This is where the look, feel and offerings of First Light Books become part of its value proposition to Austin readers. We’re still adjusting to that in the industry.” “Because it didn’t turn out to be a new normal. “One thing that’s been tough for the book industry is to see as a bubble instead of a new normal,” Pauls says. Now that’s changing: Earlier this year, Publisher’s Weekly reported that unit sales of print books fell 6.5% in 2022 compared to 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan, a firm that tracks sales in the book publishing industry. They had extended hours of time where they couldn’t be with other people or do their regular routines.” “The pandemic was a huge surge in book sales,” says Austin-based Kris Pauls, publisher of Disruption Books. In both 20, that figure ticked up to $15 billion annually. In 2019, Americans spent just a little over $12 billion on recreational reading, according to the bureau. He says that while certain categories of spending – food, apparel and services, alcoholic beverages – took a dip in the early pandemic, reading soared: Average household spending on recreational reading rose from $92 in 2019 to $114 in 2020, a 24% increase. “We had to find new ways to entertain ourselves while we were in this period.”Ĭurtin helps oversee the bureau’s Consumer Expenditure Surveys, data that reveals what American households are spending on. “When the pandemic first started, you had mandated business closures,” says Scott Curtin, a Bureau of Labor Statistics economist. In the construction of First Light Books, Taylor and Robin Bruce, along with general manager Breezy Mayo, put thought into every aspect of their new bookstore, which is opening at a time when book sales are on a post-pandemic decline nationally. “But we also want you to feel a sense of discovery as you walk between the aisles.” “We want you to pick up the new novel that’s at the top of the bestseller lists,” Bruce says. In stocking the shelves and drafting an initial inventory list, the Bruces were in contact with friends they know in the publishing industry, poets local to Austin, and other bookstore owners. The 2,500-square-foot retail space is opening its doors with 10,000 books, featuring everything from current New York Times best sellers to “a magazine section that’s going to be the most robust in town,” Bruce says, including titles like New York Magazine and The Economist. “There’s certainly butterflies, because we know once we turn on the lights, it’s seven days a week, three sixty-five,” he says, then adding a caveat: “We’re excited.” 19 grand opening, I ask Bruce, a 10-year veteran of the publishing industry and first-time retail store owner, if he’s nervous. Inside the renovated building, newly hired employees are unpacking thousands of books and running through test orders at the cafe. The building used to be a post office in Austin’s oldest suburb, but two years after its closure, it’s been reborn. They can sort of change the way you think, plant a new idea.” “The idea of First Light really does attach to what a book can do,” Bruce says. There’s just enough shade in the area to make the August heat semi-comfortable. We’re standing on the side of the building that has the store’s outdoor patio and coffee window, which will be open 7 a.m.-9 p.m. “First Light is really attached to that feeling of the early morning and that sense of possibility,” he says. Standing outside First Light Books near the end of a torturously hot Texas summer, Bruce presents the property, which is still under construction. “We wanted the name to represent a bigger picture.” “We went through a long process, my wife, Robin and I, on what we wanted the place to be called,” he says. At the corner of Speedway and 43rd Street in Austin in early August, under the watchful eye of his publicist, Taylor Bruce describes how his soon-to-open bookshop got its name.
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