Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - I Bought a Vintage Trailer… How Can I Turn it Into a Bookstore？

00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, Joey here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:09.460 I'm about to do something a little crazy. We're about to do something a little crazy.

00:00:15.140 For a long time, I've wanted to open a bookstore here in Philadelphia. But that seems crazy right

00:00:22.780 now with three kids, writing a book a year, podcasts, being a wife, doing all of the things,

00:00:30.060 being a human being in the world. And so I really want to test the waters with a pop-up bookstore.

00:00:37.440 For me, my goal is to help people find more books they love. And I truly believe that we need to see

00:00:42.640 more books in the wild to get to connect with them. I want books everywhere. I want you to go

00:00:48.100 to the coffee shop and see books, go to the brewery and see books, check out at the grocery

00:00:52.400 store and just see more books. And so Nick and I have been brainstorming for a long time how to do

00:00:57.600 that. One of the things that I'm very interested in is a book trailer. And I was inspired by my

00:01:04.780 friend Flannery, who started the Blue Bird Bookstop, which many of you have ordered my books

00:01:10.020 from because they are my exclusive personalized pre-order bookseller. I love Flannery. I love

00:01:16.360 bluebird. And she started in this adorable little robin's egg blue trailer down in Crozet, Virginia.

00:01:23.480 And I've never forgotten that, even as she's created what I have to say is one of my favorite

00:01:29.200 brick and mortar bookstores on the planet. I always said that when the perfect trailer came

00:01:33.940 along, I would know it. Nick Astor did not believe this, and I still don't know if he does.

00:01:39.240 But the other day, my friend Rose told me she was selling this little vintage trailer that she had

00:01:44.440 bought to be a flower pop-up. And now she's doing a flower brick and mortar. So we know that trailer

00:01:49.740 has got good juju. Rose is an incredible designer. So the trailer is already pretty and we're just 1.00

00:01:56.100 going for it. We bought a book trailer, guys. We bought a pop-up mobile bookstore that we are just

00:02:03.660 going to drive all over the Catskills this winter and sell you books that I hope you will love.

00:02:08.940 but I have no idea what I'm doing. And when I have no idea what I'm doing, as you know,

00:02:14.100 I tend to report my way out of it. So this is it. This is the very beginning. You're watching me do

00:02:20.020 this in real time. I have a lot of questions. And to help me get started with answering them,

00:02:25.960 I called up my good friend Flannery, who was really the inspiration

00:02:30.860 for this entire wild enterprise to begin with.

00:02:38.940 hello flannery hello so i have probably a gazillion questions for you i don't know if

00:02:48.360 we're going to get to them all today but you know that you were my inspiration for creating a pop-up

00:02:55.840 bookstore a book trailer and that that is the reason that we met we we we met because my agent

00:03:03.580 bird is from from the area where you live. And he was like, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, you have to

00:03:09.000 follow this account. You have to meet this woman who has a book trailer. Tell me about the genesis

00:03:13.320 of your book trailer for our audience who doesn't know about it. I was trained as a librarian and I

00:03:19.580 worked as a librarian. And then I stayed home for 17 years to have kids. And my kids were always

00:03:27.500 readers we wherever we go wherever we traveled we go to independent bookstores and it was always

00:03:33.820 so fun to see the different flavors that the different stores had and we had our favorites

00:03:38.380 and um when we moved to Virginia it was when my kids were kind of getting old enough that I could

00:03:46.380 start to think about what I wanted for my life outside of motherhood and when I thought about

00:03:51.040 going back into a library it was kind of like I wasn't ready to give up my independence right like

00:03:56.540 I wasn't ready to be a slave to a paycheck and a schedule and not be in charge because we still

00:04:02.520 had a busy family life. And so I just thought, OK, how can I do what I want to do, but still

00:04:08.840 be a present mom? Because, you know, we've talked about this. I really struggle with

00:04:12.180 compartmentalizing. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think I think so many of us do. I do, too.

00:04:16.940 Yes. So even now, like with the with the brick and mortar, like I really struggle when I get

00:04:21.620 home to shut it off. And so I needed to be able to ease into it and still be able to go to

00:04:26.660 everybody's games and be present. And still, you know, at that time, I was doing the bulk of

00:04:33.380 the homemaking, right? Like everything. Now it's way more 50-50 split. But at the time,

00:04:39.720 it was like, I have to be able to do all this stuff still and shit not slip through the cracks. 0.67

00:04:46.520 So at the time, I can't remember the genesis, but there was a bookstore in our town and it went out of business. I can't remember where in the process, but I'm also like, I'm a big believer in karma. Like I never would have opened something with her still open. To me, that just felt like I never wanted to take that away from her and work in such a small town that it would be weird to have two books stored.

00:05:13.740 So I kind of just sat with it. And right before the pandemic, again, I can't remember when she shut down, but I was like, well, maybe if I saw this book trailer, I've got to get the name of her. She's since stopped.

00:05:30.720 But anyway, I saw a book trailer and I was like, well, maybe that would be a way to do it because you're cutting out the overhead.

00:05:41.320 All you really have are your, you know, the cost of the books.

00:05:44.480 You you can work when you want to work.

00:05:47.840 Literally, you can schedule something when you want to work.

00:05:51.000 And if it doesn't apply with your family schedule, then you don't do it right.

