Locally-owned shops holding their own against Amazon, big box stores
Being a locally-owned business is tough anywhere within any service today, regardless of the type of product or products being sold.
However, perhaps no such business or industry has faced the challenges that the independent bookstore has over the past 25 years. From dealing to a population which national statistics show read less books today, to competing with—not only chains such as Barnes and Noble and Walmart, but also the retail juggernaut that is Amazon—the small bookstore has been fighting for its very existence for a long time. You can double those challenges if owning and operating an independent bookstore in Mississippi.
But, as a testament to entrepreneurial resiliency, this state’s independent books stores are not only facing the challenges before them—they’re meeting them. By pivoting their business models, and catering to a more selective and discriminating (but very loyal) clientele with new and different choices and means of delivering them, the final chapter is far from being written for these businesses.
Lemuria Bookstore, located in Banner Hall in Jackson since 1988, is perhaps the best known bookstore in the state and one of the best known in the South—and nation. The store is set to celebrate its 50th year in business since started by current owner, John Evans, in a small shop in The Quarter on Lakeland Drive.
“We’ve also seemed to go through what I call the ‘bounce back factor,’” said Evans of his being the oldest bookstore in the state. “I’ve seen and gone through so much change in this industry and in our local market here in Jackson. You have to reinvent the wheel every 4 or 5 years it seems to stay ahead and remain viable. It honestly takes a great deal of planning and strategy simply to stay in business every single day.”
Evans admitted that, so far, Lemuria has been experiencing an “off year,” in his words, after several very strong cosecutive ones. To get back on a more profitable track, he said that a rebranding effort for the store is currently in the works to commemorate the 50th year of business. “The path to endurance in this business is constantly coming up with new offerings, new ideas,” said Evans. “You have to find additional ways to bring the customer in and social media does not actually help us very much—it doesn’t activate the customer.”
Evans said that the store’s First Edition section and website attracts customers all across the nation, which is a huge boost to Lemuria.
“The First Edition Club is tremendous,” said Evans. “We have very loyal people throughout the country who puruse and purchase rare and first edition books from us. We even have a map in the store with pins placed on the locations where readers have made purchases from us.”
Would Evans advise a young entrepreneur to open a bookstore in today’s world? Would he do it all over again?
“I’m actually hearing a new bookstore is getting ready to open in Natchez,” said Evans. “And, while I wouldn’t advise against doing so I would tell anyone interested in doing something to be careful and know their potential customer base. And to start small and let the business come to you—be authentic. That’s what I did and, yes, I would do it again.”
Original founder, Laura Weeks, opened Lorelei Books in Vicksburg almost 20 years ago, said current owner Kelle Barfield. “She saw a parallel in the myth of the Lorelei, a siren on the banks of Germany’s Rhine River luring sailors to the shore with her enchanting song. Lorelei’s spelling and pronunciation get butchered, but thanks to the heroine of Gilmore Girls, we get many requests for T-shirts, bookmarks, and stickers! We lure residents and visitors from our vantage on the river bluffs of Vicksburg with our song of the written word,” said Garfield.
Independent bookstores are truly a retail dance of past, present, and future, noted Barfield. “Ask yourself in how many retail businesses would you expect to find an item they sold 50 or 100 years ago. But so it goes with books. I can’t compete on price with the latest releases that are available immediately at wholesale prices online and in big box retailers. So, I thoughtfully curate what delights customers when they walk in: classics by great authors and regional titles that share Mississippi’s history and culture. The fact that the book was released in 1953 matters nothing to some shoppers. I constantly sleuth requests for older or out-of-print books by locals who want to shop local. And for those who hear or read a review of a book that won’t be released for months, we track their interest and call them when the title is available. Vicksburg has some voracious bibliophiles, thank goodness,” she said.
The love of real books in a real space keeps Lorelei Books alive, said Barfield—as it does the other independent bookstores in the state. John Evans put it succinctly: “I still love the books.”
“I donate any annual profits to local charities,” said Barfield. “So our loyal lore lovers know they can save a few dollars or pennies online, but through their love of books, they help us in helping others, like United Way literacy efforts and textbook scholarships for local high school graduates. Plus, I am always happy to host book clubs and community studies in our Lore Lovers apartment loft above the bookstore and to feature authors—especially those who are independently published or regional. But a large challenge is generating an audience for a particular topic on a particular day and time for an unknown author. So, I coach many of them on the retail and marketing side of the business.”
Lorelei Books stays vibrant because of the attraction of a beautiful space in a marvelous city, said Barfield. “Sanborn maps show we were a post-Civil War saloon when our Restoration-era building was constructed. And maps officially show the loft apartment above was a brothel! Tourists who say they love the aroma of books when they walk in have no idea the daily battle our books fight with humidity from 150-year-old bricks. And leaky roofs. The battles of independent bookstores, especially in smaller towns, is not just the assumed enemy of online sales. My bookstore colleagues across this great literary state are winning against challenges on many fronts daily,” said Barfield.
