Bradshaw offers glimmer of hope for book lovers

“Is Tallahassee a good book town?” Part 2 (Yes. At least I hope so.)

Somewhere in every conversation about Sally Bradshaw, the person to whom you are talking will use two words: “organized” and “driven.”

They are traits which are indispensable for the two callings she has chosen for herself: politics, and now business. You have to have both of them to succeed, but even if you do they are not enough: timing is indispensable, too; so is luck; so is being able to deal with the unexpected.

For more than 30 years she has been involved in the political process, but what she is trying to do in establishing the only locally owned new bookstore in the state capital of the third largest state in the nation, may be more important.

Sitting and talking with her amid the dust and planking of the unfinished Midtown Reader at 1123 Thomasville Road, which will open Nov. 12 , it suddenly becomes obvious that what she is doing has touches of both a political campaign and an act of faith.

“One of the things you learn, when you are a novice bookseller, or anything else for that matter,” Bradshaw says, “is how little you know. The other thing you learn is that everybody has a dream, sometime in their life, of working in a bookstore, and they want to tell you about how they would do it.”

She has spent a good part of the last six months traveling the country, visiting independent bookstores, finding out what has worked and what hasn’t worked. Last week she attended the Southeastern Independent Booksellers convention in Savannah; the week before that she visited Parnassus Books in Nashville, started by author Anne Patchett after Tennessee’s capital city lost its only independent bookstore. She has consulted the American Booksellers Association, and has become friends with other booksellers in the area, like Annie Jones of the Book Shelf in Thomasville, Georgia

“I have gotten some rather consistent advice on this,” she says. “One is lower your overhead. Do not pay rent if you can help it.”

To that end, Bradshaw bought the building where Midtown Reader will reside. It is not the first bookstore on the spot. Part of her renovation is to create a large covered front gallery that will increase the amount of usable space.

The other piece of advice she has gotten from other booksellers is to “start small,” that is, not try to carry every type of book. That seems reasonable in this case, since Midtown Reader will not be large, only 1,500 square feet and will be able to hold about 10,000 volumes.

“We will have a children’s section,” she says, reminding me that young adult fiction is the hottest thing going. But what makes her project especially exciting to people like me is her repeatedly-stated intention to make this a Florida bookstore, that is to focus on books by Florida authors and about Florida. How seriously does she take this? Well, she is in the process of compiling a list of every Florida author — ever. Think about that for a minute.

“This is really kind of frustrating,” she says. “The guy who is going to manage the store is Jeff Hipsher, a recent graduate of FSU’s creative writing department, who used to work for Follett Publishing, and we have talked about this. There is no such list. We are going to try and build the definitive Florida author list.

“I’ll be honest: I’ve been scared to death that 1,500 square feet would not be enough, but the other booksellers I have talked to think that it is perfect in that it allows you to learn your market, to make adjustments as you go along without overwhelming yourself. “

Since I am as free with my advice as anybody, I suggest to Bradshaw that she focus on two departments from each of the local colleges and universities: English (or creative writing) and history, and every time a faculty member in each publishes, carry it and maybe have a book talk and signing. Bradshaw is way ahead of me on this. She has planned ahead for several months of readings and talks and book signings, including a multi-author holiday event being organized by Diane Roberts, an event with Robert Olen Butler, and others, all listed on the Midtown Reader website.

“It would be foolish of me to think that my market is 100 percent of Tallahassee,” she says. “It is people who care deeply about books and reading, exposing children to lifelong learning, and the values that go with all of that. If you believe the recent articles, Tallahassee is the 11th most educated city in the country. How can we not have a local bookstore?”

In my last column, I wrote about Tom Davis, and his decision to stop selling books at The Bookshelf on South Monroe. One of the surprising things, though that they both pointed out to me is that the number of independent bookstores is growing, not shrinking, by 30 percent since 2009, with sales up 10 percent last year. People also appear increasingly to want to hold a book instead of an e-reader. So, perhaps, Bradshaw has some things going for her, the most important of which, as people who know her will willingly tell you, is her sheer doggedness.

Still, the best bookstores have an organic quality to them that all the research and all the focus groups about what to stock and where to locate, will not create. Bookstores all seek to be community centers, but they genuinely have to be of the community. The onus is not entirely on Bradshaw to do that: it takes time and it takes families, communities and an educational structure, all of whom believe in reading and learning for their own sake, not only as a means to something else. That is the real challenge Sally Bradshaw faces.

Bob Holladay teaches in the History Department of Tallahassee Community College. He is the managing editor of Sentry Press. Email Bob Holladay at Sentrypress @gmail.com.