Expansion!

We've been busy here at the bookstore in Warner Robins.  We are EXPANDING!  The salon that was next to us moved and so we're moving in!  Shane is busy building bookcases and I can't wait to have more room!

Here I Am!

I'm not dead and I'm not being totally lazy with my blogging...we've just been extremely busy the last couple weeks getting our new store in North Carolina opened, moving some sections around at our Warner Robins store, and starting our new venture, Walls of Books!


If you know anyone who is interested in opening their own used bookstore, we can help!

Send them to our new Walls of Books! website. 

I hope to be back with a few little projects I've been working on soon!

What Made My Day

I thought today was going to be an average day at the bookstore...but then I recieved this from one of my little customers:

Made my day!!!

Books Brought = Trade Credit

We take most books in trade at our store.  
Most. Books.

Small Business of the Month

Here's a picture from this past Tuesday...

The plaque reads:

Small Business of the Month Award
Gottwals Books
1806 Russell Parkway
For Outstanding Business Achievement And Exemplary Service to the Community
April 2010
Warner Robins Area Chamber of Commerce

New Signs at Gottwals Books in Warner Robins

 BUY and TRADE with us!

(you can see the old and boring storefront if you scroll WAY down to the very bottom of this page)

Office to be!

An office for me!  I've decided I need to use one of the back rooms of our bookstore as an office so I'm not doing all my paperwork at the front counter.  Here's a quick peak at the room now:

It's your typical used-to-be-a-bathroom/storage/stock/kitchen/break room mess.  There is a floor underneath all that, it's a not-so-lovely tile.  So first on my list is to get a rug down.  Hopefully that will add some comfort to a bathroom-turned-storage-mess room.  I have a desk at home I'm bringing so I'm hoping the rug will be my only big purchase.

Spent some time on overstock.com today looking at rugs and found myself drawn to the black and white ones...here are my favorites.

I like this one because it's called Snow White...

 

Option #1

This one is pretty and I like the ivory color instead of pure white

Option #2

I love the bold print on this one!

Option #3

This one is gorgeous.  Just over my price range, though.

Option #4

This one is pretty, too.

Option #5

This one is obviously not black and white, but I love it, too!

Option #6

So...what do you think?  Now that I've done this post I'm thinking maybe I should get a really colorful rug since the room's pretty blah and maybe having colorful rug will make me enjoy working more?  I don't know...

Kids Books

We've been working on the kids section in the Warner Robins store all year for a while.  Finally finished up today!  I LOVE the new layout and how much room we have!

It feels SO GOOD to finally get something done!

Ribbon Cutting Today

We are celebrating our new Macon store with the Macon Chamber of Commerce, family, friends, and some local dignitaries at 5:00 today.  Should be great.

Want Walls of Books? Check out Gottwals

That was the headline for the story Jenny Gordon from The Warner Robins Patriot wrote about our store!

Here's the story:
slideshow

A community-friendly store that one can be proud of comes to mind for one Warner Robins business owner.

It is a locally-owned bookstore that sells used books, but it's much more than that for Abbey Gottwals, and her husband, Shane, who opened Gottwals Books in 2007.

Located on the corner of Carl Vinson and Russell Parkway in the Parkway Village shopping center, thousands of quality, used paperback and hardback novels can be found inside the 2,700-square-foot location.

In 2006, and with her husband's degree in English and hers in business from Mercer, the idea of opening a bookstore seemed ideal.

"When we hit on that idea, it was just perfect," said the 25-year-old Gottwals.

In the last few years the store has expanded its floor space, and the children's section at the back of the store is currently in an expansion phase.

You can find just about anything to read at Gottwals, including a selection of Melissa and Doug educational items. Its largest sections are adult fiction, young adult, teen and children's books, and a wide selection of science fiction and Christian books.

Having done extensive research on what kind of store they wanted in the community, the Gottwals settled on a formula that has worked well elsewhere: give excellent customer service, have affordable and good quality books, treat everyone like family and as Christians, and in all ways be fair and honest.

"We have a system that people seem to like so we do want to keep serving as many people as possible with it," explained Gottwals.

"One thing I was very adamant about was if we have a used bookstore, I wanted it to be nice and clean and set up well like a new bookstore would be," she continued. "Even now I really take pride in the fact that a lot of people come in, and they'll look around and ask if these are 'new' books or 'used' books."

"We really work on keeping it maintained nicely," she said of the store.