00:05:54.680 You just do the next thing.

00:05:56.920 And the margins on books.

00:05:58.820 at that point it was like i just don't you and i talked about this so much like gone are the days

00:06:05.080 in my opinion of just the sole indie bookstore and that's all that you do i mean they're still

00:06:10.420 they still exist but in my world it was kind of like how can i do this and still make money

00:06:16.380 and we're seeing so many wonderful indie bookstores lose money or filing for bankruptcy

00:06:22.960 or just like holding on, you know, by like the thinnest of strings, right?

00:06:29.800 And so, yeah, I mean, I think your strategy to diversify what you're selling in the world of books,

00:06:36.480 in the world of what do people, especially women with kids, what do they want has been so brilliant.

00:06:43.680 And I want to try to replicate that with my book trailer.

00:06:46.860 And I don't know if the general public understands that the margins on books is so guarded.

00:06:52.960 Yeah. Well, talk to me a little bit about it so that people know.

00:06:56.600 Yeah. So roughly, depending on where you source your books, whether it's from a wholesaler like Ingram or the publishers directly from the publishers, most indie bookstores, because they're not buying in the same volume as a Barnes & Noble or an Amazon or Costco, the margins are going to be in the area of 40 to 46 percent.

00:07:18.900 And when you think about, you still have rent, you still have employees, you still have utilities, you still have all the things that make a business run. And that gets sucked out of that 40% pretty quickly, at least in my experience. And I kind of knew that going into it. And so that was one of the main reasons for the trailer besides the flexibility was, I don't want to have to pay rent.

00:07:44.440 I don't want to have to worry about paying the electric bill. I just want to have to worry about

00:07:49.880 paying for the books. And that's how it started. And it was also kind of like a test. Like

00:07:56.180 the other bookstore had closed at that point. Does our does our town need a bookstore? Does

00:08:03.180 it want a bookstore? Is the market going to sustain it? And let's just test it out. Let's

00:08:09.720 just see how it goes. And if it doesn't work, I can sell the trailer.

00:08:13.960 Exactly. Exactly. And I love a test. I do. I mean, I talk to so many people that are like,

00:08:17.920 I want to quit my corporate job. I want to open a bookstore. I want to quit my corporate job.

00:08:21.120 I want to open a coffee shop. And there's just so much work that goes into it. I feel like I

00:08:26.780 know a little bit about the book industry already from living in it as an author, but there's

00:08:32.460 probably still 85% that I do not know about being a book seller. And so being able to test the

00:08:40.760 waters without a brick and mortar, without a massive monthly overhead, that is so appealing

00:08:47.520 to me. Yeah. So you got the trailer. Was it already adorable or did you have to make it

00:08:53.240 adorable? Oh my God, I'll send you pictures. I took my friend Katie. We still laugh about this.

00:08:58.040 I, you know, I don't know if you've ever been in a position where you're like, you just don't know

00:09:03.880 which way to turn, right? You have this idea and you're like, I don't know which way to turn.

00:09:08.200 I look on social media and there are all these beautiful trailers, right? Like perfectly rehabbed,

00:09:14.200 but I don't want to spend $90,000 again, because how, how long, how many books do I have to sell

00:09:20.520 to get that $90,000 back? So for some reason I was on Facebook marketplace and I saw this trailer

00:09:26.900 in like some town like small town in Virginia and I asked my friend Katie to go we go and it was

00:09:34.040 literally like it felt like you know that scene in Can't Buy Me Love the graveyard graveyard of

00:09:38.480 planes oh yes yes the graveyard of planes part of vintage trailers and I I saw this one and it was

00:09:48.160 I walked in and I mean it was a disaster and I walked in and I was like this is it and my friend

00:09:56.180 Katie is like, what, what is wrong with you?

00:09:59.220 But I just looked at it and I was like, there's lots of windows.

00:10:01.960 I'm worried about the ceiling height and, you know, tall men coming into it.

00:10:06.880 Where are they going to be able to stand?

00:10:08.460 And the one side of it, it's tall enough.

00:10:11.660 And I just saw it and I was like, yeah, we can do this.

00:10:14.460 I'll figure it out.

00:10:16.180 So you're like, I've got this.

00:10:17.240 I can do this.

00:10:18.140 It's a disaster.

00:10:19.440 I'll send you photos.

00:10:20.620 Oh my gosh.

00:10:21.300 I love that disaster.

00:10:22.260 So you bought it and it wasn't $90,000.

00:10:26.180 no no i paid maybe like two thousand for it okay you heard something like that yeah mine is seven

00:10:36.080 mine is seven thousand um it's a then but it's already painted it's already like done it's

00:10:41.800 already like cutified is what it is um and it's slightly smaller than yours but also because we

00:10:47.200 live in a city right so i'm like it's gonna have to go into smaller places and i didn't want to

00:10:52.040 cutify it that's the thing like i was like i don't think i am the person to do it and in fact

00:10:57.240 the fun thing is if i if i were going to do it myself the person i would have hired is my friend

00:11:02.820 rose yeah and my friend rose is the one selling this trailer so what is it is it painted is it

00:11:09.000 it's already painted it's already painted it's already built a built out on the inside um like

00:11:14.560 she's done all the stuff because it's been a mobile florist for her yeah um you just have to

00:11:20.260 worry about the shelving at this point i have to worry about the shelving um rose's husband is a

