Laredo Bookstore Updates . . . Overdue!

Wow. If any week has shown me what a challenge opening this bookstore will be, it's this one. Which is why, I'm sorry to say, I haven't posted since Sunday.

This week, after being on the market for a year and a half, our house finally got an offer. A full-price offer (granted, after we significantly lowered the price), at that. So, after settling quite comfortably, if guiltily, into the fact that the house may not sell for some time, my husband and I have been jarred into the reality of looking for a new place to live, packing, and moving . . . all in less than 30 days. That is, assuming the sale goes through as planned. All of this means that, in addition to Colin starting a new job this week, and my full-time work and grad school and planning for this bookstore, we've been apartment-hunting like crazy. It's a level of stress that's laughable.

In any case, selling this house (again, assuming all goes through) probably couldn't come at a better time. Because our lives are so in flux right now, we'll be renting for a while, rather than buying. That leaves us with some flexibility when it comes to bookstore plans.

And speaking of plans: Mine for this week are:

* Finish my Pepsi grant application, to be posted online for voting on March 1. Courtney Sames, who has been working with Fede Cavazos on filming a documentary about B. Dalton closing and what has come next, has offered to send me a few photos to use for my application. I can't wait to see what she's got for me!

* Email the president of Texas A&M International University in Laredo; since university students are one of my key demographics, I would love to keep him informed in hopes that he will communicate my plans to all TAMIU students. I'd love to get them reading this blog and contributing their ideas as to what they'd like to see in an independent bookstore.

* Finalize and send off magazine pitches to at least three national women's magazines. I'll let you all know which ones once the pitches have gone out.

* More research and more work on my business plan. When the plan is finished, I'll use it to apply for more grants, as well as a small business loan from local financial institutions and the Small Business Association. Once I have funding, I'll be able to give you all more details as to what I have in mind for location.

* Visit with Mary Benavides again over the phone to compare notes on our plans. I have some ideas as to how we can both achieve our goals while providing Laredo with bookstores that aren't in direct competition. Details to come!

Another update is that my sister, a senior at Texas A&M University in College Station, has the opportunity to work with an expert to develop a detailed project management plan. She's opted to work with me on developing a plan for the bookstore, which I'm SO excited about! This is something separate from the business plan, and should serve as a roadmap throughout the project. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Soon to come: my vision for the bookstore. The size, the look and feel, the books, the non-books, the refreshments . . .

Thanks for coming back this week despite my inconsistency. Your readership inspires me!

Filming and a Phone Call

I'd like to start this post by thanking those who have been reading the blog and following my updates on Facebook and Twitter (KatieGPainter). I love the comments I'm getting on my Facebook wall, via e-mail, and on the phone, and I love hearing that friends and clients have passed the link to this blog onto their friends and family. I'm really learning how much reading, and buying books, means to the people in my life. But--as much as I adore hearing your comments through other mediums--for the love of literacy, throw out a couple of comments here! And follow the blog. I like seeing the little pictures on the left side of my screen. :) And also, what is reading and writing if not a conversation? So let's have one!

Entreaties aside, today was a productive and eventful day. I worked on a newsletter for a new telecommunications client and then had lunch with a former client, a fantastic biography writer. She had visited the blog and, curious woman that she is, had a million questions for me regarding my plans for the bookstore. So I enjoyed talking with her about that. It never gets old.

Yesterday, though, I found out from my aunt that I'm not the only one in Laredo moving forward with efforts to open a bookstore. Mary Benavides, who managed B. Dalton for the better part of 30 years, is also working toward this goal. My first thought, of course, was, Where does that leave me? Swiftly followed by, Oh, crap--I put my plans on the Internet too soon! They're all gonna laugh at me!

It was this state of mind that Courtney Sames found me in this afternoon. Courtney is one half of the documentarist duo I mentioned a couple of posts ago, and she wanted to come get an update from me on what I've been working on since our last talk.

"I wanted to talk to you about something off-camera first," I said. "I just heard that Mary Benavides is also trying to open a bookstore."

Courtney smiled, a little sheepish. "Well..." she said. "Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that."

I had to laugh. Sneaky documentarist!

"She called me on my way over here," Courtney said. "She'd like to talk to you. She's so nice," Courtney assured me. "The warmest person you'll ever meet."

I told Courtney that my aunt had given me Mary's number (the two have been good friends for years--such is Laredo) and that I intended to call after our interview. Courtney's eyes lit up. She looked at her camera. "Would you mind if...?"

