Making appointments, making choices

For Rebecca and I, that's what being bookstore proprietors (or partners or LLC managers or principals or what have you) is all about these days.

Appointments with lawyers. Appointments with bankers. Appointments with potential investors. Appointments with building owners or development corporations or real estate agents.

And then the choices. Choosing whether this space is worth pursuing or too far off the beaten path. Choosing the language of a promissory note that will give the best benefits to both our community lenders and the business. Choosing the many, many details of the LLC operating agreement (from what we'll use for the address, to how we'll split equity, to who gets our shares if we die, to what kinds of decisions will be made individually or jointly, and on and on).

And before all that, choosing a name.

Those of you who know me know that I've struggled with choosing a bookstore name since I first conceived of the venture. I have lists of dozens, maybe hundreds of potential names and parts of names, and I've fallen in love with one or the other at various times. But I wasn't sure enough to put any of them on legal stationary -- I thought maybe I needed to wait until I saw the space the bookstore would be in, or some other moment of clarity.

When Rebecca and I started talking about partnership, I passed along my lists of names, but she wasn't in love with any of them either. We tossed around some ideas for coming up with a name: something based on a book we both love, or some combination of our names; something alluding to the neighborhood, or something more universal. Nothing quite clicked.

Then, rather unexpectedly as it often does, a name presented itself. A friend might have mentioned it, then we heard the word again, then we started talking about why it might work.

Then it was time to put down a name for the LLC. And we realized we had already chosen.

No, I'm not gonna tell you what it is just yet. We're saving that fun announcement for our first big email blast (sign up for the mailing list at the top right if you don't want to miss it!) Rebecca and I have joked that finding out we had the bookstore name is kind of like finding out that you're going to have a baby: you want to wait to be sure before you make it public.

Like all of our other choices, choosing a name seemed daunting until it came down to it. I think it arose organically from our partnership, and from our vision for the store -- as have all our decisions about corporate structure, spaces, finances. It takes some concentration to sit down and make the choice, but the tools and the seeds are there in our shared philosophy of the kind of bookstore we want to create.

Now we've just got to sit down in those appointments and put our choices on paper.

The Hunt Is On!

Now that the furious excitement surrounding the party and our partnership announcement is winding down, Priority Number One for the future bookstore of Fort Greene is finding the right space.

As we've told lots of people, we're going to be very picky. We need the right size (1500-2000 square feet or more), the right aesthetic, good walking traffic, sufficient time for buildout, a good layout and general vibe, and of course, an affordable rent. But we're willing to look at almost anything in the neighborhood that's available -- everything we see gives us a better perspective and a sense of context for what's out there.

Rebecca and I are currently following up on every real estate lead available. As with finding an apartment, commercial real estate in New York is all about word of mouth and relationships, and we're grateful to those who have given us leads or are doing research on our behalf.

And it's great to have a partner to share the site-seeing responsibility with! Sometimes we'll look together, sometimes separately, and debriefings are frequent. It's really good to have a second opinion and another skilled bookseller's eye to look at these things -- yet another reason I'm thrilled about our partnership.

At the same time, we're also on the hunt for those who will leap into action once we do find a space: the architects, the designers, the general contractors, etc. We've got some wonderful leads on that as well.

So hey, if you've got any information, feel free to send it our way! You can send email to our new address, fortgreenebookstore@gmail.com.

We'll keep you posted on the hunt!

Just the numbers...

I'm still afterglowing from last night's party. I'll hopefully have pictures and a full recap later this week, but here's the event by the numbers.

312: number of attendees that packed into the BAM Harvey Theater

3: number of award-winning Fort Greene authors in attendance (Jhumpa, Jennifer, and Colson all showed)

2: number of local politicians who shook my hand (Tish James and Velmenette Montgomery, woo hoo!)

2: number of local rock stars in attendance (Johnny Temple of Girls Vs. Boys and Craig Finn of The Hold Steady)

7500: dollars in small business loans offered verbally on the spot

250: amount of a donation check handed to me, no strings attached (from Chris Kerr of Parson Weems: you rock!)

as yet uncounted: number of surveys in the giant box, waiting to be counted and tallied for more offers of help

1: fabulous new business partner revealed: Rebecca Fitting, Random House sales rep! This is the one I've been telling you about -- we've been talking all summer, and we're out, we're ready, we're hitting the ground running. Rebecca will be blogging here herself later this week, so I'll let her tell you her side of the story. But we're so excited to be in it together.

8: number of members of the Fort Greene Indie Bookstore Initiative, who deserve all the credit for the event (Mike, Steve, Jon, Carolyn, Sharon, Tom, Hillary, Susanna, hooray!)

