INC NEWS - Barnes & Noble on Central Campus?? See below

Wed Mar 22 16:43:14 EST 2006

Last night, the possibility that Duke's Central Campus would include a 
Barnes & Noble was raised at the community meeting. Duke's answer was less 
than comforting for those of us concerned about the impact of Central 
Campus on local business districts and locally owned businesses.

Below is an article from Publishers Weekly about a bookseller in Texas who 
researched the impact of a national chain vs. an independent local 
bookseller on the local economy (locally owned businesses put far more of 
their money back into the local economy than do national chains). He also 
led successful local resistance to a Borders bookstore in redevelopment 
efforts in Austin. Makes for an interesting read.

Note also that a Barnes & Noble on Duke's campus would not pay local 
property taxes--giving it an advantage over the Regulator (and taking those 
tax revenues out of the local economy, which the a Barnes & Noble in a 
shopping mall would at least have to pay).

Kelly Jarrett

PW's Bookseller of the Year: Steve Bercu, Book People
by John Mutter -- Publishers Weekly, 5/2/2005

Steve Bercu is big on bold ideas an incisive action. Just ask Borders, 
which withdrew a planned store in the face of a Bercu-mounted assault. 
Right now, he is irritated. "Why didn't we realize it before?" he asks 
himself aloud as he gives a tour of BookPeople, in Austin, Tex. He has just 
praised the initiative taken last year by a bookseller who suggested all 
staff picks be positioned face out at eye level throughout the store. What 
bugs him is that he?or someone at BookPeople?hadn't already thought of it.

A simple, creative and effective idea like putting staff picks at eye level 
makes Bercu impatient. He is restless as he wanders the aisles of 
BookPeople. From minute to minute, Bercu's focus ranges from the minutiae 
of book retailing?moving a misplaced book back to the right section; trying 
to fix the neon coffee-shop sign?to sales trends for the month and debating 
what a bookstore should be like in five years.

PW’s Bookseller of the Year.
Bercu is best known nationally for, in addition to dissuading Borders from 
opening a store next to his, being a founder of the "Keep Austin Weird" 
pro-local-business campaign, which has since expanded to other potentially 
weird towns like Boulder, Colo., and Raleigh, N.C. "Steve was out there on 
that issue, took charge and made it happen," said John Kunz, owner of 
Waterloo Records and Video, who partnered with Bercu on the original 
campaign. "A bunch of independent business owners wouldn't commit to it 
until they could see what was in it for them." Bercu commissioned a study 
that showed that BookPeople and Waterloo already contributed 3.5 times as 
much to the local economy as a new Borders would. "Steve made it resonate 
with everyone," said Kunz. "It was a huge endeavor on his part." Concurrent 
with the study, independent retailers in the city formed the Austin 
Independent Business Alliance, which now numbers 350 members.

The effort to organize independent businesses continues to help the store. 
"The city is extremely responsive to the IBA," Bercu says. "We're getting 
to be an established part of what goes on here." Moreover, the group's 
activities "keep everyone talking indies." The lesson: "It's possible to 
have self-interest converge with the community interest. It has been a 
pretty happy scenario."

"Austin is world famous for nurturing musicians, and it has lots of love 
left for its local poets and writers," said longtime BookPeople supporter 
and NPR commentator Marion Winick. "Back in the day, when Book People was 
tiny little Grok Books on the Drag, it was part of a vibrant homegrown 
scene of literary performance, small presses and booksellers. When the 
store moved to its huge downtown location in the '90s, what you saw was the 
the ambience and power of a major national independent bookseller combined 
with the particular pride and devotion Austin gives its own. This is a town 
that knows how to throw a book release party."

Bercu has more than enough nuts-and-bolts retailing issues to keep him 
occupied. After Borders decided in 2003 not to open down the street, a city 
road construction project last year caused such disruption that it knocked 
BookPeople's sales down 8.1% for 2004. "When I started as a bookseller in 
1994, I worried about the chains and Amazon," Bercu says. "I never imagined 
that the biggest challenge would be having our street ripped up for seven 
months."

Sales recovered, but in early March, Whole Foods, the anchor tenant in 
BookPeople's building, moved to a huge new site across the street. Besides 
losing the walk-in traffic from the supermarket's customers, the new 
80,000-sq.-ft. store drew so many curious people that traffic and parking 
at BookPeople became gridlocked, which "killed" sales the first week in 
March, Bercu says. Since then, the situation has improved and the month 
ended up 3%. (At press time, April sales were up 3.1%.)