That's how, after I updated Courtney and showed her this blog and the grant site, I ended up being filmed while I spoke to Mary.

Courtney was right about Mary's warmth and friendliness. After a slightly awkward start, I felt at ease, and we talked to each other about our plans and ideas. It was clear that Mary is as passionate as I am about bringing a bookstore to Laredo and fostering a community of arts and culture.

So where does that leave me? Right where I left off. We ended the call by promising to keep each other updated. More importantly, we vowed to find a way to achieve our goals in a complementary, rather than competitive, way. What, exactly, that means remains to be seen. But you'll know when I do!

As for the photo? He's the brains behind this operation.

A Bookstore for Laredo

The day before B. Dalton, then Laredo's only bookstore, closed, my dad said to me, “I don’t want to hear about your dreams; I want to hear about your plans.”

If you didn’t know him, if you didn’t know me, if you didn’t hear the self-aware laugh in his voice and the teasing tone in mine, his words would sound harsh. After all, what father wouldn’t want to hear about his daughter’s dreams? His oldest child’s dreams?

The truth is, both my dad and my mom have always been wonderfully receptive to, and unimaginably supportive of, their children’s dreams. But my parents are more than listening ears. They are hard workers. Build-from-the-ground-uppers. Entrepreneurs. Inspired and inspiring. I have learned from them what it means to not only dream, but to plan. And to not only plan, but to put that plan into action.

So I understood what my dad meant. I laughed and said, “I think I take after you.” I had recently dreamed about how I hadn’t been so supportive of my husband Colin's latest idea for work. Perhaps the dream was my subconscious telling me to stop, for a moment, playing devil’s advocate. Stop picking apart, examining each word, the syntax of each sentence, the format of each page, and the overall idea long enough to consider the excitement behind the idea. The inspiration. But I suppose I, too, like a plan.

And, yet, I’m not a planner. It’s a big joke in my family, how little of a planner I am. I oversleep, press snooze every seven minutes for two hours, am rarely the first to arrive at an appointment, am often forgetful, and put, maybe, too little effort into amending these qualities. Okay, these flaws.

What I am, however, is a person to whom “No” means very little. Or, rather, it means a lot. It means I will work and fight and sweat (then hide that sweat under a deceptive layer of Laura Mercier mineral powder foundation) all the harder to prove that I can meet that original goal. I can prove that naysayer wrong. I can make that beautiful, effervescent dream an equally beautiful, if imperfect, reality. And, in fact, I can do even better than I first imagined.

My dream: to open Laredo Texas’s first bookstore since the closing of its only one. My border hometown, with a population of 250,000 (and a population of 600,000 just a few steps away in Mexico), is now the largest city in the U.S. without a single bookstore. The 1,200 square-foot B. Dalton, owned by Barnes and Noble, was recently closed as part of the company’s transition to “large format” bookstores. The closing was covered by such media as MSNBC, National Public Radio, and The Wall Street Journal, which irresponsibly (in my opinion) dubbed Laredo “a poor city filled with immigrants who don’t speak English, let alone read it.”

The sting of such criticism follows closely on the heels of media reports denouncing Laredo as a breeding ground for criminal activity—drug and gang violence galore. The largest import/export hub in the U.S., Laredo, Texas is the nation’s bad joke, its bastard stepchild. That’s fine. It will allow us to do something great—something customized for Laredo’s unique culture and community, which is so much more than recent publicity would suggest. One year from now, I hope to watch as ground breaks and gives way to our bookstore. I hope to cheer as that dry South Texas soil splits to allow room for books. Stories. Worlds.

My plan: to research. To learn everything I can about selling books (as opposed to writing, editing, or publishing them). That includes financial dynamics, merchandising, location, store design, demographics, inventory, computerization, human resources, marketing, operations, and the list goes on. To write (and have reviewed) an educated, thorough, creative business plan, entirely tailored to the Laredo market. To apply for grants and fellowships. To apply for a small business loan. To encourage community support. To purchase land. To design and build. And to perform the real work—everything that comes after Laredo’s bookstore opens.

I hope to be a part of raising the literacy rate in my hometown (currently 47% of adults in Webb County lack basic reading skills). I hope to give children and teenagers a safe place to explore themselves, and the world. I hope to give adults a warm, welcoming place to enjoy one another’s company, to sit down with a good book and perhaps enjoy a glass of wine. In short, I hope to offer my city both an escape and a return. A liftoff.

One year. We can do this. And here, I will record the progress. I hope you will join me.

Dreams. Plans. Inspiration. They’re all we need to achieve great things.