4: number of photographers telling Rebeecca and I and the FGIBI to "look here, just one more" -- could we feel any more like rock stars?

1: New York Times reporter who's writing about the event for the Friday Metro section

0: bites of food consumed by Rebecca and I during the evening (it was like a wedding, too much glad talking to eat)

dozens: number of book people discovered after-partying afterward at Moe's bar in Fort Greene

infinite: measurement of the love, joy, and goodwill from assembled booklovers; also the measure of thanks due to the Fort Greene Indie Bookstore Initiative for pulling this all together; also the measurement of our hopes for the future

Thank you all so much -- we'll keep you posted!

A Fallow Time

I've been thinking a lot about plant metaphors lately. The connection of books and trees, the connection of being grounded and bearing fruit, the need for light and water, the tree inherent in a seed. And the phrase that comes to me for the month of August is an old one: lying fallow. In a time before industrialized agriculture, farmers would give alternating fields a break from crops every couple of years: a chance to build up nutrients again, to rest from producing so as to produce more abundantly later. It's the same idea behind the weekend, or summer vacation.

I've been talking lately to a potential partner for the bookstore, and after a period of feeling out each other's goals and intentions, I think we've both gotten pretty excited about the possibility of working together. But we've agreed to wait until September to make a final decision about whether we want to do it. She has some practical things to work out on her end; I have some internal wrestling with my own expectations that I need to do.

So I have the month of August for a fallow time. I don't have any other deadlines as far as working on the bookstore is concerned; some efforts are going forward with the FGA, and I'm always keeping my ears open, but there's nothing I need to do in my free time. I've announced a hiatus on my other blog, and aside from some social gatherings, I have no other obligations.

I'm grateful for this month. I intend to spend time in the park and in my backyard, to love on my husband a lot, to cook and bake as I often don't have time to do, and just generally to breathe and rest. I'll be building up my internal resources for September, when the work will start again.

I'll be taking a break from this blog as well, to make the rest more complete. Check back in September for the new beginnings; for now, I hope you're enjoying some productive rest as well.

Like Money in the Bank: Other People's Mistakes

The ABA's publication Bookselling This Week has a fantastic article in this week's issue:

If I Only Knew Then... What Not to Do When Opening a Bookstore

Here are some highlights:

1) Don't be undercapitalized.
Check. My business plan requires more capital than I think I'll actually need at first -- one of the reasons why I haven't jumped in the water yet.

2) Take your time.
Several booksellers said they wish they would have not rushed to be open before Christmas, or waited to find a better location. Better to do it right than to do it right now. Got it.

3) Don't expect that everything will be perfect on the first day.
As you learn your customers and your own systems, things will adapt and change. This is one I've struggled with, but it makes so much sense!

4) If you have a business partner, put everything in writing and make it legally binding.
Sad stories of broken friendships and financial disaster result if you don't. This one is definitely on my mind.

5) Don't think you need to have everything.
Not ever book or section anyone recommends, not a ton of inventory to start with in any category. You'll fill things appropriately in as your store evolves. Good to keep in mind, especially as I'll be trying to save money during startup.

6) Don't forget publicity!
Not paid advertising, but press releases to local media, business cards (and gift certificates!) to local businesses, etc. Make sure by the time you open people already know you're there. I'm already working on that one.


There's more there -- it's a deep well when you go to smart booksellers for advice, especially when they had to learn the hard ways. I feel pretty comfortable with all of this advice, and I'll definitely be keeping it in mind. I'm sure I'll make my own mistakes, but it's great to avoid some of the worst!

A Week's Worth of Pre-Business

And then she never blogged again. For like four days. Sorry about that -- sometimes so much is happening that you don't have time to record it. For example, here's this week in the life of a prospective bookseller.

Monday:
Talked by phone to JC, my contact at a local bank. He was a guest speaker at a business class I took through the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and emphasized the importance of building a relationship with a bank -- so when I was ready to put my grant money in a business account and start researching loans, I got in touch with him. He helped me open a money market account and has offered both enthusiasm and good advice as I'm working on the financial part of starting a bookstore (which is kind of the ONLY part I'm working on these days.)

I had taken home a small business loan application, intending to fill it in and turn it over to the bank along with my business plan, and I'd been pestering JC with questions via email for a week or so. He asked me to call him so he could share some of what he learned in asking questions of the bank's underwriters, so I did. And he shared the following rather discouraging items:

1) The bank won't want to give me a small business loan until I have a space secured. They'll want to know the specifics of rent, utilities, square footage, etc., rather than my estimates for the neighborhood and what I'm looking for.

2) The bank will want me to have twice what I'm asking for as a loan on hand in equity. (That means, if I'm asking for $100,000, I should have $200,000 in personal or investor equity.)

