I Bought $1,800 In Books And Panicked

Recording live from NCRA in North Carolina, we talk with Gina Mays, the owner of Gigi’s bookstore, about what happens when a lifelong educator decides she’s not done serving schools, she’s just changing tools. After 32 years as a teacher and administrator, Gina retires, buys $1,800 worth of books, drives to a conference stressed out of her mind, and discovers a real need for an independent bookseller who understands teachers, students, and school ordering.

Spotlight 4 Success: spotlight4success.com 

Transcript

Why Gina Sells At Conferences

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to American Book Company Spotlight for Success. My name is Danielle Pintozi, your host, and today we are at NCRA in North Carolina. Beside me, I have our special guest, Gina. Um, she is the owner of Gigi's bookstore, and we are so excited to have you on our podcast today. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Now, uh, Gina, what brings you to NCRA today?

From Educator To Book Entrepreneur

SPEAKER_01 0:31

So um several years ago, I was asked to come as a bookseller. Um, since I own the book company, I'm an independent bookseller that also has a brick and mortar store. Um, but I was asked to come to provide the books for the authors, for the attendees to purchase when they meet the authors that are here to talk to them, and they can get books autographed, and it just, you know, adds to the atmosphere and the fun of being a part of an organization like this. Um, what was your role like in education? So for 32 years, I was a teacher and then an administrator. Um, so that seemed like it just flew by. I couldn't believe it. Um but when I retired, I still wanted to be a part of schools, and the the thing that I loved the most in when I was teaching and when I was a principal was um sharing stories with kids, sharing great books with kids. So um right after I retired, I did a little work for the University of South Carolina, some supervision work, and while I enjoyed being in the schools and I really enjoyed working with the teachers, the pre the pre-service teachers, um I still had this calling for something else. And um we I in a way fell into it, but in a way not. I was a state officer in our South Carolina organization, like NCR, and NRCA, yeah, had to get it right. Um NCRA. Um in South Carolina, it's called the Commodore State Literacy Association, P S L A. And I was a state officer there for nine years, and um I knew that there was a kind of an open space for booksellers at conferences. That's how I started. Um that's it's there's a niche for that. You you have to you have to know how to buy for that and you have and know how the attendees, what they're gonna want, and that kind of thing. And being an educator for so long, it allowed me to have that background to be able to support in that way. So I just decided literally one day, I think I'm gonna sell books. And I went home and I told my husband, I'm gonna sell books. And I bought$1,800 worth of books and went to the conference, and the whole way down, I just was stressing out, like, who's what if they don't buy them? What am I gonna do? And he's like, Gina, you've been in, you know, educator for so long, you know so many people across the state, it's gonna be fine. And he was right. I did sell books there, but then I started getting the school orders, and then it just grew and grew and grew and grew, and it just grew to what it is today. And I have to give um shout out to my teacher friends, my admin friends, and my community for the support for us as a small business and supporting our events at the stores, but also supporting us at conferences like this because now I get calls, I I support South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, um, and a couple other states have talked to me a little bit too. So it just is one of those things that happened in your life, you know. I I definitely didn't never had a plan for it, but I was led to it.

What Makes A Kids-Only Store

SPEAKER_00 3:39

That's amazing. Um, what makes your company different than a regular bookstore?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

So we we are a children's only bookstore, and there are those around the state. I will tell you, in South Carolina, there's only two children's only bookstores. Mine and then one that's in the low country of the state. I can't quote off for North Carolina how many are other states, but um that's one new unique thing about it because many indie bookstores will have a children's section, but we're only focused on kids. That's my wheelhouse, that's what I knew for so long, and and that's my love. Um but I think with our business, because of my background in education and my understanding of what teachers are looking for and and what conferences are looking for, that makes it makes it um a little more attractive for them to talk to us about being the suppliers. And I really love coming to the conferences because we just make all kinds of conference friends just like you guys now. Um and we get to see them as we travel through conferences and it's it's just really fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

The connections.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yes, yeah, connections are big.

