We were lucky to catch up with Abbie Rhodes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Abbie , appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My journey to bookstore ownership really started when I rediscovered my love for reading in my early thirties. From there, my dreams of owning a bookstore started growing. I toyed with the idea of opening a store front for a few months and decided it was now or never. I took a girls trip to Waco where we visited Fabled of course. That same weekend an old building in my hometown downtown came up for lease and it seemed like God was giving me the opportunity. I should note here that my mom always used to say “it’s just money, we will make more!” She has since said that this was terrible advice, but it stuck with me nonetheless! That has allowed me the freedom to be brave and know that God will always provide no matter what, even if it doesn’t look like we want or hope. So, I took the leap and invested our savings into a small bookstore in my hometown of Lindale, Tx. A month after I signed the lease and ordered close to 2,000 books, we found out we were having our third baby! The first year was definitely a whirlwind with that little unexpected delight! My mom, Cindy Lee, has really stepped up and grown this business more than I could have done on my own. I owe her a lot of credit for that and am so grateful for her! We have been open a little over two years and have really loved building a space for our community to come together!

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?

My name is Abbie Rhodes. I am first and foremost a wife of 17 years and a mother to three children. After graduating from college with a degree in criminal justice, I became a juvenile probation officer and did that for several years. We had our first child, who was born blind (a story in and of itself), so I decided I needed a job that did not use up all of my time! I wanted mom/work life balance. I decided on teaching so me and my kids could have the same schedule. I went back to school and earned my Masters of Education from SFA. I taught at the secondary level for 8 years up until a few months ago when I left teaching to pursue my desire of owning a bookstore full-time and getting to stay home with my kiddos.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Building a business from the ground floor takes a lot of faith and growing clientele is hard! At first I had a mentality of “If you build it, they will come” and that is true to some extent. However, after two years, we still hear people say “Oh I had no idea you were here.” Growing clientele has been one of my biggest struggles because I am not great at social media, and that is where people go for all of their information. What has helped me the most, is when people come in and ask to take a video of the store and they post it on TIKTOK….so I guess I’m going to have to figure out how to use TIKTOK! We also have other local small businesses put their merchandise in our store, and they bring customers in as well. My mom has grown a wonderful community of art here at the store. She does watercolor classes for adults and children every week. She also has her artwork on display as well as other artists that we have met along the way.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think being resilient is the most fundamental part of owning a business. There are so many unknowns and such a great risk of failure that you have to be able to adapt to different circumstances and bounce back. There are some days I do not have a single customer and that can be really discouraging, but I come and I open the store again the next day in hopes that it will be better! There is always that fear that creeps in telling me what a big risk it was opening a store, that I will never get a return on my investment, that I am wasting my time, etc. But the joy that I see on customers’ faces when they find the perfect book, people who have just lost a spouse that find community in our store, children that ask their parents to come to the bookstore those are the people that we are doing this for, and they are worth the risk. But also, “it’s just money, we will make more!”

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @boundbooks2023
• Facebook: Bound Books

Image Credits

Brittani Whitten