00:11:25.720 contractor um and he does all sorts of construction so i'm going to ask him about putting in the

00:11:30.480 built-in shelves and you know nick is handy too right i think that was like the biggest concern

00:11:35.060 i had with a vintage trailer what amount of weight could it sustain right right his books are heavy

00:11:42.560 and never in my life driven with a trailer attached nothing oh me neither me neither

00:11:51.800 this is nick's biggest concern he's like you are not the best driver to begin with um so which is

00:11:58.840 why it's going to be in the catskills probably for the first like nine months because we i'm like

00:12:02.740 like one of those things once you start doing it the hardest part is when you're reversing

00:12:09.260 you have to it's opposite of if you were reversing with your car in other words if you need to back

00:12:16.100 out to the right you're turning your steering wheel the opposite direction that you would if

00:12:21.860 it was just your car right like i still have to like sit there and be like okay you want to

00:12:27.380 i would love to never reverse well kind of impossible because sometimes you back it in

00:12:33.600 i know sometimes i have to not parallel park it but i mean get into a little spot depending on

00:12:40.660 where i'm you know think about if you're parking on a city street in front of a shop or something

00:12:45.920 oh yeah yeah no i mean hear it out i think i'm gonna figure it out so i have so many nitty-gritty

00:12:51.900 questions that i want to dig into with you let's take a quick break and then i'm just gonna can i

00:12:56.940 ask you everything yeah

00:12:58.500 all right we are back i'm i'm doing a pop-up bookstore it is it is called the bookcase

00:13:13.260 it is happening you know that you have a name i have a name we're calling it the bookcase because

00:13:18.120 i also bought all of these vintage suitcases that we're using as like shelving and like

00:13:25.800 accessories for the shop and so um vintage card catalog drawers yes i need some vintage card

00:13:33.740 catalog drawers um so when we have an ingram account because we were already about to do

00:13:40.400 pop-up bookstores without a trailer uh because i mean you know i do book events all the time and

00:13:46.000 the ability to sell my own books there's not always an indie bookstore around or the logistics

00:13:50.920 of getting it done is tough, or they don't want to sell 10 books, right? So, you know, being able

00:13:57.000 to do a really small, pop into a small book club and be like, oh, you guys want to buy my other

00:14:01.840 books? Cool. I have a suitcase full of them. It's actually really helpful. It also keeps people off

00:14:07.640 Amazon. Yes. To be honest. And like, you know, that's one of my big goals. I love the idea that

00:14:13.700 too, that it will allow you to support other authors. A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

00:14:18.760 And so my inventory to start is going to be pretty low.

00:14:23.740 It's going to be very, very well curated.

00:14:28.080 Mostly authors that I know and love.

00:14:31.600 I'm doing personal write-ups of every book.

00:14:33.780 I've got like this beautiful little paper to do.

00:14:36.820 And when I can, because I know a lot of these authors, most copies are going to be signed

00:14:41.520 too.

00:14:41.900 I'm getting nameplates from everyone, which I think is going to be nice.

00:14:45.820 And yeah, in the beginning, it's like you're not going to show up and get every book, but you're going to show up and there's going to be probably 20 books and one of them will be interesting to you.

00:14:53.580 Yes, that was what that was a very hard thing for me at the start. Just recognize and I still feel that way because our brick and mortar is so small that you just you have to lean into who you are and what you do best and not try and diversify so much to, you know, please everybody, which sounds like common sense.

00:15:15.020 but it's easy to get like pulled in different directions totally totally because you know

00:15:21.740 there are people who are going to walk in and be like I heard about this book I want this and

00:15:24.780 you're like we actually don't carry that because bookstores cannot carry everything so I want to

00:15:29.380 be very clear from the beginning that like this is an experience right like you're visiting us

00:15:33.840 I'm an author I live in the world of books I can give you a good recommendation but you're probably

00:15:39.000 not going to find that one book that you're searching for. Well, and, you know, I always

00:15:44.660 tell people like we don't carry a lot of the big like you're not going to find Danielle Steele on

00:15:50.360 our shelves. And it's not because I'm snotty about Danielle Steele. I read. I actually love I love a

00:15:55.000 Danielle Steele. I've read so many of her books my entire teenage years. But you're not going into

00:16:01.920 the bookcase to find that exact book because you can just get that at Warrens and Noble, which I

00:16:08.520 hate to say you're going into the bookcase because you want to get joe's recommendation

00:16:12.300 and that's the difference and that's the difference and that's the difference and

00:16:16.020 sometimes i might have danielle still also because i am gonna have a little used book corner

00:16:20.480 um and we come across a lot a lot of danielle steals frankly um so yeah absolutely absolutely

00:16:27.540 so when you first started with the trailer this is actually a logistical question

00:16:31.900 and the shelves inside can you drive with all the books are they falling off shelves how do

00:16:38.840 you secure the books within the trailer do you set the books up once you stop yes so that's the

00:16:44.540 thing it's very labor intensive the way i did it um but i was so paranoid about putting too much

00:16:53.360 weight because it's vintage putting too much weight on it while i was driving i was worried

00:16:58.660 it would fishtail and these are all unsubstantiated concerns this is just me not knowing what i was

00:17:04.900 doing and not having any experience with vintage trailers so it sounds like rose and her husband

