Bookstores

Rebecca Fitting, co-owner of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, has sold her share to Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo, who is now the sole owner. The two founded the store in 2009. In an email letter, Fitting wrote: “Owning a small business has always been deeply rewarding, but also incredibly challenging, and running Greenlight while parenting through a pandemic has caused me to rethink my personal priorities. It’s been well chronicled in the media that the pandemic – the lack of access to childcare and the havoc this wreaked – has failed working parents, in particular working mothers, and I am a great example […]

Employees at Printed Matter, a nonprofit art book store in New York, joined the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153. Management voluntarily recognized the union on October 18, and contract bargaining will begin soon. In an Instagram post, the union said, “We’re so excited about this big next step and are grateful that Printed Matter management has been cooperative and proud of our decision so far. “We see books and multiples as inherently non-hierarchical art forms, and this has shaped the collaborative and radical organizational history of Printed Matter. So many of the values Printed Matter represents within […]

Tattered Cover will open a store in downtown Colorado Springs in early 2022, aiming for between February 15 and March 15. Tattered Cover currently has five locations in and around Denver, as well as a pop up mall store, three airport stores, and another Denver-area location slated to open this fall. The 8,400-square-foot Colorado Springs space will be the store’s first location outside the Denver metro area. Its lease agreement “allows the retailer to make rent payments based on a percentage of its sales.”

The ABA is making changes to its by-laws and ends policies. Among those changes is a focus on their revised mission of serving bookstores in particular (including used bookstores). Current bylaws define eligible members as “any commercial establishment that is primarily engaged in the retail sale of new books,” which will be revised to, “businesses that primarily sell books, meaning more than 50 percent of their inventory must be in books and/or book media.” An adjustment in the ends policies reaches beyond store owners, who were the founding focus of the ABA, to include bookstore staff. The group now promises […]

The New York Post has a hot “exclusive” business story: It turns out book sales have boomed during the pandemic, and Barnes & Noble is “cashing in.” Of course the story doesn’t really say what it thinks it says. Here’s what we find notable: – Owner Elliott Advisors hopes to unload the chain within another two years. “A source familiar with the matter says Elliott is about halfway through its plan that would eventually spin the bookseller back onto the public markets — or sell it to another private buyer.” – Barnes & Noble’s store count has declined, from 627 […]

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a 12-year lease for a Green Apple Books outlet in the Harvey Milk terminal at San Francisco International Airport. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the store is slated to open in March 2024, with construction beginning in October 2023. Hudson “will be the majority owner and responsible for rent and paying staff.” “The way the deal is structured, with Hudson as our partner, Green Apple doesn’t have to make much of an investment upfront,” Green Apple co-owner Pete Mulvihill said. “We could have gone this alone. We felt this was the safest way […]