The short answer to the question is no.  Absolutely not!  Did the internet change the book business?  Yes.  The internet changed a great many things about life as we previously knew it.  My manifesto on “the internet vs. the bookstore, but not really” can be found elsewhere in this blog, so I won’t bore you by rehashing it.

In a lot of ways, it seems we’re often in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time. Synchronicity is often elusive, while irony points and laughs. In hindsight though, we find that the experience actually happened that way for a reason–the journey is the destination and all that crap.

2 years after I opened Inner Chapters, the word on the street was that Amazon.com was about to move its headquarters to the new shiny buildings just behind our decrepit old one.  In an instant I was about to have thousands more customers in the neighborhood than I had before; I thought, “This could seriously kick ass, or maybe it will be a total disaster.”  The outcome would depend on the character of this new homogenous group of customers.  They would either be amazing, wonderful community-supporting artsy fartsy nerds, or they would be clueless, awkward self-involved douche bags. But a customer is a customer, right?

Before this customer base transplant, our next door neighbors, a high-end fitness (Pilates) facility, were our main source of revenue.  The staff of the place were reasonably easy to get along with (there are a few exceptions–buy me a drink and I’ll tell you a story!)  Their clientele, on the other hand, tended to be a bunch of entitled divas who assumed we opened our doors to become their gourmet, cashmere doormats.  ”What books? You mean I can’t get a fresh fruit, hemp protein, gluten-free, sugar-free organic smoothie here?!”  Being in the service industry for many years gives you thick skin; you can kill them with kindness to a certain point, but some of them just….won’t……DIE.  Once again, a customer is a customer, so the audacity was tolerated, if only to keep that cash drawer sliding (and the memoir/comedy routine fodder accumulating).  But I digress…..

All of a sudden, our pampered, spoiled neighbors would have some competition–gods forbid, they’d have to wait in line now!–and that, in and of itself, was satisfaction worth waiting for.

To be continued……soon!

Inner Chapters is featured about 2 minutes into the Seattle episode of this web travel series! Watch Kristina make latte art look easy…….

He’ll also be acting as my personal assistant in the near future as I start cataloging the remaining inventory from my brick and mortar store to bulk up the 100+ online titles listed to 3,000+. He’s not only future chieftain of our clan, he’s principal book nerd and bookshop manager (when we resurface). My grandfather used to say “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and he was SO right! This kid is a lifer for sure.

To all the Negative Neds and Debbie Downers who insist on coming in here and spreading their smug “Sorry to hear you’re closing” misery icing on our last 2 weeks here:  STOP.

After July 3rd, we will no longer be in operation at 419 Fairview; this much is true.  And for some, that is where Inner Chapters will permanently end.  But this is a time when you really find out who your friends are, isn’t it?

Fact: With the impending end of our lease here, we made the decision some time ago (unbeknownst to our customers) that we would not be exercising the option to renew it.  Thus ends our operation at this location, and yes, we are leaving BY CHOICE.  Finding a new location is complicated and takes time; would you sign a lease on a high-rent, high-risk apartment or house if you weren’t sure of it?  In a perfect world, we would already have another location up and running (with a full staff to cover the owner’s maternity leave), creating a seamless transition for everyone.  But that perfect world simply doesn’t exist.  Welcome to the real world of owning and operating a small retail business!

Fact: Our future, just like everyone else’s, is UNKNOWN. While it is true that we all come to depend on our favorite businesses to provide what we want and need, nothing is forever.  Please try to remember that these wonderful, charming homes away from home are run by human beings–complete with lives and limits!  As much as we would love to provide for your every whim 24-7, a line must be drawn somewhere, sometime.

Fact: Our book inventory will continue to be available for purchase. That’s right!  You CAN continue to support us through this transition.  While only 15% of our current stock is listed on the internet, very soon every last volume will be available to our loyal customers even in the absence of a brick-and-mortar location.  If you live in the greater Seattle area, it may even be possible to skip the online transaction altogether and pay cash for personal hand-delivery to your front door.  This option is only an email away, so don’t hesitate to use it!!!!

Theory: We will rise again, in another form, at another point in spacetime. This obviously can’t be promised (see fact #2), but it is well within the realm of possibility.  There are neighborhoods out there that are desperately in need of a business like Inner Chapters, and if the right things fall into place at the right time (unlike our first attempt) another incarnation will prove to be even better than the first……..

• “The Martian-mallow Chronicles”: A delicious 12 oz. dark chocolate mocha enhanced with the flavor of toasted marshmallows (vegan-friendly; it’s just a syrup!)  $4.51 (ha ha, get it?)….Actual price: $3
• “Dandelion Wine”: Our famous mimosa (sparkling wine & orange juice)–a happy hour favorite!–for only $5 

Five years ago, my dream of owning and operating a unique second-hand bookshop was just starting to become a reality; I had a mission and, at long last, a business loan to back it up.  Another year would pass (with many doors being slammed in my face for being young, female AND a start-up entrepreneur) before I would get even a long shot at leasing commercial retail space…..but I did get it done.

