Queer Books, Ballard Books and Mam’s Books.

Based on my five years of interviews with local booksellers, I’ve gathered some insights into what helps these bookstores succeed, and why, after decades of pundits moaning (or gloating) that chain bookstores and online retailers were going to kill local bookstores, Seattle is in the midst of a bookish renaissance. These are the three qualities that have reinvigorated bookselling in Seattle for the 21st century.

Be ferociously opinionated about your books

It’s true — no physical bookstore can compete with the infinite selection of an online bookseller. But anyone who has lost hours to mindless scrolling can attest that “infinite selection” is just a more polite way to say “bottomless pit.” The joy of a good bookstore is that the books on its shelves are purposefully selected and passionately endorsed by real humans. 

And just as no two personalities are identical, every bookstore has its own unique spirit. For instance, I’ll head to Three Trees Books in Burien if I’m in the mood for a short book that punches above its weight. The store’s Tiny Book Club, which is devoted to the enjoyment of sub-200-page mini-masterpieces, has helped hone its stock of perfect little literary gems. 

Phinney Books, on the other hand, is the undisputed heavyweight champion of unearthing lost classics by forgotten authors that are just as mighty and meaningful as the big-name writers who shaped the course of literature. Mercer Street Books somehow always seems to have a copy of that one elusive book you’ve long coveted just sitting on their shelves, waiting for you. And an enthusiastic book recommendation from Peter Miller, of Peter Miller Books, is the balm for those dark days when color and art have drained out of the world and your spirit craves the resuscitation brought only by exposure to something daring, vibrant and exciting.

Best of all, just as every friendship is unique, your personal relationship with any of these bookstores could be completely different from mine. The important thing is that in these bookstores, you’re making a connection with another personality — not just absorbing information from a soulless algorithm.

No experience necessary

One of the most surprising discoveries in the course of writing Neighborhood Reads is that many of the best booksellers in the city right now opened their shops without any prior bookselling experience. 

Danielle Hulton had never sold a single book before she launched the delightful Ada’s Technical Books, and now she’s also the owner of a miniature empire of neighborhood bookshops at three Fuel Coffee locations. Maren Comendant, similarly, had no bookstore experience before opening Nook & Cranny just down 15th Avenue from Ada’s, and in a matter of months, she’s become one of the city’s best practitioners of the ancient booksellers’ art of hand selling — the ability to tailor passionate and enthusiastic book recommendations to meet the individual needs of every customer, face to face. And Monica LeMoine didn’t need prior employment at a bookstore to reimagine what independent bookselling can be with her fabulous traveling truck of a bookstore, Blue Kettle Books. 

This is not to say that they didn’t do the work. All three of these bookstore owners came prepared with well-researched business plans. But in many ways, their lack of traditional bookselling experience allowed them to evolve the idea of what a bookstore could be in the 21st century, thereby avoiding many of the pitfalls that shuttered longtime booksellers in the 1990s and early 2000s who refused to embrace e-commerce or establish community programming like book clubs.

Know thy neighbors

Through all of 2022 and most of 2023, almost every bookstore owner I interviewed nearly broke into grateful tears as they recalled the outpouring of support they received from their communities during pandemic lockdowns. Their customers purposefully ordered extra books, waited additional days and weeks for books to arrive as supply chains stretched to and beyond the breaking point, and generally went out of their way to ensure these bookstores would still be in business when things opened back up.

Unfortunately, not every small business enjoys that kind of loyalty from its customers. That’s because the best bookstores aren’t interested in simply servicing consumers — they’re building relationships with their neighbors. Ballast Book Company’s events programming brings book clubs and readings out into other small businesses in downtown Burien. Secret Garden Books works with local educators and librarians to bring book fairs and kid’s book authors to neighborhood schools. Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery hosts an annual summer barbecue and book fair that has become a sacred holiday in the Seattle-area cartoonist community. 

Reading and writing may be acts performed in solitude, but the best bookstores understand that books bring communities together. Above all else, bookstores have to know their neighbors, because the neighbors make the bookstore — their interests and hopes and fears shape the store’s stock, their children fill the store with laughter and their desire to connect brings them together in warm, welcoming spaces meant for sharing stories

One thing that has not changed since I signed up to write Neighborhood Reads is that I’m no better at math, so I’m not sure how many bookstores remain until the series meets its natural end. I can think of at least eight shops I’ve been meaning to get to, and two other bookstores opened in the Seattle area this year that I can’t wait to visit for the first time. 

And more openings could be on the horizon: I’m hearing rumors that someone out there is kicking around the idea of a romance-only bookshop, which is a model that’s seen some success in other cities around the country as many readers have flocked to the once-ostracized genre. 

To that prospective bookseller, let me say this: In five years of writing Neighborhood Reads, I’ve learned that Seattle readers have boundless space in their hearts for a bookseller with a dream.