00:17:10.720 will probably know so i would fill the shelves but then and then i would bring i would supplement

00:17:17.720 with things that i brought in containers um but the stuff that i did carry on the shelves

00:17:23.700 I had like little hook eyes and then I had bungee cords and it was not perfect I would probably redo

00:17:30.540 it where I played the hook and eye but that's how I did it I've seen people who will do the bungee

00:17:37.420 cord but their shelves will be built like slightly at an angle so that they sit back as opposed to

00:17:44.020 straight and flush um and then yeah I would merchandise when I got there okay okay yeah that

00:17:50.520 makes sense to me so bungee cords i was thinking i'm like i'm like is it kind of like one of those

00:17:55.360 belts that you that you loop around when you're putting stuff on the roof of the car um bungee

00:18:00.960 cords is super helpful and again i'm not gonna have a gazillion things in the beginning um and

00:18:07.540 the trailer is like you can walk inside but also like not everyone is probably gonna be able to

00:18:12.680 walk inside so i think a lot of the stuff is gonna be outside too i think the outdoor setup

00:18:18.460 is what made my trailer so inviting to people i always had like a really cute rug and a bookshelf

00:18:26.620 or two with forward-facing books and comfy poofs and so kids or who matter could come and sit

00:18:33.940 and then you know wander in the trailer but also just kind of like meander outside yeah that's my

00:18:40.380 goal that's my goal i mean because we're when we're in the catskills right we're going to take

00:18:44.340 it with us pretty much when we go out. So we're going to park it at Spruxton Inn sometimes. We're

00:18:51.020 going to take it to Van Dusen's, which is our grocery store and also our local bar. And, you

00:18:56.360 know, so it'll be a place that like people can get excited about and hang both indoors and outdoors.

00:19:01.600 Right. Again, it's leaning into the experience. Right. Because I want books to feel like an

00:19:07.260 experience. I want book browsing to feel like an experience. You know, my whole vibe that I'm

00:19:11.900 thinking about is bring back the nora efron style of meet cutes in a bookstore that like you know

00:19:20.080 the book maybe isn't the thing the visit to the bookstore is actually the thing and the book is

00:19:24.900 the bonus yeah it's the community it's the conversation it's the like the joy of just the

00:19:33.440 simplest conversation over a book that you both loved exactly you know something you just read

00:19:41.180 and you know like I can't tell you how many customers when a book comes in it's like I know

00:19:46.700 this person is going to love this book right exactly and you're so good at that you are like

00:19:51.580 every book you've ever recommended to me in fact we started because we were we were like tentative

00:19:56.320 friends and then I think you sent me house on the cerulean sea yes um and then I was like oh my gosh

00:20:02.200 I love her recommendations every book you've ever recommended to me I've loved but that is also the

00:20:06.320 power of bookstores. Because one thing that I am frustrated about, and I know all of my author

00:20:12.180 friends are frustrated about, is that it is hard for readers to find books. I talk to a lot of

00:20:16.000 readers and they're like, I just read what I see on the New York Times bestseller list or what the

00:20:19.660 celebrity book clubs recommend. And I'm like, well, why wouldn't you? Right? Because those are easy.

00:20:25.460 They're easy to find. There's not a lot of places to find books. So I think the power of a good

00:20:31.280 bookseller means so, so much. Yes, especially because, you know, and maybe this might be a

00:20:39.200 whole other conversation, but I can't tell you how many books, you know, when you sit down with

00:20:44.980 a sales rep at just one publisher, let alone all of them, there are so many books in a seasonal

00:20:50.940 catalog. Oh, so many. I always, I think you and I have talked about this, like you really are

00:20:58.440 relying on your sales rep to make the recommendations, right? Because our job as

00:21:03.660 booksellers is to weed through all this stuff to bring to our customers exactly what you were

00:21:08.380 saying, like to be able to weed through everything that's out there and then bring the curated

00:21:13.780 collection to your customers and say, this is what you should read. Well, we're also relying on

00:21:18.560 our sales reps a lot because there's so much. And I think one of the things I love about being a

00:21:25.120 bookseller is that, like, I meet you, and when I met you, would I have, and I don't mean any

00:21:34.680 offense to this, I'm just strictly speaking about how the publishing industry is, would I have been

00:21:39.660 selling your books as much as I do without having known you? Only because... I don't know. No, I

00:21:46.300 actually don't think so. No. And I think, like, you know, between what you're being sold from your

00:21:52.360 your sales reps but then those personal connections like every time I meet an author

00:21:58.200 and I like them I'm like I'm gonna go read their book and then all of a sudden we're hand selling

00:22:02.860 a bajillion and that can be a meaningful difference even to big authors like you

00:22:08.560 that the indie the smaller indie booksellers are hand selling it and it's keeping your work alive

00:22:14.040 and so I think like what you're doing promoting your curated collection is leaning into that and

00:22:20.280 it's so important. It's so important. Yeah. No, I mean, it makes a huge difference for me as an

00:22:25.080 author because, you know, publishing is a business. It's also very political. So, you know, the

00:22:30.320 publishing houses are choosing which books they're having sales reps talk about and with who. And

00:22:37.280 it can't be every book. It just can't be. But also every author can't meet up with an indie

00:22:42.400 bookstore. So for me, and I want to take recommendations from my audience too. That's

