We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Renee Becher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Renee, 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.
Ask any of my close friends and they’d tell you I was opposed to owning my own business for the longest time. So I certainly surprised myself when I decided to start The Crowded Bookshelf. I had just been unexpectedly demoted and had my hours drastically cut at my previous job. I had been with the company for 7 years and had put some much of my time and love into it. Needless to say it was not how I had hoped to leave that phase of my life behind, which I did about a month later. This all happened at the end of 2020, when the pandemic was still in full swing. I took a part time job at a funeral home to help pay the bills (a job I still have and love), but I had known for a while that the book world was where I wanted to be.
The idea that eventually turned into The Crowded Bookshelf tumbled around in my head for months, moving through a few iterations before becoming what it is today. Then, in July of 2021, I officially launched The Crowded Bookshelf.
The pop-up bookshop model is not a new one, but it was an ideal one for my situation and was a less scary way to start a bookstore than signing a lease on a brick and mortar space. I’ve learned so much in my first year. Not only about running a business but about the ways I can support the community I am a part of. I have started partnerships with local businesses I hadn’t expected. I’ve met amazing individuals and families and helped them find books they love (which is really the best part of being a bookseller). The simplest way to answer how, and why, I came up with this idea, is that I love books and book people, and I want to support them anyway I can.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Hello, CanvasRebel readers! My name is Renee and I am a bookseller, death worker, and overall nerd…and I guess a business owner now. Weird. I’ve had a love of reading and writing since I was young. I received my bachelor’s in creative writing and have been working in the book industry ever since graduating. Several years were spent working at a local publishing house in Fort Collins and I am now in my 10th year of working in the indie bookstore business. I am also a 2017 graduate of the Denver Publishing Institute. The Crowded Bookshelf offers many of the things you’d expect from your brick and mortar bookstores, but I have been discovering I am also in a position to provide support to my community and its readers in some less traditional ways. But let’s start with the basics…
My store carries new and used books for all ages in all genres, and provides audiobooks via our partnership with Libro.fm. We have a small physical inventory but we can special order anything you might need at no extra cost. In addition to books, we have a variety of bookish gift items, many of which are created by local makers or other small businesses. We also offer gift cards, both digital and physical, and extended several discounts to K-12 educators, local university students, and book clubs. And anyone can take advantage of our pre-order discount (order two weeks before publication and save 20%)!
But speaking of book clubs, we are launching TWO NEW store sponsored book clubs in February 2023. We have partnered with a local lingerie shop to host a sex positive book club that will be reading everything from historical romance to books on sexuality and gender identity. Stemming from my new-found love of all things death and dying, we are also starting a death and dying book club! Our book clubs are free to join and you are not obligated to attend every meeting. If you are part of your own book club, consider registering with The Crowded Bookshelf to receive 20% off your monthly book club reading!
Another program I am very much looking forward to starting in 2023 is our author events program! Hosting author events is one of my favorite things to do, so I can’t wait to start hosting events again.
I could go on and on about all the other things my tiny store is working to do, but I will try and keep the last few things to bullet points. I am always happy to answer questions and talk more about what is going on with the store. I highly recommend following The Crowded Bookshelf on social media as that is where I am often posting updates and just generally getting excited about anything book (or death) related.
A few other services we offer:
Making book recommendations (of course!)
Supplying books to local businesses (consignment or wholesale)
Donations to schools and non-profit organizations
Organizing book drives for schools or organizations
Supporting and promoting local authors through events and pre-order campaigns
Partnerships to help benefit local non-profits
And a bunch of other things I’m probably forgetting or haven’t thought of yet. At the end of the day, my main mission is to support my community and its readers however I can. If there is a way to make it happen, I will try and find it.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
A major pivot in my career was the catalyst for creating The Crowded Bookshelf. I had been with the same company for 7 years and that relationship came to a very sudden and upsetting end. I’m in a smaller city and there are only so many careers to pursue in books. I knew that was what I wanted to do but I didn’t know how to do it. I took another job for a few months. It was an office job and I quickly discovered that an office job, especially a corporate office job, was not for me. While I was at this new job, the idea that became The Crowded Bookshelf had been going through various stages. First it was a passion project to do just for fun, then it was a TV on the local access network, then it was a podcast. At last everything came to a head and I finally made the decision to go for it and open my own store. Now here I am, one year later, and I can’t see myself doing anything else.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Sadly there is no easy, one-size-fits-all way to grow your clientele or fanbase or customers. Whatever you might need to support your business. The landscape for how to do it has certainly changed a lot and there are some go-tos anyone can utilize. But when it comes to content that your particular target audience is going to relate to, that still has to be the right combination of accessible, digestible, and personal to you and your business. (As if small business owners didn’t have enough to do already.) I definitely rely on social media to reach people and keep those who have discovered me informed about what is going on with my business. It can still be a challenge. I don’t just want to be another bookstore talking about all the same things ther bookstore people talk about. Since I am the one and only face of the store, there is a good degree of myself and my personal tastes and thoughts and ideas I am putting out into the world. It can be a little scary and fairly exhausting to do so. But I think in this line of work it is important to cultivate a level of trust and connection with your readers.
Every reader I interact with is going to be a little different. But what I am doing for them remains the same. I do my best to listen and understand what it is they are looking for. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to put the right book in their hands that they will love. When you establish yourself as an educated and trustworthy bookseller, word of mouth will be your best friend.
Contact Info:
- Website: thecrowdedbookshelf.com
- Instagram: @thecrowdedbookshelffc
- Facebook: @thecrowdedbookshelf
- Twitter: @CrowdedBShelfFC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxAJGkUn01oxsgEBngAPjLQ
- Other: TikTok: @thecrowdedbookshelffc Email: [email protected] Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/shop/crowdedbookshelf Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/crowdedbookshelf