Much of the inventory comes from buyers the Gottwals work with, and all books are hand-selected for shelving.

One idea that has also worked well is trading or swapping books where no cash changes hands. Rather, customers can receive store credit toward the purchase of other books. You can use that credit to pay for up to half of your next item. And if you have books at home you'd like to bring in, they'll take those too if there's a need for those titles.

"A lot of people like to read, and they don't want to hang on to every single book they've read. This makes things more affordable, especially for those who read a ton or people with kids who are always going through new books and phases," added Gottwals.

The average book price is about $4 and in general, paperbacks sell for around $3 to $4. Last summer the young entrepreneurs opened a second, larger bookstore in Byron at the Peach Shops. A third store opened its doors just over a week ago in north.

Like many small business owners, Gottwals admitted the days can be long and the workload heavy.

"There's always something to be done, always improvements to be made, people to contact and books to price and shelve and organize. I've had to balance work with time off. And finding time to spend with my husband," she noted.

"Another challenge is just the novelty of what we're doing," she said. "We wanted to do something that was our own. The benefits to having this store have far outweighed any problems (other) we've had. Challenges have only made us want to be better and keep doing what we're doing."

She added that since the store opened they've spent very little on advertising, relying, instead, on word of mouth to get the word out.

But it's been the customers and relationships she's built over the years that make it all worthwhile.

"Bookstore people are just great," she said.

(Editor’s Note: Gottwals Books in Warner Robins opens at 9:30 a.m. during the week and on Saturdays. All stores are closed on Sundays. To give them a call, in Byron, call 956-0333, in Macon, 477-9200, and in Warner Robins, 225-1044. Also, visit http://gottwalsbooks.com/.)

 A BIG thanks to Jenny for her great article and making me sound so smart!  

We Made It: The Macon Store Opens

Friday was a late night for us.  Shane started looking a little happy/crazy around midnight.

 

Meanwhile, the Papyrus spinner was looking a little sad...

Books were still waiting to be shelved and boxes moved and giraffes were looking longingly out the window.

Mom was wondering why  she had vacuum duty and her daughter was taking pictures...

But some books were ready--they had their act in order and were waiting patiently on the shelves for the next morning to arrive...

In the wee hours of the morning (actually around 9:00) Shane put the store hours on the door...

Forget something?

Finally 9:30 rolled around and we were ready for business!

And then THE BEST THING happened--PEOPLE CAME!!!

Including one of my very best friends from college.  She works in Atlanta now and I hardly ever see her.  It was magic!  Actually, it was conference a few blocks down the road.  But still magical!

I also got to see these two girls--two of my favorites ever!

Shane and I got home to a feast my parents had fixed for us (did I mention they're AMAZING?!?!?!)

Complete with these guys:

Why, it's a red pepper stuffed with avocado and cauliflower...what did you think it was?

MMMMMMMMM

Gottwals Books - Macon

The BIG day is tomorrow!  Shane and I will be opening the doors to our Macon store tomorrow. 

This just in: my mom and dad are on their way down here to be with us for the opening.  They're basically driving 7 hours down to be with us tonight and a few hours tomorrow before driving 7 hours back home.  They're awesome.

In the News Again!!!

Used Bookstore Hopes to Revitalize Area in North Macon | 13WMAZ.com | Macon, GA

Shane had a great interview with Stephanie Susskind yesterday from 13WMAZ.  The story played on the 11:00 news last night and throughout the news this morning.

Added:  We were also voted #1 Bookstore in The Warner Robins Patriot's Best of Warner Robins and Centerville 2010 issue!

Still Progressing

The kid's section at the new Macon store is almost "done"...done in quotes because it'll never be completely finished--we'll always have more books to put away, straighten up, sell, etc.  But almost done to open in time on the 6th of February. 

What looked like this a couple days ago:

Now looks like this:

Yes.  Thanks.  The applause is nice. 

Progress

Here's what I was working on yesterday.

This is the back section of the new store in Macon--the Teen/Young Adult/Children's section.  Yes, it is as bad as it looks, but pretty soon we'll have all these books sorted, priced, and the shelves filled up.  We are making progress.

Plus, we get to spend time together.  Not really quality-time together, but being-in-the-same-building-time together, and that's good enough for me.

I have also been working on the pantry and hope to finish it up tonight.  I like progress.

Working Hard Today

Shane and I are going to be working on the Macon store today.  We have less than 2 weeks to go until our target openning date of February 8th.  Hopefully will get some good pictures today I can get up tomorrow.

