Photo Credit: Blake Aued/file
Avid Bookshop owner Janet Geddis
Independent bookstore Avid Bookshop—which celebrates its fifth anniversary next month—is opening a second location in Five Points, in addition to its Prince Avenue store.
The new store, at 1662 S. Lumpkin St., will open this fall. Owner Janet Geddis reports:
The Five Points store will take strengths from the Prince Avenue location (a well-curated collection, excellent customer service, and a lot of community engagement) but make tweaks to respond to the needs and wants of the immediate neighborhood. We hope to have expanded cookbook, coffee table and art book sections, and we will bring in some lovely gift items that are catered to book lovers and casual shoppers alike.
This move will also let us expand and streamline our bustling school business: We have a full-time school engagement specialist, Hannah DeCamp, who coordinates with nearly all the schools in the Athens area to introduce critically acclaimed authors and illustrators to children and teachers. We will also be able to focus more on our business-to-business (B2B) sales, allowing businesses to buy particular titles in bulk (example: if Caterpillar wanted to buy 50-5000 copies of a particular business book for their employees).
In addition, Geddis will kick of the Friends of the Library’s series Innovators @ The Library with a talk entitled “The Highs and Lows of Opening an Independent Bookstore” Sunday, Sept. 25 at 2:15 p.m. at the ACC Library.
Geddis is also one of 40 finalists for Publishers Weekly‘s Star Watch program.
Look for an announcement soon about an anniversary celebration, which will feature cupcakes and a photo booth, and double as a fundraiser for a local nonprofit.
Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.