00:22:47.660 what I'm really excited about you know the audience of this podcast the audience of my sub stack

00:22:51.800 they're such huge readers and so I want to hear from all of you I'm like what do you love and not

00:22:57.360 just the books that came out yesterday because too many books get published I truly believe that

00:23:02.680 there's so much great backlist out there and a lot of those are in paperback already which is what

00:23:07.280 people also want to read and because I have a trailer and not rent to pay I can handle a paperback

00:23:13.520 margin right and i think like to your point of listening to your readers it's it all goes back

00:23:23.100 to the community and the conversation like i have had so many customers say to me you should read

00:23:27.520 this book and then i do i don't have this ego that i know everything like i take recommendations from

00:23:33.280 everybody because that's part of that being in community and that conversation um that's so

00:23:39.580 important. It's so important. It's so important. So I also want to think about how to diversify

00:23:45.860 outside of books. You sell some, like your shop is just, I post it all the time. I love it. It

00:23:50.920 is magical. You sell books, but you also, I mean, you pretty much dress me. My entire wardrobe is

00:23:57.620 just y'all. And we should remind the audience that there is a Joe Piazza discount code on your

00:24:03.920 website there is there is it is it's is it trad wife 15 or trad wife 20 20 trad wife 20 um tell

00:24:11.620 everyone the name of the website so that they can shop the gorgeous dresses that you have um so our

00:24:16.900 our base store our brick and mortar is bluebirdcrozet.com and then the clothes piece of it

00:24:25.000 is fancy and now.com which if you just go to bluebirdcrozet.com you'll see the fancy and now

00:24:30.500 page. Yeah. I mean, I, every, every dress that I have that people are like, I love that is from

00:24:36.940 you guys. Every time I come down, I just, yeah, you are my personal stylists. This is a little

00:24:42.380 bit of a side track. You know, when I had the trailer, I kind of like what you're doing. I

00:24:50.220 started looking for opportunities, started trying to create my own opportunities for selling books,

00:24:55.720 right like I you could rely on is such and such vineyard gonna let me park there right you know

00:25:02.760 rely on that only so much so I met Chelsea somehow I think she started buying books from me and we

00:25:08.540 started putting on our own markets so we would find a vineyard that would host us and she and I 1.00

00:25:14.260 would organize other female makers small business owners and we would have markets and that's sort

00:25:20.140 of how we got started um which was kind of like the infancy of that idea of diversifying right

00:25:26.840 um but then by the time we opened the brick and mortar i can remember talking to people when i was

00:25:33.600 opening more publishing accounts or i was you know talking to people i thought a little bit

00:25:38.160 of imposter syndrome like books and clothes that feels a little like i don't know it just i i don't

00:25:45.420 know. I felt a little weird about it. But at the end of the day, it's all about leaning into who

00:25:50.760 you are and what you do well and who your community is. And our community, the bulk of our community

00:25:56.260 are women and children. It just is. And so it's kind of, you know, it makes so much sense. You

00:26:03.620 come in the store, you want to dress, but oh, by the way, what are you reading? What are you

00:26:08.900 reading right now? Let's talk about it because it's just that whole piece of the community,

00:26:14.600 right it's not just one thing exactly exactly like i i mean look i also want to become a

00:26:21.960 cheese monger and sell delicious cheese and wine at some point but wine is so tricky bureaucratically

00:26:27.760 but i love the idea of selling dresses what are some other things that you have in the shop that

00:26:33.440 people just love okay so i um i feel like i i have like nine different lives but i'm a very

00:26:42.280 creative person and i always have ideas and having the shop has given me the platform to

00:26:47.300 execute ideas which is so cool but now we have the charm bar um which i'm sure people have seen

00:26:54.780 in other places but we don't really have anything like it near us so it's basically you know you

00:26:59.280 you come and you pick your necklace and then you tell your story with your charms

00:27:03.060 um and then the new thing we have is patch bar so you pick like your bag your shirt i thrift

00:27:10.400 men's button downs and um because i love an oversized men's button down i love an oversized

00:27:17.680 men's button down like my uniform um but it's like you can patch it now we have an embroidery lady

00:27:23.520 who's actually here today and she hand stitched the one for you that said hot sicilian i know and

00:27:29.760 i love that hot sicilian shirt and i wear it all the time yeah but just kind of leaning into like

00:27:34.480 the fun of coming to the bookstore doesn't just have to be books right like it can be

00:27:40.700 all the things and it's still at its core a bookstore exactly exactly i love your charm bar

00:27:49.380 i got such great matching charm bracelets for b and i and then the embroidery is so fun i mean

00:27:55.820 one of the other things i want to do is a lot of collaborations i mean we're already going to be

00:28:00.200 selling prints from Steven, Steven Weinberg, because I'm going to be parking the trailer at

00:28:06.320 the Spruce Inn. But yeah, I just think thinking outside the box and giving people what they want

00:28:13.240 is like is also so fun. This makes it more fun for me. And frankly, I want to have fun with this

00:28:19.080 endeavor. 100 percent. And one of my favorite things about the business is, you know, it may

00:28:25.020 have started out supporting the authors I love but now it's morphed into if I have a friend who

00:28:32.200 I know does candles or makes jewelry or whatever it's like okay how can we sell it in the store

00:28:38.740 and that's again like that personal connection that leans into the community and I think you're

00:28:44.040 going to end up doing that the minute you start it's like a snowball right you just start meeting

00:28:48.220 people that you want to support and help let's take one more quick break and then I want to hear

00:28:51.700 about pain points. What are what are the things you wish you'd known when you started out?