Favorite NC Authors And New Books

SPEAKER_00 4:49

And I see you brought some books to share.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, so this is another great part of my job is just being able to meet um authors and illustrators from all over. Um but since we're in North Carolina, I just wanted to highlight a few. I know that you guys talked with Tani Fletcher recently. Um this was the one of the highlights of my bookselling days thus far. Last night we were able to really um launch, in a sense, her new book. She didn't even know, I don't know if she told you this, but she did not even know that I was gonna have the book. And we made a big deal about it. She had not even seen the book, and people just don't realize that the authors of these books, they don't have a choice in their illustrators. They don't sometimes don't even see the book until it's ready to be released. That book is really not supposed to be released until May. But um, but whatever I did and said, they let me get it early, and we had a big surprise for her last night, and it was fabulous. So I didn't bring Tani's because I know you talked to her, but we North Carolina is amazing in the number, it's amazing the number of writers that North Carolina has. Um Shannon Hitchcock is one of them, and if you like Appalachian tales, she's got a series, there's four in the series, that all have to do with Appalachian um families, the tales of Appalachia. Um, story quilts I love because I mean quilts tell so many family stories, which is what this is really about. Um but she's got other ones that are about folks in the Appalachian um areas that have made influence, have caused um positive influences in their communities and across the world. So Shannon's one that's got um picture books. This is a picture book, but she also has um a couple of novels too, and she has a new one out called Wild Mount Mountain Ivy, and I should have grabbed that and brought it over, but um she's a great one. Um this is another author I absolutely love. Um this is Ashley Beloat. This is her newest book, Little Red and Big Bad Fred. It's a fractured fairy tale. Um, if you're not sure what a fractured fairy tale is, it is um an author takes a fairy tale that's well known, as you can probably guess what this one is, Little Red Riding Hood, and they change it around. So in this in her story, Little Red is actually a little boy, and this is Big Fred, um, Big Bad Fred, who is the wolf, and and it's just a play on the story, but little twist along the way, it doesn't end the same way. Grandma is not in here, it's grandpa. So just a lot of fun with it, but she does a lot of picture books, and then she does have a new graphic novel out too. So Ashley is an author illustrator. So she not only wrote this book, she does um she did the illustrations. She's fantastic, isn't she? Um she lives in the Charlotte area. Um, so you gotta keep your eye out for her because she's she's really moving it on up. She's got a background in animation too.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I was gonna say I really love um like the 3D look on this.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, just I I can't explain to you how much I I love Ashley's work. It's just really the details there. And I have to brag a little bit because Ashley um actually designed, I know you won't be able to see this, but on my business card, she designed our mascot, which is precious little frog. Um, because the town I we live in, um we're called Prosperity, but 153 years ago we were called Frog Level. And that was a terrible name for our town. So we changed it to something prosperous like prosperity. So Ashley designed a little um mascot for us, so you know I gotta brag on Ashley a little bit. Then another um North Carolina slash Virginia um um author now is Alan Wolf, and he's here, and this is um his newest of uh kind of a combo. This is a um nonfiction graphic novel about this late lake, Lake Painer. I have to stop to think, remember how to say it exactly, but this is a true story of a lake completely vanishing and then reappearing, and I know that sounds so crazy, but you guys have to read it because I didn't believe it, but you can YouTube it and you can see it and know that it was a true thing. So he wrote a graphic novel about it. And for those of you who are not sure what a graphic novel is, looks like a comic book, doesn't it? But it's actually a novel in a comic book type format.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Um very engaging for some of that. Yes, yeah.

Where To Find Gigi’s Library

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Well, I'll tell you, I when I got the arc of this, I I started to read the first couple of pages and then I just couldn't stop. And of course, it took didn't take me long to read it, but I I just had to know what was next. What's gonna happen, what's gonna happen to those people? Wait, there's somebody on the lake, what's gonna happen? So I really this is so engaging, but as a companion basically, he has a novel that is a non-fiction telling of this, so it has some of the fictional, I mean some of the um true aspects of it, but then it's got the fiction story part to it. So um really fun. And Alan has picture books and other novels, so a very fun, nice guy. And then the last one I want to share is um from my my one of my favorite men who other than my hubby, have to say that, um, Lester Laminek, and this is Lester's um newest book, A Cat Like That, and how cute is that kitty cat. Um, but Lester, I like to call Lester a a teacher's author because Lester was a teacher, he was a professor for a long time, and so he really knows how to engage kids in story and how to use stories to teach different concepts. So um, this is his newest one, and it's about a little cat. Look at that. Is that not the cutest thing? It's about a cat that is sort of a community cat and wanders in this village, and it was spurred from when he and his son were somewhere in a in an island town and they saw this cat, and then that his son said something like, Um, look at that cat, I wonder about that cat like that. And years later, he pulled that out and and wrote a book over it. That's though, so that's the coolest thing about talking to authors is where do you get these ideas? How do you do this? What my mind doesn't work like that. I would I I have no interest in ever being an author because I just I just soak up from them. I love hearing their stories and another great thing for for the job that I get to do now. Where can we find your products in your bookstore? So the bookstore is in um South Carolina, Prosperity, South Carolina, where we are um between Columbia and Greenbross Spartanburg, not very far off the interstate. Um we do we have an um uh social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, um, our website. It's pretty easy. It's GG's library, and it's not G I, G I, it's just a G and just a G. G G S. So you can follow us on those things, and um we are getting ready to launch an online store. We haven't launched it yet, but hopefully in the next month or so, we got to kind of get through um this conference season and book fair season. We we have lots of book fairs going on at schools right now, so we're getting through that and then we'll get our online presence going. So, but I'll tell you, my goal for starting this after retirement was getting good books in the hands of families, um kids, and schools, um, and and that's just been the driving force, and hopefully that's what we're we're actually accomplishing. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on our podcast, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the call. Yes, thank you so much for having us. How fun was this?