We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Gilliland a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started working when I was 15 years old and worked until I was 28 years old when my husband and I moved to Michigan and I decided that I wanted to stay at home with my kids. For six years I did just that. At 32, I re-entered the work force as a barista at a Barnes & Noble cafe and immediately found my new love and family. I threw myself fully into being the best possible employee I could be. After a year and a half in the cafe, I was able to move out onto the book floor and, six months later, was promoted to co-leading the children’s department. Another year later I was promoted into a management position. Through constant changes in policy and procedure, and a change in ownership and company structure, I worked tirelessly to learn everything I could about running a bookstore. I didn’t know it at that point, but bookselling was my dream job.

I departed Barnes & Noble after nearly five years and took a job outside the book world, but less than a year later I was drawn back to books in a different capacity. I worked for a campus bookstore, but I wasn’t finding that work as fulfilling as my previous bookselling career. It was at this point that I started imagining owning and running my own bookstore. No one but my husband knew that I was considering pursuing this path, and no one would have known if my husband hadn’t urged me to follow that dream. What was my dream exactly? An indie bookstore where people would feel welcome. Welcome to browse, welcome to sit and read, welcome to talk at length about what books they love, welcome to ask if there is a place on my shelves for their self-published work, welcome to be who they are in a place that’s safe for them. Finch & Fern Book Co was born from a desire to nurture and care for people, a desire to promote literacy, and to make people feel seen and appreciated.

How could I possibly know this was going to work out? There are a couple of other independent bookstores in the area, but they are few and far between in the community I settled on. Most locals would visit indie bookstores in the Ann Arbor area. Based on my experience with Barnes & Noble, I knew that indie authors had a very hard time getting their books into bookstores. No one was focused on indie authors! I had no way to know just how many authors we had locally, but it turned out to be more than I ever imagined were in the area. I researched all the bookstores within the 60 miles between the small indie bookstore in Perrysburg, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan. This was the area to explore. I live in Michigan, but I spend most of my time outside my home in Sylvania, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. Sylvania has this beautiful downtown with historic buildings occupied by small businesses and filled with a love of art. Fortunately for me, one such space was available and the building owner was very excited about the prospect of a bookstore. Sylvania’s last bookstore, Reading Railroad, had closed several years ago and the community was sorely missing its presence. Had it not been for my husband’s belief in my vision, I would never have moved forward with this idea. After more than a year of dreaming and planning, I signed a lease. Four months later on October 20, 2023, my bookstore opened its doors. New books, used books, independently published books. Within a month of opening I started hosting local authors for signing events. I have hosted local authors every single weekend, save for holidays, ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been an avid reader since I was able to read on my own. Like anyone else, I’ve gotten into reading slumps and couldn’t seem to pick anything up that kept my interest, but I could always go back to one of my comfort reads. My love of books and my passion for talking about books with anyone else who loves books is what got me here. The thing about books is that we all read the same thing but feel so many different things about what we’ve read. We have such varied life experiences that shape the way we see and interpret the world around us… sharing our thoughts and feelings with other book lovers is such a great way to connect. For me, this work is about sharing those interpretations to help others broaden their world view and perspectives–to help us to see each other better. This work is about finding common ground through a love of literature and learning, not only with other readers, but with authors as well. Authors are some of the bravest, most vulnerable people because they’ve put their hearts and souls out into the world on paper for anyone and everyone to see and feel for themselves. I think we could all stand to be more vulnerable with each other.

How did you build your audience on social media?

As an elder millenial , I grew up in the dawn of the age of the internet and social media came into existence when I was in early adulthood. That’s not to say that I became an expert in social media; to the contrary, I had to learn a lot about it from a business perspective because my personal use of social media is pretty minimal. If there’s anything I’ve learned about social media use for business, it’s that consistency is key. I started out by posting a few things at different times of the day and then tried to determine which post got the most attention. That’s where I target my posting to now, and I post something every day. Whether it’s a stack of books on the counter, announcing or reminding about an author event, or promoting local authors’ books in the shop, I post at least once every day my shop is open.

It’s not just important to be consistent in posting, but also to engage with customers who comment on your posts. Just giving a like or replying to a comment goes a long way. It lets your customers know that you’re invested in them like they’re invested in you.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

There are two amazing companies that do incredible work to support independent bookstores. Libro.fm and bookshop.org are both social purpose corporations that provide bookish products and services to consumers and give a share of the profits to affiliated independent bookstores.

Libro.fm provides a membership service much like Amazon’s Audible, but it’s better. Your credits don’t expire, and you keep the ones you’ve paid for even if you cancel your membership. You also get to keep any audiobooks you’ve purchased and won’t lose access to them if your membership is cancelled. Members also receive a 30% discount on all their additional audiobook purchases. You can support any indie bookstore you’d like as long as they’re a registered affiliate. It’s pretty amazing.

Bookshop.org allows you to choose any affiliated indie bookstore to support as well. They often run sales on books, and you place orders to ship directly to your home. The bookstore of your choosing will receive a percentage of the sales from every book you purchase.

These are amazing revenue streams and the more you advertise them, the more likely your customers are to utilize them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/finch.fern.book.com
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/finch.fern.book.com

Image Credits

all photos are credited to Katie Gilliland.