00:29:03.880 Okay, we are back. Tell me tell me the biggest pains in your ass. 1.00

00:29:08.340 What were the biggest pains in my ass? Well, getting started was the hardest part. 1.00

00:29:15.220 Putting one foot in front of the other. And maybe that sounds dumb, but it was like there was so

00:29:20.680 much I didn't know and I was so overwhelmed by all the things I didn't know that it was hard to

00:29:27.640 get started and I bought the trailer right before the pandemic I think that January 2020 and you

00:29:35.700 know of course we were stuck at home we all know how that goes and I was ruminating as I do and that

00:29:41.600 fall I had a conversation with my cousin who has her own business and was entrepreneurial minded

00:29:48.700 and she gave me the best advice which was that saying don't let perfect be the enemy of good 1.00

00:29:54.800 enough which is my favorite saying which is the most amazing thing that and nikes just do it 0.98

00:30:00.480 and so i basically got to this point it was like okay because again i've been looking at all these

00:30:07.340 companies that would trick out the trailer and make it perfect make that like recite it

00:30:12.280 so that it was perfect put in new windows so it didn't have you know the crusty old windows that

00:30:18.260 don't open all the way. And it was like, are my customers going to care? Do I go down that

00:30:23.220 perfectionist route and spend more money? But at the end of the day, her advice gave me the courage

00:30:29.240 to just be like, you know what, I'm just going to start. And if I want to change something,

00:30:34.460 I can change it later. And that helped me and still helps me to this day, especially because

00:30:42.720 we always get people who are like, I want to start a business. What do you think? My advice is always

00:30:49.040 don't be afraid of failing, big or little. Don't be afraid of rolling something out like the charm

00:30:55.160 bar and it not working. And saying, you know, sometimes like we tried to do kids clothes,

00:31:00.520 people still ask about it. I'm like, you know what? It just didn't work. So we just stopped

00:31:04.340 doing it. I think being OK with I'm going to start the trailer and the windows suck,

00:31:09.860 but maybe they're not going to notice and if they do then maybe i'll think about putting the money

00:31:15.300 into it that was definitely the hardest part for me yeah i could see that see the good thing about

00:31:22.500 me is that perfect is the enemy of done is already my mantra so i'm like let's just get it out there

00:31:29.660 and see what happens and maybe we fail and then we'll change it on the fly and we'll pivot and

00:31:33.540 we'll do this yeah it is not nick's mantra nick is much is very much like well we should fix this

00:31:38.900 whole thing we should do all this and I'm like well let's just go let's just get started and see

00:31:43.700 what happens do it just do it just do it yeah and I I think we talked we touched on this a little

00:31:49.960 bit earlier being comfortable with who I am and what I do best it's sometimes easy to focus on

00:31:59.260 what you don't do well and try and fix that as opposed to lean in to what you do do well

00:32:04.680 um i can remember somebody coming into the store or no i think i was still in the trailer and they

00:32:11.340 were like well you have a ton for me to read but you don't have a ton that my husband would want

00:32:16.140 to read and i just kind of like sat with that for a little bit it's like okay do i bulk up kind of

00:32:23.620 like you know what i joke and call man fiction or do i just still lean into what i do well and and

00:32:29.900 not and I can tell you a thousand times over I've I've wasted so much money on buying books that I

00:32:37.020 thought I was supposed to have or I should have and never ended up selling because I wasn't

00:32:41.620 passionate about it yeah yeah I guess I think also I mean that's such good advice in life too

00:32:48.160 like you cannot be everything to everyone and yeah you know we're carrying a small selection

00:32:56.740 of nonfiction. I mean, I love nonfiction. I write some nonfiction. We know that men read more

00:33:01.740 nonfiction. We've got a copy of David Gelley's Dirtbag Billionaire. Now I'm doing Andrew Ross

00:33:08.180 Sorkin's 29, which I'm really excited. You know, both people that I have a personal connection to.

00:33:15.340 Andrew's wife is my agent. I've known David for years and years. So I'm like, we'll have something

00:33:20.880 for men we might not have everything for men um and we'll also we will have a selection of kids

00:33:26.940 books but not every kid's book right right um so yeah you can't have have have something for

00:33:33.140 everyone but also that will that will be a little bit tougher for me because you know i'm like i

00:33:39.440 want people to be happy i want you to enjoy this right hard i mean there's nothing i hate more

00:33:43.700 than um in fact i had a customer in the store last night and she wanted to buy a book for her

00:33:49.400 daughter, her adult daughter. And I was like, okay, tell me a little bit about her. Does she

00:33:54.780 have hobbies? Do you remember her talking about a book or a show that she loved? And she was like,

00:33:59.740 well, she's really into nature. And I was like, okay, do you want fiction or nonfiction? She's

00:34:05.440 like fiction. And I was like, oh my God, I was walking around the store. Like I'm at a loss

00:34:10.860 and you just have to be comfortable with saying to like, I don't have that exact thing, but

00:34:18.540 I really loved this and it has some themes that I think would resonate with that interest of hers

00:34:25.180 what what about the what about the over story oh that's Tyler's so we have this amazing bookseller

00:34:32.440 Tyler what I love about our store is we all read different things oh that's so good yeah which is

00:34:39.480 so great and that that's his area if I have somebody who comes in and is interested in

00:34:45.640 in anything environmental i always turn to migrations because oh yeah um but yeah so i

00:34:54.840 actually haven't read the over story it's great it's great yeah um but i think the recommend

00:35:00.440 the recommending is fun but yeah that's such a great lesson of always like no you cannot please

00:35:04.760 everyone you just can't being okay with saying i don't have that but but try this yes try this

00:35:12.560 Right now we are ordering very low inventory because I'm hoping we don't have to send back.

