Jonathon Welch, co-founder of Talking Leaves Books, describes how his indie bookstore has weathered ups and downs over the decades.
Elizabeth Licata
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Independent bookstores were supposed to be dead by now. To say that didn't happen is a glorious understatement.
Over the past 10 years, the number of such bookstores in Buffalo has perhaps tripled with 12 now operating within the city limits. That doesn't count such treasures as the Book Corner in Niagara Falls, The Bookworm in East Aurora or Old Editions in North Tonawanda, as well as many others in surrounding towns and villages.
As the world emerged from the pandemic, something happened with brick-and-mortar stores that sell physical books: They boomed - in Western New York and everywhere else.
What's interesting is the speed with which newer bookstores are joining familiar stalwarts. The past two years alone have seen the openings of Read It and Eat, Buffalo's first culinary bookstore; Afterglow, Buffalo's first fantasy and romance bookstore; and Steward & Specter, which specializes in sci-fi and "dead media." Alice, Ever After Books, a children's bookstore on Parkside Avenue, opened in 2021 and Fitz Books & Waffles, a community hub on Ellicott Street, opened in 2020.
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Many of the most recent storefronts started out as market stands, pop-ups or online-only before making the leap to storefront spaces with regular hours.
This is a national phenomenon. More than 600 independent bookstores have opened across the U.S. since 2020 and the beginning of the pandemic, according to Allison Hill, CEO of the national industry nonprofit American Booksellers Association. Membership in that organization has doubled since 2016, and is at its highest level in 20 years.
How did this happen? Why did it happen?
For the answer to those questions, the go-to in Buffalo is Jonathon Welch, cofounder of Talking Leaves Books, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in January. Talking Leaves has had its ups and downs over the years. It had to close its Main Street location in 2017, but its Elmwood Avenue store, which opened in 2001, continues to thrive with strong community support.
Welch has an interesting take on consumer trends: "I think human behavior is both static and constantly changing. It is changed by outside forces. People will do what they know about and what they hear and then suddenly they decide 'this cutting edge ain't much fun.' "
He feels that's what occurred with books. "What seems to be happening is that people are saying 'I like bookstores, I like talking to people, I like looking around,' " he says. "It is exactly the opposite of the 'frictionless transactions' Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) talked about. Friction is what makes brick-and-mortar retail work. People are realizing that's what they want."
Welch is quick to point out that the book business is not without its pitfalls, stressing, "It's hard to run a bookstore. It is not an easy business. The logistics are not easy." But he also posits that newcomers to the business are are "much savvier. They're more book people. When stores started opening after the collapse of the chains, people were smarter. They understand that the book business is unique. And they specialize."
Do they ever. If you want bodice rippers, Afterglow has you (un)covered. For social justice and political activism, browse the shelves of Burning Books. And I never imagined Buffalo would have a bookstore devoted to cooking. But niche is key these days.
Leslie Pickering, co-owner of Burning Books, at 420 Connecticut St., confirms this.
"You've got to find your niche," he says. "But I guess we did that from the beginning. Our struggle is mostly learning how to run a business. Really, we're activists and not business people, so it's harder for us to just figure out how to manage business than it is to get people interested in what we have to offer."
There is growing interest in the books on social justice and political activism Burning Books offers - so much that Pickering and co-owner Theresa Baker-Pickering are taking over an adjacent storefront. Local architect Brad Wales is designing the new space so it will accommodate a larger event room for Burning Book's busy speaker series, as well as more books. This week, the store is hosting talks by Daryl Lamont Jenkins on anti-fascism (Wednesday ) and photographer Orin Langelle on his book "Portraits of Struggle" (Thursday ).
Burning Books has been a longtime supporter of the movement to exonerate Martin Sostre, who opened Buffalo's first revolutionary bookstore in 1965: the Afro-Asian Bookshop at 1412 Jefferson Ave., and Geraldine Pointer, who managed Sostre's second shop at 289 High St. The two activists were scapegoated for political unrest and arrested in 1967 on charges that were dropped or lowered by the time of Sostre's trial. Nonetheless, both were imprisoned.
Long after their releases - Sostre, a pioneering champion of prisoners' rights, died in 2015 - advocates are still pushing for their convictions to be vacated by the Erie County District Attorney's Office. Burning Books is part of this campaign and is organizing a birthday event for Pointer, who still lives in Buffalo, on Saturday, at the Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Library.
Events are equally important at Aaron Bartley's Fitz Books & Waffles, at 433 Ellicott St. "We have had writers come through here and helped support them on their professional path," Bartley says. "That's the whole third space theory. It's this subtle but crucial role of supporting cultural growth and learning."
In many ways, Bartley sees his store as supporting Buffalo's cultural history: "I have always had a pretty broad notion that I wanted fiction represented and I had this amateur knowledge of the avant garde in Buffalo. As a treasure hunter, I am addicted to estate sales and I love to sift through books and artifacts. My biggest thrills come from little pieces of Buffalo's literary, social and art movements. They tell these forgotten stories and they strengthen our sense of place and sense of ancestors."
Like Pickering, Bartley is planning a space upgrade and hopes to move Fitz to the former home of Flexlume at 1462 Main St., sometime in 2025.
Niche is a winning strategy with bookstores, but there also needs to be marketing, which can be tough for small businesses with slender profit margins. Buffalo's bookstore culture is fortunate to have gained a marketing guru when Meg Howe returned to her hometown in 2020, opening her Alice, Ever After children's bookshop shortly afterward, in 2021.
Howe, a longtime teacher, had always kept her dream of opening a bookstore tucked away, but for her, like many others, the pandemic prompted a "now or never" moment. "I had been thinking about it for a long time," Howe says. "All my work in education was connected with families and community. All my schooling was about play. I sent an email to my friends, and asked them for advice. They connected me to others who owned bookstores and I discovered that the bookstore community is an amazing, collaborative, dynamic, diverse group of people."
Howe immediately realized that Buffalo's bookstore ecosphere was rather fragmented: "We opened and somebody came in and said there are only two other bookstores, but I knew there were many others,. Everybody knew Talking Leaves, but many people didn't know Dog Ears in South Buffalo or Zawadi Books, right down the road." Zawadi, in business for 48 years at 1382 Jefferson, is one of the longest-operating independent Black-owned businesses in the country.
On a mission to raise awareness of Zawadi and all the other independent sellers in the city, Howe started Buffalo's first Independent Bookstore Day in 2022. Independent Bookstore Day is a national celebration that's been going on for 11 years, always held on the last Saturday in April. Participants are invited to visit every bookstore listed on a passport that gets stamped at each location. There are also scavenger hunts, contests and even live entertainment and refreshments, depending on the store.
Howe discovered that many Buffalo stores were unaware of the national event, but now they're quick to give her credit for lifting up a local culture in which books matter.
Even America's largest bookstore chain is learning lessons from indie culture. Barnes & Noble lost hundreds of stores as consumers turned to Amazon, but this year, it's opening 60 new locations, including an outlet at the Walden Galleria, which welcomed its first customer Nov. 6.
In a recent CNN story, B&N CEO James Daunt, who took over in 2018, stated, "I think a proper bookstore has to be curated, and that is the essence of one of the core skills of what it is to be a bookseller. You are trying to have the titles that you think will most interest your customers and display them."
Sounds simple and it seems to be working for the chain, but Barnes & Noble is actually riding a much more profound wave. It is the search for meaning and community that Welch explains with equal simplicity: "A world with more bookstores is better."
Find links to a dozen local shops at aliceeverafterbooks.com/independent-bookstore-day.
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editorial writer
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