Square Books in Oxford is yet another one of those nationally-known bookstores located in Mississippi. Owner Richard Howorth opened the doors of the store in 1979, just a few years after his good friend John Evans opened Lemuria, and the business now has three additional satellite stores located in town: Square Books, Jr. (a children’s bookstore), Off Square Books (for events and discounted titles) and Rare Square Books (with first edition titles).
“It’s a tough, complex business to be in, with slim margins, and you have to put in a lot of hours to make it work,” said Howorth. “That said, it’s a labor of love, specifically a love of books and of reading and sharing that with your customers. We face tremendous competition from online vendors and the brick-and-mortars but, if you know your market and get a location, you can make it work as a bookseller just as we’ve been fortunate to do.”
With 35 total employees, Howorth said that the business is successful and that, indeed, people are still buying and reading books.
“I’m guardedly optimistic about the future for all of us in the independent bookselling business,” he said. “We’re good at what we do, though, and we know our customers and we know the publishing industry well. Customers pick up on that and we will also have that advantage. Plus, the publishers value what we independents do for them because we have greater marketing power than they thought. We’re not one-size-fits-all like the chains.”
One of the newest independent bookstores to open in the state is Buzy Beez Bookstore in Summit, just outside of McComb. The family-opened, independent store opened in May, 2024.
Store manager Isabel Bond said that the reception has been good for the store so far. “We’ve had a good mix of regulars since we first opened as well as new customers who are just finding us on a weekly basis,” she said. “We’ve had a few signings in the store and also host various events here, such as our monthly ‘Blind Date Bookclub,’ in which participants show up and receive a book as a prize but don’t know what it is. You have to engage your customers with a variety of things to make it fun for them to come in and, hopefully, make purchases. It’s been successful so far.”
It was her family’s love of books that encouraged them to open Buzy Beez, echoing a common theme with the independent owners. “We researched and found there was not even a used bookstore within 60 miles of Summit so that’s when my mother, who is a nurse, decided to open the store.”
Emily Liner, owner of Friendly City Books in downtown Columbus which she opened in November 2020, compares overseeing a bookstore to “running a marathon every single day,” she said. After spending 20 years working in politics in Washington, D.C., Liner returned to her home state for the sole reason of opening Friendly City, so named for the city in which it is located.
“We’re coming up on five years now as a full-service bookstore selling primarily new titles and are the only bookstore in the county and one of the few in this part of the state,” said Liner. “I opened during the pandemic and joked that it could only go up from here! Friendly City has held its own, though, primarily through the loyal support of our regular customers and a local community that has rallied around us.”
Liner, like other independents, sets her store apart with personalized service and also the actual quality of the books. “Often, you might order something online and the book will arrive in terrible condition—bent pages and so forth. We offer books with special jackets or with added design elements—it’s a new trend in bookselling and very popular.
“Books always gave me an escape and opened my mind in so many ways,” said Liner. “It’s really special for me to now be able to offer that to my community and to even see kids grow up in the store having been here for five years now.”
Virginia O’Neal, still selling books at the age of 90 in downtown Cleveland at Cotton Row Bookstore, opened her store with some partners in 1982 but has been the sole owner for many years now.
“I’m still hanging in there,” said O’Neal of the store. “And most of my customers are older who themselves grew up reading books. The younger generation doesn’t seem quite as interested, at least not here in Cleveland. It’s funny, though: people also use the bookstore as a gathering spot. A place to come in and talk. Sometimes I feel like Ann Landers,” she said. “I love it, even when they don’t buy a book.”
Still, O’Neal is selling books, she said—though perhaps not as many as she once did. “I enjoy promoting local authors here and actually many titles by Delta writers. Some of them do pretty well, also. But, if I had a speciality here at the store, it would be Mississippi or Delta-centric titles, although I carry a little bit of everything here.”
Pass Books (formerly Pass Christian Books) on the Gulf Coast was opened by Scott Naugle in 2002 in Pass Christian, launching a second store in Gulfport several years later.
Now with three locations on the Coast—the latest opening in Ocean Springs in May—and possibly a fourth in the near future, Naugle’s bookstores are adjoined by coffee houses, Cat Island Coffeehouse. It’s a business model that he said does extremely well.
“That had none been previously done,” he said, “and we initially got some pushback. But Cat Island is a coffeehouse—not a coffee shop. We are offering and selling an experience at our locations. Come in, browse the bookshelves, pick up a title and have a latte or espresso.”
Naugle said the key to his success is respecting the opinions and desires of the bookstore’s “guests,” as he refers to them.
“We’re not going to stock what’s on the front table at Barnes and Noble. We listen to what our guests want to read and order accordingly,” he said. “And, we do have readers of all ages come in and from all over the South. It’s truly amazing. I can look out at my parking lot right now and see car tags from Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. The demise of the bookstore is truly premature. In fact, I recently read in an industry publication that the number of independent bookstores in this country is actually currently on the rise.”
The bottom line or consensus among these independent booksellers? It’s all about finding and selling great books for great people. For that reason, independent bookstores in Mississippi still have a future, even with all of the competition and obstacles they face.