With $25,000 in the bank and no current prospects on a space, that means it's back to the drawing board. I spent a day and a half feeling weepy about this, but really it's a good thing to know how to prioritize. I need to focus on finding investors and finding a space -- the loan may be the last piece of the financial puzzle.

Later on Monday:
Emailed with Len and Sarah at the ABA about becoming a Prospective Bookseller Member of the American Booksellers Association. I've been using my boss's ABA username to access the resources on BookWeb, but I feel like it's time to get my own membership. I need to start asking questions of fellow booksellers in the forums, etc., and it's a little silly to keep having to explain that I'm not actually Sarah and I'm not actually asking on behalf of McNally Robinson.


Wednesday:
Had coffee with a friend in the publishing industry who had expressed interest in hearing about the progress of the store. Turns out she had something to share of her own: a nest egg, and a tentative proposal for working together. She's someone I like and respect a great deal, and I'm cautiously intrigued by the idea.

I've tried out and rejected the idea of a partnership several times, for reasons of personality conflict or idea conflict or mismatching expectations, and I'm not totally sure that I (as the bossy eldest child in my family, and as someone who's been processing this idea for years) am even capable of sharing this project with someone else. But another part of me thinks I might be foolish to continually insist that I have to do this on my own and in my own way, when if I can't come up with some capital I won't be doing it at all. Any investor is going to want some form of equity in the business -- I can't expect that someone will just hand me money and say "have fun" -- and it might be better to work with someone I know shares my values and my knowledge of the book industry, and who has a reasonable understanding of how we might split responsibilities, than with someone who just has money. And if this could work, it would certainly mean things could get going sooner rather than later.

For now, we agreed to "date" as potential partners, leaving all options open, and parted ways with a hug, both feeling a little giddy. An interesting morning, to be sure.


Thursday:
Had a breakfast meeting with another woman I'd love to work with, if the world was easier: this time a local resident who wants to support independent business in her neighborhood. We had talked some time ago about her proposal: that she might buy a building in the neighborhood to house the bookstore, with some kind of equity arrangement as the landlord, and charge below-market rent. In a city like New York where rising rent is the usual reason stores go out of business, this could be a major lifesaver for the bookstore! The problem, of course, is time as well as money: it takes a lot longer to buy a property than to sign a lease, and the idealistic local resident (shall we call her the ILR?) is an extremely busy person without a lot of time to run around looking at buildings. We also agreed to keep our options open: I'll look for great rental spaces and forward her any information on appropriate properties for sale. And we'll think about revisiting this idea in a few years, once the store has gotten started and I may be looking to move to a better space or settle in more firmly. In the meantime, she also gave me lots of good advice and encouragement -- it's good to have another supporter.


Friday (today):
I have a 3:00 conference call and a 7:30 dinner scheduled with my strongest local supporters: the Retail Committee of the Fort Greene Association. Around the time I was winning that business plan award, the FGA was conducting a survey of the residents of its neighborhood to find out what kinds of retail they wanted to bring to their neighborhood. The neighborhood is becoming more affluent, and the FGA wants to be proactive about bringing in the kinds of services residents really need, rather than watching as chain stores and nail salons take over all the retail properties.

Turns out that bookstore was the number one desired store, across all categories of income, race, gender, etc. The FGA had contacted some other local booksellers to see who might want to come to the neighborhood, but everyone had their hands full with their own stores and projects. Then they heard about my win in the Daily News and contacted me, and it was like love at first sight. Fort Greene was one of three neighborhoods I proposed in my plan as the most in need of AND the most able to support a bookstore, and really my favorite of them all. I'll probably write lots more about the neighborhood; I live just on the other side of Flatbush Avenue in Park Slope, but I'm becoming more and more enamored of Fort Greene as a place to set up shop.

(This is the risk of posting this publicly: please, if you're thinking of opening a bookstore yourself, don't steal this joy and head straight for Fort Greene. But I figure I've talked to enough people about this in person that the word is already out there, and I can't keep being vague about the community I'm working with. I'll just cross my fingers and trust in everyone's good faith -- or that no one else is crazy enough to want to do this.)

Anyway, the FGA is planning a sort of "coming out" party for me, to publicize the impending bookstore and, more importantly, to pitch the idea to some potential investors. The phone call and the meeting are about that. I'm still hoping to get advice from a small business lawyer on what investment terms should look like, and there are lots of details to plan. But these guys are great, and I'm grateful for their support and for their welcome into their community.


Okay, that's the week, give or take a few dozen details. I'm going to try to post more frequently and less at length, as time and developments allow. But you're mostly caught up now. Would love to hear your thoughts or comments. Have a good weekend!