Upon entering BookPeople of Moscow you are greeted by shelves adorned with a variety of stuffed animals, a poster depicting the avifauna of the pacific northwest and a multitude of books detailing the rich history of Moscow and the surrounding region.
Above all else, however, those who enter are left with the immediate impression that this is not your average bookstore.
“We’re much less focused on the New York Times bestseller and much more focused on what we think people in the area have interest in,” said BookPeople of Moscow employee Richie Bowman.
The store takes significant steps to cater to those looking to explore the outdoors, with a number of guides available on Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. Bowman said that this selection is balanced with what appeals to young adults, as UI students remain a significant part of the store’s customer base.
“It very much is a process of trying to figure out what the dynamics are this semester, this season and working from there,” Bowman said. “It’s always exciting to me when we get the new batch of college kids, we always have to get a little bit of turnover.”
Careful curation of the store’s offerings allows BookPeople to meet the demand of both outdoors explorers and ever-changing college student clientele. “Over the years, I’ve learned how to narrow the focus down to what our town really wants to see,” Carol Price, the owner of BookPeople of Moscow said. “That’s the art, the art of bookselling.”
Price explained that as she pays close attention to new releases, she keeps in mind what her customers are most likely to respond to. The store features titles on the natural world and ecology as well as a large selection of fiction including science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy and mysteries that Price says are consistently “heavily shopped.” Price said that younger audiences are also a significant draw, with young adult and children’s books accounting for a portion of the store’s sales.
In terms of what doesn’t sell, Price said that there is little demand for business-oriented literature and only fleeting demand for books in the realm of political science. The store carries the year’s most popular releases as demand for the subject matter “comes and goes pretty quickly.”
Price noted that Barnes & Noble has recently considered allowing their managers to exercise greater control over local book selections to better appeal to their audiences. However, she said the bookselling giant is nonetheless still trying to be “all things to all people.”
Customers recognize BookPeople’s efforts to meet unique local interests too. Elle Moore, a former UI student, noted that BookPeople is not restricted by “catering to the needs of a large audience.” Instead, the store has access to smaller authors and more regionally relevant books that simply wouldn’t be available in a larger store.
Moore noted that BookPeople was also unique in the volume of individual books on its shelves. Rather than featuring “10 different copies of the same book,” Moore said the store would generally only have one copy to provide a far more diverse selection of authors.
With the store’s level of authorial diversity and its deliberate focus on nature in the Pacific Northwest, its selection as the best specialized store in Moscow comes as no surprise. This designation and the store’s 50th anniversary celebration this year highlight how BookPeople remains a valued staple of the Moscow community.
“I just feel super proud to have gotten through this last decade during a very precarious time for small businesses and especially for small, independent bookstores,” said Price.
BookPeople has been able to remain on top of this shift by retaining an accessible downtown location and an online storefront, so customers don’t have to sacrifice their preferred shopping medium to support their local bookstore.
Price emphasized that while the task of maintaining Moscow’s long-running independent bookstore is certainly not a small one, it is a position that she feels honored to hold. She recognized that her taking over as owner in 2011 came with the community entrusting her to further what had been established over the previous decades. When it comes to her continued mastery of the art of independent bookselling, Price said that she is “still learning all the time.”
Check out the Best of Moscow here!
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @roycem_news