00:35:17.620 How often are you sending books back? Because I think this is something the audience doesn't

00:35:21.380 know either. Books are a strange thing. If they do not sell, you are able to send them back to

00:35:28.240 the publisher. Yes. You can do that with almost nothing else in the world, right?

00:35:33.800 Yeah. It's very interesting. I always wonder how that works on the publishing

00:35:37.560 end in terms of recouping cost. But I don't have questions. I just take advantage of it.

00:35:46.520 You know, it's interesting because a lot of times, you know, there's the thought process of

00:35:51.880 don't return, put things on sale. People very rarely in our store shop the book sale.

00:36:00.240 Oh, interesting. Interesting.

00:36:01.760 Oh, we just kind of don't really do it that much. Like they love a closed sailing rack,

00:36:07.040 sailing, a closed sail rack. But in terms of like a bookshelf with sailbooks, not a huge hit.

00:36:13.780 And I don't know why that is. So, yeah, we tend to take advantage of it. It's definitely a seasonal

00:36:19.620 thing, you know, whether it's like January, July, it really takes time because, you know, you're

00:36:29.300 when you have a lot of titles you're having to take it out of inventory you're having a sort

00:36:35.940 by publisher which is not always that easy if you don't have the imprints memorized

00:36:41.740 um which again tyler pretty much does he's amazing um but yeah we take advantage of it 100

00:36:49.180 and there's nothing we love more than when a credit comes in the mail i know it's great it's

00:36:54.380 great but you're never sending my books back no no no those are selling those are selling um how

00:37:00.960 do you how do you manage inventory um in what way like well is like are there app like software

00:37:09.320 systems i'm sure this is a dumb question like software systems that you use with inventory

00:37:13.600 it's not a dumb question and i've talked to a lot of people about this there are designated 0.51

00:37:19.520 book-centric point-of-sale systems like book manager because we sell more than books we don't

00:37:29.240 use that we use shopify it's not perfect um i started with square like i would say do you just

00:37:36.260 start with square we're using square so we're i mean we're using square for selling for point of

00:37:40.280 sale right yeah it's not complicated for what you're doing it's so perfect the only reason we

00:37:46.440 migrated to Shopify is because we were we wanted kind of a richer online presence and Shopify

00:37:53.800 enabled a little bit more functionality that we wanted. But, you know, the book centric point of

00:38:01.240 sale systems are so expensive. I'm talking like seven, eight, nine thousand dollars. And that just

00:38:06.080 didn't make sense to me, especially because I was leaning into this idea of let's just test the

00:38:11.740 waters and see how it goes and then by the time you know and so I didn't want to have that call

00:38:16.600 I didn't want the pressure of the cost right like I didn't want to have to think about okay this the

00:38:24.260 trailer isn't working my market is not supporting this but I invested nine thousand dollars in a

00:38:29.820 point of sale system you know what I mean yeah absolutely absolutely and now because we are not

00:38:36.320 just books like there's definitely point of sales that would be a lot easier on us apparel wise

00:38:42.300 like a light speed but we have books so we had to kind of find a happy medium

00:38:47.040 and and shopify does a pretty good job like there's an app that you can plug the isbns in

00:38:53.780 and it brings over all the data all the meta fields and that's been huge um but it's definitely

00:38:59.080 not perfect right right and the book the book centric ones would do that um and square obviously

00:39:07.780 doesn't do that yeah right but you just put in so if you're using square do you just plug in your

00:39:13.480 inventory and then it tells you like when it's when it sells it like it tells you how that works

00:39:18.400 you can tell i'm such a newbie here no i mean i haven't used square in so long but you know let's

00:39:24.380 say you place an order from ingram you and by the way i love ingram the beauty of ingram is it's

00:39:30.760 one-stop shopping and when i started i i opened an account with ingram and then i opened an account

00:39:37.060 with penguin because i felt like penguin of all of them was going to have the most titles and i

00:39:42.800 was just testing the water having a publisher account um but ingram is one-stop shopping but

00:39:48.960 ingram doesn't offer as good a discount for obvious reasons right like they're also sourcing

00:39:55.500 the books but it's one-stop shopping which is just kind of amazing especially when you're at

00:39:59.900 your point where it's a smaller collection and you know you have minimums to meet at the publishers

00:40:04.400 and maybe you can't because you're only purchasing one book from them but ingram's it takes some

00:40:09.380 getting used to well nick nick is doing all of our ordering he is our ingram person and you know

00:40:14.400 because we're we're running this this business together and yeah no he is it's been a learning

00:40:19.660 curve for him there's a place in ingram where you can download the csv of the order and then you

00:40:27.480 could just upload that to square oh interesting interesting okay it's like looking to that um

00:40:35.180 or you receive the books and definitely get a scanner that's a time saver you receive the book

00:40:42.700 It just depends on how, like, when I started, my inventory process was not as detail-oriented as it is now, right?

