BUSINESS NEWS
8 • January 2021
Coast River Business Journal
Local bookstores struggle to get inventory
Story by Emily Lindblom
Coast River Business Journal
elindblom@crbizjournal.com
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It’s been a strange year for the publishing and
bookselling industry, according to Karla Nelson,
owner of Time Enough Books in Ilwaco.
“Some of the smaller presses, the university
presses, seem to have cut way back substantially,”
Nelson said. “I can normally get what I want but
not as quickly as I’ve been able to get it in the past.”
Some of the publishing houses supplying small
distributors have experienced a lag, partly because
distributors are unsure of how much to order for
bookstores that may or may not be open depending
on restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Jigsaw juggernaut
As at bookstores across the country, specifi c
items at Time Enough Books and Beach Books in
Seaside have been in high demand and low supply
since March.
“Jigsaw puzzle sales went through the roof
during COVID,” Nelson said of the fi rst few months
of restrictions, when people were fi nding ways to
entertain themselves without leaving their homes.
Alexa Butler, manager of Beach Books and a
committee chairwoman of the Pacifi c Northwest
Booksellers Association, agreed and said puzzles
were the hardest things to get.
“It was insane,” Butler said. “If you had puzzles
it was like you had gold.”
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While puzzles were starting to become easier
to order, books were still in low supply through the
holiday shopping season in November and Decem-
ber, as printers were running at a small capacity.
“If someone gets (COVID-19), it quarantines the
books as well as the staff so that’s why we pushed
really hard to pre-order books in the late fall,” But-
ler said. “As a business it’s hard to know what’s
coming when we make these orders.”
Beach Books orders books from Ingram Book
Company, a major wholesale book distributor in the
U.S. with a warehouse in Roseburg and a second-
ary in Tennessee.
Brian Juenemann, executive director of the
Pacifi c Northwest Booksellers Association, said
the schedule for ordering books for holiday shop-
ping was pushed up for all the member stores on the
North Oregon Coast and Long Beach Peninsula in
Washington.
“Many printers mothballed or shut down alto-
gether so there is a shortage of available printers
for actually making books for the holiday season,”
Juenemann said, adding that with a heavy amount
of online ordering, carriers have been stretched thin.
“There are a lot of wild cards every day so you
just have to say ‘what can you do, it’s 2020,’” Juen-
emann said.
According to Juenemann, stores usually have
PHOTOS BY CAROLYN HOARD
ABOVE: Time Enough Books has seen high demand and low supply of books during COVID-19.
INSET: “Scout,” an English labrador, greets customers at Time Enough Books.
BELOW: Karla Nelson, owner of Time Enough Books in Ilwaco, unloads a new shipment of
puzzles.
a cut-off date of Dec. 20 or Dec. 21 for ordering
books to arrive in time for Christmas.
But on Dec. 14, Butler said she couldn’t guar-
antee a book ordered that day would get to the cus-
tomer in time.
New ways to connect
Both bookstores were closed for two and a half
months at the beginning of the pandemic. Since
reopening in June, they’ve been fi nding new ways
to connect with readers.
Beach Books had a window display of a variety
of books so customers could come by and point to
what they wanted from outside. Other previous cus-
tomers from out of the area have called or ordered
books online instead of coming into the store.
“We continue to stoke the fi re, social media is
our biggest thing,” Butler said.
Beach Books’ social media posts have reached a
wider audience than in the past, expanding beyond
the store’s usual customer base to such places as
Florida and Puerto Rico.
Jason Campbell, “the TikTok doc,” known for
his viral dancing videos at Oregon Health and Sci-
ences University, helped fuel the bookstore’s social
media.
“He loves the bookstore and he’s been able to
come and make videos,” Butler said. “It’s been awe-
some to get the outreach.”
Meanwhile, Nelson has been fulfi lling a lot of
special orders for customers, which she said have
been easier to get in. Nelson has been selling books
for more than 20 years and said she was on a recent
Zoom meeting with other booksellers who have
been in the business for about fi ve years.
“I realized I was kind of the old matriarch of the
group. They didn’t go through the 2008, 2009 reces-
sion,” Nelson said. “What I told them was, ‘just let
this year go, you can’t compare it to anything and
you won’t be able to compare it to anything. It’s just
something we have to roll with until it’s over.’”