When a new tenant or two moves into Whole Foods' old space, the bookstore 
will undergo a face-lift that will include new flooring and painting. But 
Bercu wants BookPeople to change in deeper, less cosmetic ways. The store 
should become, he says, "an entertainment venue. As the pace of life speeds 
up and people no longer have to go anywhere to buy a book, we have to give 
them a reason to come to us. We have to offer an experience."

There's already plenty of action on the store's floor, where 
"pre-selecting" and impulse-buying opportunities are the themes of 
merchandising. "About 80% of our customers have no idea of what they want," 
Bercu says. To help customers decide what they want, BookPeople booksellers 
"own" sections of the store, where many set up their own displays. "I give 
everyone total authority to do what they want, so long as it's in 
relatively good taste and with a sense of humor," Bercu says.

The store is full of shelf talkers, and in some sections, there seem to be 
more books with shelf talkers than without. The store is so 
promotion-minded that its monthly events schedules are posted in all 
bathroom stalls and at urinals.

BookPeople also holds a lot of contests, which, like so many store 
activities, are inexpensive but generate interest. A recent contest 
combined two promotional activities: contests and shelf talkers. Customers 
could win a $25 gift certificate at the store by voting for their favorite 
shelf talkers in two categories: best content and most creative.

In a related effort, late last year the store began a monthly book 
promotion called Top Shelf, which includes a large, central display and 
prominent space on the store's Web site. A bookseller picks a title, which 
he or she promotes to the rest of the store. "After we become enthusiastic 
about it, we promote it to customers," Bercu says. "The idea is to get us 
all talking about something beyond our areas."

The store is an author favorite, hosting some 200 author appearances every 
year. "Musicians have bars, actors have theaters, but authors rarely have a 
venue they can regularly count on to provide space, support and publicity 
to do random literary experiments," said Spike Gillespie, author of 
Surrender (U. Texas Press). "Every friend I have who has ever done a 
reading there always is overwhelmed with how amazing the experience is." 
Austin resident and national bestselling author David Lindsey (The Face of 
the Assassin, Warner) agrees: "I remember when a book signing was still 
called an autograph party. BookPeople still do it right. At the same time 
they always keep up with the local authors. I can't speak highly enough of 
what they've done."

"It's a gathering place of authors of all stripes?they're just as open to 
hosting self-published authors and big-name authors coming in from New 
York," said Cyndi Hughes, freelance book publicist and former director of 
the Texas Book Festival. "The store is important to the writing community 
as well as to the reading community."

BookPeople's "authorless" events also attract crowds. A recent example, 
"Hardcovers for Hardbodies," was created by events coordinator Erin Kelly, 
who says it "started as a joke, a fun thing to do during the January lull." 
Held monthly and drawing between 40 and 50 participants, the H4H program 
has included the "Literary Aerobics Class," which centered on exercises 
using the Random House Collegiate Dictionary, and the "Boxing with Babes" 
night, which featured introductory boxing instruction.

Bercu seeks to fill his store with employees who are social and cheerful. 
"We can't train a good personality," Bercu explains, "but we can hire the 
right kind of person and graft books on later. A reticent bookseller is not 
going to help the customer have a welcoming, pleasant experience."

Before a new employee gets used to the store, Bercu likes to make use of 
his or her fresh eye. After 10 days, before the person "gets invested in 
store culture," he asks new hires "what we should change in the store. In 
six months, they won't see it anymore."

The booksellers get high marks from Chris Roberson, publisher of 
Monkeybrain Books, who noted, "They are a very thoughtful and persistent 
promoter of everything good, everything Texas and everything Austin. It's a 
great store."

The store's sidelines, which Bercu calls gifts, have increased in sales in 
the past few years at a rate of 1% annually and now account for 21% of 
store sales. The gifts are scattered about the store and include T-shirts, 
chimes, candles, soaps and incense.

For its tchotchke gifts, the store has a rather ruthless buying policy. 
"Most gifts are gone in six months," Bercu says. "We don't do back orders 
or reorders. We just keep getting new ones. Even if we buy only six and 
sell out in a few days, we don't reorder." As a result, there's always 
something new.

Among the rare long-running gift bestsellers are the $6 Jesus action figure 
and the Austin Monopoly game, both of which have sold thousands of copies. 
Bercu laments that the game maker has gone out of business. Had the company 
followed BookPeople's approach, it might have owned Boardwalk?and Austin.

Return to the BEA 2005 Preview Main Page

Bookstore Bio

Founded: 1970 as Grok Books, originally specializing in philosophy and 
metaphysics

Retail space: 24,000 square feet

Titles:150,000

Employees: 85

Mottos:The Largest Bookstore in Texas; A Community Bound by Books

Web site: www.bookpeople.com

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