Niche Bookstores 'Surviving and Thriving' in NYC

Shelf Awareness

"By nature a used cookbook store is a very backwards-looking thing," said Bonnie Slotnick, the owner of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, at a panel discussion Tuesday night entitled "Niche Bookstores: Surviving and Thriving." The panel, held at the Penguin Random House offices in New York City, was sponsored by the Book Industry Guild of New York and also featured Mitch Cutler, the owner of St. Mark's Comics in the East Village, Otto Penzler, the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Tribeca, and Maria Heron, a shareholder and volunteer at Bluestockings in the Lower East Side. Boris Kachka, a journalist for New York magazine and author, served as moderator.

L.-r.: Boris Kachka, Maria Heron, Mitch Cutler, Bonnie Slotnick, Otto Penzler

"I think what keeps my store going is that some of the customer service on online bookstores is so terrible," Slotnick continued. Her store is on the Lower East Side and specializes in out-of-print and antiquarian cookbooks. "Customers want to have a conversation with somebody."

The panelists all rejected the notion that trends or fads have helped them stay in business and agreed on the importance of having deep community roots and longstanding personal ties with customers.

The most important thing, suggested Heron, is being "consistently involved in your community." She described Bluestockings, a volunteer-run, collectively owned bookstore, cafe and radical space, as an "oasis of adjusted priorities." She became a shareholder and volunteer, she explained, after being "floored" by the store's customer service, community atmosphere and the dialogue between customers and staff. She added: "You don't have to pay tuition or buy a book to be part of that conversation."

In addition to community ties and strong customer service, Penzler pointed to proprietary publishing and the selling of signed first editions and rare books as big reasons why he's still in business.

"A lot of my customers are collectors," said Penzler, who collects first editions himself. He started a signed first edition book club at his store years ago, which at various points has had more than 1,200 members. The only downside, he joked, is that now "nobody buys anything that isn't signed."

Cutler, whose store also attracts many collectors, said that new titles keep his store afloat. He also sells a great amount of collectible toys, figurines and other memorabilia.

"There is a desperate terror in the minds of collectors that is, oh my God, I'm missing something," said Cutler. And despite having not enough space in his shop already, it behooves him to "have as much as possible."

Later in the discussion, Cutler, Heron and Penzler reported having stronger holiday seasons last year than they've had for some time, and all four said they've seen some evidence of a rising interest in small businesses.

"There's a clash in the Lower East Side between what used to be there and the $14 cocktail places," said Heron. "People there identify by small businesses." --Alex Mutter