Measures of Success

I knew from the start that this location would be quirky at best; a lot of my hard work was to go unnoticed or be misunderstood entirely.  In a neighborhood riddled with the tension of constant construction and all the potential in the world to become the next great Seattle hot spot, I planted a seed in a plot of urban soil that had the ability to sprout something both retro and revolutionary.  And sprout it did!

Where customers are hard to come by, every want and need counts.  Before you know it, the pressure of being all things to all people is upon you.  Our coffee crowd cried “LUNCH!” so we made it.  Our book devotees demanded special orders, so we did it.  Both were thirsty enough for beer and wine, so we fought through the arduous mine field of red tape and paperwork to make that happen as well.

As a result, we have one of the most diverse customer bases a small business could hope for.  There truly is something for every walk of life within our walls.  We earned the moniker “community living room” after our monthly Open Mic night grew wings and started to fly on its own.

We are loved.  We are treasured.  We are respected.  We are a diamond in the rough.  Mission accomplished!

Being a square peg in a round hole is both a blessing and a curse, a double-edged sword if ever there was one.

The Achilles Heel(s) of Running a Small Business

•  Being (too far) ahead of your time
•  Location, Location, Location

It is possible–to an extent at least–to control the environment within your own business.  Touch up the paint here, move this piece of furniture to a slightly different angle…any number of tiny adjustments can make a huge difference.  However, the environment outside your business, even a few steps outside the front door, is virtually impossible to control.

I have a great, loyal following of customers, and for that I’m grateful; Inner Chapters would have never made it this far without you!  Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of you to keep pace with the ever-rising cost of doing business in this place at this time.  It’s so close to everything, and yet so far away.

Being in a neighborhood that is both old and new has its trappings: simultaneously there are feelings of excitement and bitterness as old things are destroyed (or obscured) to make room for new things.  People who are new to the area may be greeted with open arms or vicious disdain by the die-hard locals, desperately clinging to the comforts of the familiar.

Having a customer base that changes at the drop of a hat can be quite a challenge, because on the one hand you want to sell whatever the people are buying, but on the other there’s a need to be true to your vision–and yourself, for that matter.  My vision was to anchor the small retail core that this neighborhood so desperately needs;  I set out to lay a foundation that would appeal to other unique retailers so we could band together and make this area glow with excitement and commerce…….but it hasn’t come to pass, YET.  There were so many unknowns 5 years ago, anything could have happened. What did happen just hasn’t worked out for me.  This business model belongs in a residential neighborhood, not an office park.  If I could wait it out for 5 more years until the area is truly ready for me, I would.  But that’s not an option…..

•  What this is about:

Cash is the life’s blood of a business.  It ebbs and flows, sometimes there’s a pattern, sometimes it’s erratic as hell (unlike collecting a regular paycheck where you know what you’re getting and when).  If only the expenses were synchronized to keep it all in some semblance of balance!  Risks must constantly be taken in the hopes that enough sales will roll in to cover that power bill, or rent, or taxes.  Sometimes you win the game, and other times you wake up in the cold sweat of sheer terror for weeks.

After you’ve tirelessly done everything humanly possible to create a self-sustaining organism that also sustains you, it certainly does sting when you still come up short through no fault of your own.  At some point you hit a wall and decide that enough is enough.

And then life happens!  The universe has a way of providing clarity when the hardest decisions must be made.  I was standing at a fork in the road of life: the prospect of relocating the business was becoming more appealing with the impending end of my lease (it’s not that I’m being kicked out, but taking on 2-5 more years here isn’t exactly in my best interest at this point), and then I found out that I’m due to bring a new, wee evil genius into the world this coming August….well that changes things just a bit now, doesn’t it?!  Wait, can’t I just go on maternity leave?  Not an option.  I wouldn’t currently be running the business solo if I could afford even part-time employees, let alone full staff for 3 months or longer.   What does this mean?  Well, we can still relocate–just not immediately or seamlessly.

Inner Chapters has been my baby for 5 years.  There’s a new baby in my life now, and it would be unfair to all if I were to attempt burning my (currently dwindling) candle at both ends.

• What this is NOT about:

It is widely thought that the printed word (and thus bookstores) will go completely extinct in our lifetime.  Every time a bookstore moves or closes, the chest-beating laments resound like there’s some kind of inevitable book-pocalypse just around the corner.  I find it funny (and at the same time enraging) that the individuals who go off 0n extensive diatribes about the tragic loss of so many lovely bookshops RARELY BUY A BOOK.  But I digress….

The book and the bookstore as we know and love them are, in fact, not dying but changing (read my manifesto on this topic here).  These symbiotic species are in the middle of an evolutionary population bottleneck, and they will emerge as something recognizable and yet (perhaps?) quite different, but certainly stronger and more valuable than ever to the modern human.

Never forget that what’s happening to bookshops is also happening to nearly every small business in this country.  The Main Street vs. Wall Street battle is very real, and it will continue for years to come.

Whose side are you on?

Since we’re trying to get away with the smallest storage unit possible, just about everything else is also for sale…..do you dream of opening a coffee bar of your own one day?  Adopt our gently used gear, it has great karma!

• 25% off totals over $10
• 40% off totals over $20
• 50% off totals over $50

Well……what are you waiting for?!