replaces a profile of a woman reading. Spring 2003
Rose Norman, University of
Alabama in Huntsville
In the summer of 2001, Mary Ellen Kavanaugh was one of about 20 feminist booksellers I interviewed for a story later published in the Women’s Review of Books about the plight of feminist bookselling (see “Shrinking Shelves”). Kavanaugh founded My Sisters’ Words in Syracuse, NY in the fall of 1987, and had been in business as sole owner of this small store for 14 years when I first interviewed her. A member of the Feminist Bookstore Network (FB-Net) steering committee, Kavanaugh has been well aware of the changes in bookselling and publishing that are affecting all independents, including niche markets like feminist books. At that time, she considered her store a feminist bookstore, but said “If I sold only the kinds of things I sold when the store opened, I don’t think I could keep it open now.”
Since that summer, the summer before the September 11 terrorist attacks, we have seen more store closings. By Christmas of 2001, I was hearing from my own closest feminist bookstore, Lodestar Books in Birmingham, AL, that they had lost $12,000 since September 11 and could not stay in business without significant donations. People did donate funds, but as of fall 2002, Lodestar became a yoga center. That same fall, New Words in Cambridge, MA, one of the oldest feminist bookstores in the nation, closed its doors. They are continuing the events series their nonprofit arm, New Words Live, sponsors and announced plans to open a feminist community center called the Center for New Words. In the words of their website: The “Center for New Words (CNW) . . . represents a hybrid organizational form: a for-profit retail operation embedded within a non-profit cultural enterprise. New Words Inc. (the store) will transfer its assets and future revenues entirely to CNW. CNW will be a division of the extant non-profit, New Words Live” (www.newwordsbooks.com)
Mary
Ellen Kavanaugh has taken her store through a somewhat less radical
transformation, broadening the store’s focus to make it “a more general,
lefty leaning, political bookstore" with a new name--My Sisters' Words/The
Next Wave: A Bookstore For All Progressive Minds—and a new logo, which was
unveiled at a Grand Re-Opening on November 2, 2002.
The new logo, a sort of abstract wave,
replaces a profile of a woman reading.
The
change seems to be in response to changes Kavanaugh was reporting back in summer
2001. Then she was seeing a move
away from books toward media—video, DVD, CD—and a move in terms of content.
Not nearly so much radical politics or feminist theory was selling.
“A lot of what sells is lightweight, such as humor.”
Now, in her latest online newsletter, she says “As the world has
changed, so have people's reading tastes and we intend to meet those needs. In
addition to what we have always carried, we will expand or create the following
sections: children's, poetry, sexuality, social change, global issues, peace and
social justice, and bestsellers from the BOOKSENSE best seller list”
(www.mysisterswords.com).
People’s reading, though, she says is now moving away
from fluff. “People are hungering
(post 9/11) for stuff on politics and economy and anti-globalization and
environment, etc., etc.” She points to the success of books like Barbara
Ehrenreich’s exposé of minimum wage work in Nickel & Dimed and
Eric Schlosser’s
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.
Kavanaugh
contemplated shifting to non-profit status, as New Words is doing with the
Center for New Words, but she concluded she didn’t have the staff to make it
work. She operates the store with
herself and one three-quarter time worker, typical staffing for a store that
size, 750 sq feet with gross sales under $200,000 a year.
In line with her move to reach a broader market, Kavanaugh is also open
for longer hours (7 days a week, including 3 weeknights).
Many independent booksellers have been reporting that
online book sales are hurting their business, and have been combating that with
their own online sales, made somewhat more feasible through booksense.com.
When I first interviewed Kavanaugh, she had just subscribed her store to
the booksense.com online sales system, but was reserving judgement about the
usefulness of online sales. In her
words, “ It seemed like a train leaving the station, that you need to be
on.” Less than two years later,
she has gone back to just having an advertising/publicity oriented website,
because she wasn’t generating enough online sales to justify the subscription
cost.
In spring 2003, I asked Kavanaugh if she thought her decisions were indicative of what other small feminist bookstores will be contemplating in the current economic climate. Her response may signal a shift in direction for feminist booksellers generally: "We're all looking at ways of meeting the challenges of both feminism and business in the new century. For me, part of the slowness in coming to a decision was that the day-to-dayness of my business is so time-consuming that I seldom have time for philosophizing. I needed a jump start in my thinking, and it came in a conversation I had with Gilda Bruckman of Boston's now defunct New Words. She said that it seemed wrong to squander 25 years of community and network building because a business model did not work."
From my own interviews with feminist booksellers, and from what Kavanaugh reports of her own experiences with bookselling and other booksellers, it seems clear that feminist bookselling continues to face challenges and to seek new ways of meeting them. As Kavanaugh put it, they are "still, always, looking to see how we can keep this piece of the movement, well, moving."
My Sisters' Words - The Next Wave
304 N McBride St.
Syracuse, NY 13203
315.428.0227
Mon 10-6 pm; Tues-Thurs 10-8 pm; Fri-Sat 10-6 pm; Sun
noon-5 pm
www.mysisterswords.com