I Got Nothing

Got nothing today.  Shane and I are working like crazy people to open our new store in Macon by the 8th of February.  The Macon Telegraph did a story on retailers in the area where we're moving in and included us.  You can see the article here, scroll down a little until you see "New Bookstore Coming" about halfway down.

Or just read it here:

New bookstore coming
Another midstate-owned business, Gottwals Books, expects to open in the North Park II shopping center the first week of February, said Shane Gottwals, who owns the business with his wife, Abbey Gottwals. Some renovation had to be done, such as installing shelves and painting, to get the space ready, he said.
The company, which sells used books it gets on trade in, first opened in Warner Robins in March 2007 and opened a store in Byron this past summer.
“It has done well enough that it prompted a Macon location,” Gottwals said.
Also, the rocky economy contributed to the decision to open a Macon location, Gottwals said.
“We had been turned off by Macon ... the good areas have been so expensive,” he said. “With the recent downturn in the economy, we have been able to get lease terms ... we can afford.”
About 95 percent of its nearly 50,000 books it sells are used, but it has “a lot of new releases ... and we special order new books,” he said.
It’s not a Christian bookstore, but Gottwals said, “we’re definitely a Christian-run company. We do weed out the trashy romance novels and things like that.”
“Anything bought from here is guaranteed for half back in a store credit, if it still has our sticker on it ... even five years down the road,” he said.
Gottwals said he has hired the two people who will work at the store, but he may have to add workers if business picks up.
Tentative plans are for the store to be open 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays, except Wednesdays, when it would close at 5 p.m. It will be closed Sundays.
“We see a lot of potential for this side of town, especially with Carol’s Linens coming.” he said. “It has a lot of visibility. If people can see the name, they will come in.”

 In other news, I got to hang out with a couple of my favorite people Monday and Tuesday.

My Uncle Paul and Aunt Laura are missionaries in Argentina.  We see them every couple of years when they're in the States for furlough. 

I'll try to take pictures of the new store next week so you can see the progress we're making on it.

Decorating the Bookstore

The last couple years we've been putting up our pre-lit Christmas tree here at the Warner Robins store.  This year we had no room for a tree so I was going to do some other decorations around the store.

This is as far as I've gotten:

I was going to put up a quote from How the Grinch Stole Christmas on our chalkboard, but that hasn't happened {yet}.  These are the quotes we have up now:

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me" -C.S. Lewis

"No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books."  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I may not be posting tomorrow because I'll be home all day getting the upstairs ready for company next week (can you believe Christmas is next week?!?!).  Are you ready for Christmas?

In the News!

If you're interested in seeing a local news story that features Gottwals Books as one of the best bargain shops around, click here.  We didn't even know they were doing it!  What a great Thursday morning surprise.  Just wished I'd smiled when he shot footage of me...I was trying to find something for a customer and concentrating.  And I wish she hadn't said that we sell used books at 60% the original price.  Totally not true.  I think the only ones we have that high are the Twilight books and that's cause they're so popular that we're ordering them new!  Most of our books are probably 60% OFF of original price or more.  However, I am SUPER excited about the free advertising and am not really complaining about anything said/seen/done on the clip!  (As a side note, Bennie, the computer business owner at the end of the story, is also a Mercer University grad.  Go Bears!)  Picture

In other news, ummm...what was my other news???  I have no idea what I was going to blog about today.  None.  Oh well--have you ever been on tv?

IKEA

I love Ikea.  I could spend a whole day in there.  Or a week.  But we don't have days and weeks to spare.  So I got an hour and fifteen minutes last night.  That's right--we drove longer one way to get up there than we had time to spend in the store.  But of course it was totally worth it. 

Shane wanted to look at shelving he'd seen online as a possibility for the new store in Macon (that is, POSSIBLE new store).  I wanted to look at pretty much everything else.  So we ended up loving the shelving (although we didn't get any since we don't know how much we need).  That was great.  Also great were a few finds.

This lantern for $6.99 (I got 2).

Six of these dvd cases.  Two for $4.99 because they're actually cardboard, although I think they look great and not very cardboardy at all.

I got some little square mirrors, too.  They are the exact same ones I bought about three years ago when Shane and I went up right after we got married.  I bought four the first time and always wished I'd gotten a few more so I could hang them along the staircase.  Four was just not enough.  So last night while we were there I saw they still had the exact same ones and got three more.  Perfect!