Lucy Yu was told that opening a bookstore in Chinatown was crazy. Dozens of stores and restaurants were forced to close due to the Pandemic. There had been a rise in hate crimes against Asians.
The bookstore was what the neighborhood needed.
She was able to rent a small storefront on Mulberry Street in Manhattan, thanks to the $20,000 she raised on the website. She received a neighborhood grant to buy bookshelves and books. In December, she opened Yu and Me Books, which focuses on books about immigrants and people of color.
The store made money within four months.
Yu and Me Books is one of more than 300 new independent bookstores that have sprouted across the United States in the past couple of years in a surprising and welcome revival after an early outbreak of the Pandemic. The book selling business has become more diverse as the number of stores has increased.
Ms. Yu said that people were hungry for a place focused on Asian American and immigrant stories. I wanted people to come here and not have to search because I was always looking for that.
Independent book selling looked bleak two years ago. Hundreds of small booksellers in the United States were doomed by the coronaviruses. The US Census Bureau shows that bookstore sales fell in 2020. The publishing industry was bracing for a blow that could permanently change the way readers discover and purchase books.
Many small booksellers are thriving, despite the fact that they survived the Pandemic.
According to Allison Hill, the chief executive of the American Booksellers Association, the stores were in dire straits in 2020. We saw a rally that was unlike anything we have ever seen before.
The association now has 2,023 member stores in 2,566 locations. Some of the growth is due to existing stores renewing memberships that were put off last year because of the swine flu. More than 200 new bookshops are expected to open in the next year or two, Ms. Hill said.
Stores have seen a boost in profits. According to a survey done by the association earlier this year, 80 percent of respondents said their sales would go up in 2021, and 70 percent said their sales went up last year.
The store made more money last year than it did in the previous year, according to the owner. Mitchell Kaplan, the founder of Books & Books, an independent chain in South Florida, said sales were up more than 60 percent in the year 2021.
Many of the new stores that opened during the epidemic are run by nonwhite booksellers, including The Salt Eaters Bookshop, which sells books by and about Black women, girls and nonbinary people.
When her daughter was 14 years old she said she was bored by the books her mother was bringing her home to read and that's when she decided to open a store. She likes to read books about black girlhood.
She didn't have a place in Houston to discover and explore all the amazing works written by black people. There wasn't a place for her to stay.
At a time when brick and mortar stores are facing crushing competition from online retailers, the growth of physical bookshops is surprising. A looming recession that could drive down consumer spending is one of the new uncertainties facing many bookstore owners.
In a time of crisis, many communities came together around their bookstores. When in-person shopping plummeted during the shutdown, bookstores quickly scaled up their online sales operations and found other ways to keep their customers. Publishers sold more than 800 million print books in the year 2020, an increase of 10 percent over the previous year, but readers were still interested in print books.
The new crop of bookstores may be a result of people re-examining their lives and changing professions, and retail spaces becoming more accessible. Some people were able to leave their jobs and start new businesses because of the government's help to small businesses.
Julie Ross quit her job at Google to open Pocket Books Shop with two of her friends. There is a table near the front of the bookstore with books about abortion in a conservative part of the state.
Ms. Ross said that the bubble of belief that we had control over what was coming was shattered by the swine flu. We had a moment where we wanted to know what was waiting for us.
Laura Rodrguez-Roman opened her bookstore in June of this year. Mrs. Rodrguez-Roman sold books online and hosted pop up events. After winning a contest for local entrepreneurs and getting money from the Berwyn Development Corporation, she found a physical space and started her business.
She knew it was a risk, but she felt the community needed a place where children's books could be found.
Mrs. Rodrguez-Roman said that they don't have representation of those types of books.
The new bookstore owners wanted to create more visibility for diverse books.
Five years ago, after visiting a local store and finding very few books by Black women, she decided to open a bookshop. A stay-at- home mother with four daughters, she started with an online book club and pop up events during the Pandemic, then moved to a micro-shop that shared space with another business. In January, she opened a 1,400 square foot space in the mall.
The vast majority of the books in her store are written by women, and she has a larger selection on her website.
Ms. Lawrence said that people are looking for a community that they can trust. We're not just relying on the results of a test.
On a recent afternoon in Chinatown, a steady stream of shoppers browsed and chatted with Ms. Yu at her shop, which is located on a stretch of Mulberry Street near a funeral home. Customers sat in the back of the store to read.
Ms. Yu said she had seen some dates go down there. They were good. Those are bad.
Ms. Yu was asked if she could suggest a cookbook for a gift. The author, who works in a writing studio in the neighborhood, stopped by to check on the book she ordered. Ms. Yu found a book called " Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments".
Ms. Chin, who has lived in Chinatown for generations, said that the store has become a gathering spot for artistic and literary-minded locals. There is a book launch for the writer and essayist, and a signing with the novelist Marie Myung-Ok Lee, among other things.
At a time when anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise, the store has become a safe place to go. The shop gave away more than 1,000 safety alarms and pepper spray canisters in March.
Ms. Chin said that it is a defacto community space. We didn't realize we needed a bookstore until we had it.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
