ST. LOUIS — Betty Bayer has spent her life around books.
After graduating from Washington University with a degree in art history in 2011, she spent the following decade in various graduate programs which allowed her to work as a high school English teacher and children’s librarian.
Then 2020 came, and her life changed. Stuck in the house with two young children, Bayer let her mind wander to new possibilities and big ideas.
“The pressure cooker environment of the pandemic just pushed me to dream more than I maybe would have normally,” she said. “I had had this idea for a while of like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a comic book shop, but it was very accessible to everyone."
Bayer opened Betty’s Books, an independent bookstore that specializes in trade comics, graphic novels, manga and children’s literature, last year. The store, located at 10 Summit Ave. in Webster Groves, celebrated its one-year anniversary last month.
Conventional wisdom has led many to believe that e-commerce giants like Amazon would lead to the eventual death of the traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore. And if that wouldn't do it, the pandemic, which closed many of the world's retail stores to foot traffic for the better part of a year, would seal the deal.
But Bayer is among a growing class of peer entrepreneurs who used the pandemic as a springboard into the industry, particularly because of the role bookstores can play in the community. For others, like Ymani Wince, opening a bookstore became her avenue into joining a social movement, while another comic book store owner, Martin Casas, used the crisis as a means of expanding his business' reach globally to unexpected success.
They're far from alone.
“Our bookstore numbers are growing and growing and growing,” said Carrie Obry, executive director of the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association, a nonprofit trade association which acts as a pipeline between Midwestern bookstores and publishers, working to ensure the health and success of booksellers.
Nearly 100 new booksellers in the St. Paul-based association's territory — North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — have opened since 2018, growing its membership to an all-time high of 220. In 2021 alone, 29 new bookstores opened their doors, the highest single-year jump in the MIBA's records.
The surge in recent openings follows a period of struggle for the bookselling industry. In 2021, bookstores nationally generated $8.5 billion in sales, a nearly 31% decline from 10 years earlier, when sales were $12.3 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
So far this year, the industry is on track to return to pre-pandemic sales figures, with bookstores collecting $6.5 billion in revenue through September, up $500,000 over the same period last year.
Click here to read the full story from the St. Louis Business Journal.
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