Rona Brinlee, owner of The Bookmark in Neptune Beach, is a big believer in shopping locally.
She even makes a case for supporting locally owned businesses in a message printed on the store’s bookmarks, which read:
“Did you know that spending at a local independent business puts 3.5 times as much money in your local economy as shopping at a national chain? Shopping locally makes good sense for you and good cents for your local community!”
Brinlee bought the independent bookstore 28 years ago, in 1995, five years after it opened.
She recently threw an all-day party at the shop to celebrate the store’s 33rd birthday.
The flyers promised cake, bubbly, prizes and good conversation, which she maintains is a staple at The Bookmark.
Over the years, Brinlee has led the business through challenges like big chain bookseller discounts, online book sales, e-books and the coronavirus pandemic.
“We made it through with flying colors,” she said,
Independent bookstores “mean a lot of things” to a community, Brinlee, 71, said in the store at 200 First St., at First and Orange streets a block from the Atlantic Ocean.
“I always say it’s like a safe bar. People can come here and talk about whatever they want,” she said.
“It’s really a focal point for communities. It’s a place to come and have an intellectual conversation.”
And it is a place to find help buying the right book, she said.
“It’s a place you can come and talk about what you like to read or what you don’t like to read, or what movies you like, and have somebody help you pick out that book that’s just going make your heart sing. And that’s what we do all day.”
Buying a bookstore
Brinlee grew up in Baltimore and studied anthropology at Columbia University in New York.
She came to Jacksonville in 1980 and started the anthropology department at the University of North Florida.
She then did environmental work for the federal government for about 10 years.
In 1995, Brinlee decided “it was time to do something that I really loved. At a certain point in your life, you say now it’s time to do what you want to do. I decided it was a bookstore.”
Her timing was good.
The Bookmark, an independent book store then at the Beaches Town Center a few blocks north in Atlantic Beach, was for sale.
Brinlee and her husband, Buford, bought it in August 1995.
She said the purchase was meant to be, despite that her father had a jewelry store for 50 years and she swore she’d never run a retail business “because the hours are terrible,” and that she wasn’t an avid reader growing up and is a slow reader even now.
The decision felt right, Brinlee said. She didn’t even consider a backup plan if she didn’t succeed.
“I don’t think you can go into business like that. You’ve got to do it or not do it. Nothing’s ever going to be for sure. That’s not the way small businesses, or any businesses, probably work,” she said.
“There’s always some risk. When you take that leap, you just have to go with it. You can’t go it with, ‘Well, I’ll give it a shot.’ You make a commitment and you’re going to make it work.”
She has done that.
“We’ve done everything to make it work and get through all the changes and crises, the good and the bad, and we’re still here to tell the tale.”
The Bookmark is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
It moved from the 2,000-square-foot space in Atlantic Beach to its 1,600-square-foot space in Neptune Beach in August 2010.
The old store was “too big and oddly configured,” Brinlee said. The new building was just being completed when she decided to move and she was able to have the space designed to “get exactly what we wanted.”
Overcoming challenges
In the early days, some people told Brinlee she was crazy to open an independent bookstore.
In the 1990s, big chains like Barnes & Noble offered deep discounts “and you couldn’t compete on price,” she said.
However, The Bookmark could try to make a difference through customer service. By knowing the customers and their reading interests, the store could offer personalized, informed advice.
A customer making fewer buying mistakes is ultimately saving money, Brinlee said.
Then came 1995. Jeff Bezos started Amazon as an online marketplace for books. But as Amazon expanded, its emphasis on books diminished, Brinlee said.
“We weathered that for the same reason (that we weathered the big chains). We’re local, we’re independent, we know what we’re doing, people want to support us and we can help them pick up the right book.”
E-books and e-book readers like Amazon Kindle brought the next challenge.
“Everybody thought that was going to kill books. But you know, cameras didn’t kill art. E-books didn’t kill reading and a certain amount of people still love to hold the book in their hands,” Brinlee said.
Kindles also were less likely to be shared, she said, “so that leveled out pretty quickly.”
In the summer of 2020, Brinlee closed The Bookmark for two months because of the pandemic.
“It was me and my husband delivering books all over town, and taking orders on the phone and hanging things out on the bungee cord on the front door so people could come by and pick them up,” she said.
Customers were understanding but it was an uncertain time for the store.
“I was determined that we were going to make it through and we were going to be fine. And we did,” Brinlee said.
“People were loyal and they were very happy when we came back. (Sales) are up over last year and we are up over 2019, and 2019 is sort of the marker because that’s pre-COVID year. I’m happy to say we’re good.
A personalized experience
Brinlee is diligent about engaging with customers and the community.
She makes reading recommendations in televised appearances on “First Coast Living” on First Coast News.
She speaks to groups who express interest in hearing about books.
Weekly “postcards” on the store’s website focus on upcoming events, staff recommendations and new book arrivals.
Author events and book signings are a regular occurrence at the store.
The list of participants includes best-selling writers Tim Dorsey, David Baldacci, Harlen Coben and Carl Hiaasen, politicians George McGovern and John McCain and singer-songwriter Judy Collins, who obliged the crowd with a song before signing books.
Brinlee also brings in local authors. Former Jacksonville Sheriff Nat Glover came to the store Aug. 22 for the release of his autobiography, “Striving for Justice: A Black Sheriff in the Deep South.”
Brinlee and her employees try to make shopping at The Bookmark special for customers.
The staff members “love to read and can talk about books” and help people find what matches their interests, she said.
“We all like different kinds of things. But we eavesdrop on each other. We learn what other people are reading so we never will say we read a book if we haven’t read it.”
Picking books that you think others will like is “what we do. It would be boring to just sit there and have people bring books to the counter and run the cash registers. That’s not a fun day. This is a fun day,” she said, gesturing from her office out to the store and customers.
Brinlee is encouraged about the future of independent bookstores.
The American Booksellers Association, a nonprofit trade group that promotes independent bookstores, announced at its annual meeting in May that ABA membership is up 34% since 2020. It now comprises 2,185 bookstore companies with 2,599 bookstore locations.
“It is a good sign. This is a great time for the indies. I read the trade journals, and new independent bookstores are opening. Established independent bookstores are being sold to the next generation, so they will live on,” she said.
“It’s a growth industry. It’s not going away at all.”