Four months into running The Phoenix, Stef pauses to tell the origin story for newer listeners—and to reconnect longtime listeners with how far she's come.

Chapter 1 was the false start: trying to acquire an existing used bookstore in Marin. Complicated negotiations, emotional turbulence, a few snafu decisions while still learning to be a business person. The turning point came when she walked away and decided to build instead of buy.

Chapter 2 was the building phase: mapping Marin for book deserts, naming the store, tackling the business infrastructure (EIN, LLC, Seller's Permit), and hitting estate sales weekly to stockpile inventory. She'd learned she needed 15,000 books before opening. Her house became a storage unit. She started to concern the concept of "mattering"—adding value and feeling valued—as the foundation for everything. Then came the landlord gauntlet: months of near-misses, being outbid by businesses with deeper pockets. Each rejection, she now sees, cleared space for something better.

Chapter 3 began when she found a space she wanted before even seeing it, just because the landlords were amazing. She filled the tiny store with picture books and board books and middle-grade readers and YA, hired teenagers who understood the trends she didn't, and opened May 13th to immediate, sustained popularity. Four months in: repeat customers are solid and keeping the lights on, but new customer traffic has dropped since two anchor restaurants closed.

So now she's back in full scale marketing mode. School partnerships, growing book clubs into real events, Bannned Book Week activations, a winter reading challenge, preschool story times, books-to-movie events with a local friend, guerrilla postcards, newsletter swaps, and influencer outreach (still solving that mystery)!

One milestone: 5,000 podcast downloads? Maybe that's a lot?

Show Notes:

• Phoenix Noir (mysteries/thrillers): coming October 21st, The Final Problem by Monique King (closed-box mystery)
• Books to Movie Club: Sense and Sensibility October 16th with Soul Sisters (Mill Valley)
• Banned Book Week: October 4-10, 5% of sales to Penn America (fighting book censorship in schools/libraries)
• Winter Reading Challenge: Thanksgiving & winter breaks, signatures from local businesses, free decorated sugar cookie from Madrona Bakery in January
• Preschool story times: launching today!!
• School partnerships available with local private schools
• Hispanic Heritage Month display now up in the store!

Current Book Count: ~25,000+

🐦‍🔥 Follow along as The Phoenix Used Bookshop continues to rise—subscribe to A Bookshop of My Own and get updates at phoenixusedbookshop.com.