00:40:49.900 Like, I would just get the books in and put them in.

00:40:52.600 Now it's like a whole process, right?

00:40:54.720 But you really could just receive the books, scan them in, affect the quantity, and you're done.

00:41:03.120 Right, right.

00:41:04.080 Yeah, I think that I'm probably, we're just going to enter them in the beginning, right?

00:41:08.200 Because we're like, okay, we don't, it's going to be a small quantity, too.

00:41:12.080 Again, this winter season is going to be testing the waters.

00:41:16.320 I don't even know how many pop-ups we're going to do, but we'll see.

00:41:21.440 I am popping up without the trailer a few times because I have a women's event at our

00:41:28.480 workspace, and so I'm going to sell books there.

00:41:31.180 I've got something in Nashville.

00:41:32.400 I'll sell books there.

00:41:33.520 So I think that'll be an interesting learning curve.

00:41:35.440 Yeah, and it's a good way to build your customer base because people

00:41:41.960 will know you as the author but you still have to build your presence as a bookseller so that

00:41:47.080 people know that you're doing it that you're out exactly exactly do you do you capture emails and

00:41:52.900 then do a newsletter to try to stay engaged with the community yeah we do um but by far the most

00:41:58.940 engagement social media like it just of course it is i know the more kitschy photos of the trailer

00:42:04.440 you can get up there and the more people love it right well i'm trying to decide if we want to give

00:42:10.120 the trailer its own social media or put it on mine no separate separate them okay yeah okay

00:42:17.380 because eventually if this grows you're gonna want a place where and you can always collab

00:42:22.260 right like you're gonna want to designate a place where you're posting your events

00:42:26.440 or you know you're posting what's come come in that week or what you're gonna feature at the

00:42:31.360 pop-up this week and you have so much content on your own i know which is which which is maybe not

00:42:37.140 appealing to every book buyer well it's just different right because you're looking at two

00:42:41.180 different mark well you're looking at a bunch of different markets that you're serving and if i

00:42:47.040 were you i'd want to have the instagram for the trailer to be able to serve the customers that

00:42:52.960 market the people who want to go see the book trailer at the brewery totally might be different

00:42:57.640 from who's reading your podcast right who's like wow i do want to take down the patriarchy

00:43:03.960 well um well also geographically right like not all of your podcast listeners are in philly

00:43:11.140 or they'll or the catskills no you're right you're totally right you're totally right all

00:43:15.660 right so i just put on my to-do list for tomorrow the bookcase insta we're gonna start inventory

00:43:20.600 because like i said we're selling we're selling next week it's out it's actually really exciting

00:43:24.440 to to be able to sell my books that are not easy to find to people so we just ordered 10 copies of

00:43:29.680 If Nuns Ruled the World, and of Charlotte Walsh. So that's nice, too. So again, it's an alternative

00:43:36.900 to Amazon, because I do these events. And if booksellers don't have my backlist, like the

00:43:41.720 whole backlist, then people are just Amazon-ing them. Right. Right. Or they're not aware of them.

00:43:48.120 Well, they're not aware of them, because we do not have good ways to discover books.

00:43:52.400 Exactly. And quite frankly, as a bookseller, when we have an author event, it's kind of like,

00:43:57.380 all right when you have somebody with a deep backlist we can't have everything we try to but

00:44:04.240 sometimes financially it doesn't make sense right it's people who are coming to an event or

00:44:09.580 you know one of your books with christine pride maybe not be interested in your deep

00:44:16.020 backlist as much as they would be if it was just your event now that's totally hypothetical but

00:44:20.840 as booksellers we're just always thinking about like how far how deep into the backlist do we

00:44:25.560 need to go for this event that's supporting this one book does that make sense yeah no absolutely

00:44:31.740 absolutely it's so it's so tricky um and i'm excited to dig into my friends back lists too

00:44:37.100 um and also just authors that i love backs back lists because i do think that a lot of those

00:44:42.600 books just get forgotten a lot 100 yeah i mean you put kind of the new what's the new thing

00:44:49.960 what's the new thing i could talk to you forever this was a great intro and then we'll do a part

00:44:55.380 too, because I think people are going to love this. I think people are going to be very into

00:44:58.820 this. Thank you so much, Flannery. I adore you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for all

00:45:03.020 those being so supportive. Thank you for being so supportive of me. You're an inspiration to me

00:45:07.340 every single day. And fun fact that we can announce right now, Bluebird is going to be

00:45:12.540 the official pre-order, signed pre-order seller of the Parisian Heist, which will be available in

00:45:19.100 three short weeks. Cannot wait. July 7th, 2026. July 7th, 2026. So yeah. Your books are so easy

00:45:28.540 to sell. So I love to hear that. I just want an easy sale is what I want. And that's what,

00:45:33.860 you know, it's also, I want people to enjoy books too. So I'm just like psyched to give

00:45:39.120 people things they're gonna like yeah

00:46:09.120 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 13, 2025

I Bought a Vintage Trailer… How Can I Turn it Into a Bookstore？

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