A Bookshop of My Own: The Diary of Opening a Used Bookstore

Stef Tousignant
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What does it really take to open a used bookstore in 2026? Join me, Stef Tousignant, as I document the messy, inspiring, behind-the-scenes journey from the stacks of donated books in my office to the grand opening of The Phoenix Used Bookshop. This is a diary-style podcast — raw voice memos, real decisions, setbacks and small victories — for anyone who’s ever dreamed of owning a bookstore but wondered what it’s really like.

  1. 12h ago

    The Little Events

    Stef returned from two weekends away to discover her staff ran the store flawlessly—no fires, solid sales, and a beautiful space. She’s officially launching a Mill Valley pop-up at Mystic Art Supplies (January–March 2027, Thursday–Sunday), a 10-by-15 space that will test the adult market and host new book clubs. Phoenix Noir (thriller/mystery), Phoenix En Plein Air (historical fiction), plus planned clubs for classics, international authors, and self-growth are launching in January. Meanwhile, she’s transforming the Larkspur store into the Hundred Acre Wood with branches, twinkle lights, and moss for the holidays. The Richard Scarry advent calendars are selling fast. But the real story: she’s tracking customer flourishing with a bingo card system and weekly questions, combining her architecture, positive psychology, and research backgrounds to understand what makes the store feel like “a series of little events”—and how to replicate that magic in new locations. Show Notes: Mystic Art Supplies Mill Valley pop-up (Jan–March) Phoenix Noir book club Richard Scarry advent calendars - store hours. 501 Magnolia Ave Larkspur, CA 94939

  2. Oct 22

    The Indexes

    Stef dreamed she pitched a VC panel about her real business: not retail, but book processing. She has 25,000 unprocessed books in storage. L ast month she found a first edition Grapes of Wrath; this month, a second-edition Stephen King’s It worth $40. But is she sitting on a gold mine or a storage problem? This weekend she’s pulling five random boxes to assess their actual value—because she can’t hire a processor until she knows the math. Meanwhile, the store transforms into the Hundred Acre Wood for Winnie the Pooh’s 100th anniversary, complete with branches, twinkle lights, and a surprise candle collaboration with North Bay Candleworks. Holiday box sets and bookmarks (designed to help people feel good about giving used books) are ready. She’s also tallying Banned Book Week donations to PEN America—47 states have active book bans, and allyship matters at every level. Links: PEN America  NorthBay Candleworks Join a book club here!

  3. Oct 8

    The Numbers Game

    October. Stef skipped a few podcasts on purpose, but she's back! The mystery/thriller book club moved to January, but people bought the book anyway—a good sign. The October pop-up is gone. The January pop-up through March is confirmed. One door closes, another opens. Banned Book Week brought PEN America into focus: the nonprofit tracking book bans at the federal level, fighting censorship in schools and libraries. She’s diverting 5% of sales to them for the week. People are buying slightly more to support it. Thank you! Meanwhile, the second location equation keeps evolving. A space down the street (double the rent, event room, good light) feels wrong without guaranteed foot traffic. Terra Linda again. A small annex in Larkspur—just for book clubs and weekend adult sales—but only if the math works. The real constraint: no dedicated space to run book clubs, and demand is there. Her historical novel club sold out in October. But the deeper shift is internal. She has coffee-pending conversation with a friend who’s spent 30 years managing consistency. He asked: what if consistency isn’t about daily numbers matching daily numbers? What if it’s about how you show up, how your team shows up, how many kids are actually reading, how much waste you’re diverting? So she stopped checking sales daily. Sundays only. She’s reading two books simultaneously (a physical copy of The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer, and The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar on Libro FM—an audiobook app that pays local bookstores instead of Amazon) and she’s behind on her yearly book goal and that’s okay. Trust the mission, keep showing up and let the numbers be what they are. Show Notes: PEN America: nonprofit fighting book bans and censorship in schools/libraries Libro FM: audiobook subscription that pays local bookshops The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer  Book club update: Historical Novel meeting October 20, one book left! The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar Hohm Pantry: refill store in Novato, CA 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.

  4. Sep 25

    The Lookback

    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.

  5. Sep 17

    The Commitment

    Stef said no to the pop-up. Their businesses didn't mesh, and three months of treading water wasn't worth the distraction. She's learned this lesson before: when one opportunity falls through, a better one follows and the right second space will come. Meanwhile, the Larkspur store is humming despite a closed restaurant and construction on the street—new customer traffic dipped, but repeat customers are solid. She's refocusing on what works: seasonal pivots (Halloween section testing well, holiday store planned for November), guerrilla marketing (postcards to local parents), and something she's been sitting on for months: online sales. A first-edition Grapes of Wrath with dust jacket landed in her hands. The antiquarian bookstore friends told her it's listable and worth real money. That's when it clicked: she has a year's worth of boxed books—inventory as passive income if she can process it. She found a former bookstore owner (through Nextdoor) interested in listing books for a fair rate. That's revenue stream #3: brick-and-mortar, events (book clubs growing fast), and online! She's launching Phoenix Noir (mysteries/thrillers) book club alongside expanding Phoenix En Plein Air. Details in the show notes. Then came the moment. A customer brought in a hardcover copy of "One Morning in Maine" - her favorite childhood book, the one she read her own kids and left it for her. No sale, just a gift. That's when Stef understood why she does this 💛 Current Book Count: ~20,000+ Follow along as The Phoenix Used Bookshop continues to rise—subscribe to A Bookshop of My Own and get updates at phoenixusedbookshop.com. All Book Clubs The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer Phoenix Noir Book Club Submit a book request

  6. Sep 3

    The Next Steps

    Rain again = Waterproof containers and hope needed. The book club doubled: added a 1 p.m. slot, but the 6:30 meeting is the one that's filling. September 15th, two meetings, one day, Stef is excited! Husbands and Lovers—historical novel set in 1950s Cairo and present-day New England, about sisters and family (maybe a bit more romance than some people expected?) Stef's consolidating storage, closing the second unit (her old art studio) by October 1st. That's 50 boxes of books moving from studio to garage to house—10 boxes a week. Cutting expenses, creating space. Today: contract negotiations on the pop-up. She asked for first right of refusal on the concept maybe a ballsy move, but definitely strategic. But the real work is in the back end—what she calls "the book problem." In affluent areas, people buy books, support authors, support indie bookstores, then end up with too many books at home. After sorting into online, nonprofit, and in-store channels, what happens to the remnants? The school textbooks no one wants. The woodworking guides. The niche books someone spent energy writing that still hold value. That's the business, figuring out what no one else has figured out. On the front end, she's launching a community review system—readers writing two-sentence reviews, inserted in books before shelves. Keeping books from being treated as commodities and adding provenance bookmarks upon contribution (where did this book come from?). Building human touch into self-checkout pop-up inventory. Current Book Count: ~20,000+  Follow along as The Phoenix Used Bookshop continues to rise—subscribe to A Bookshop of My Own and get updates at phoenixusedbookshop.com. Links mentioned: Community book reviews: stef@phoenixusebookshop.com Phoenix En Plein Air Book Club - still room! Submit a book request.

  7. Aug 27

    The Overflow

    School's back. Stef's store rhythm has shifted—daytime foot traffic of grandparents and gift-hunters, energy surge when kids arrive after 3 p.m. Her new employee (former kindergarten teacher) is already generating ideas and enhancing displays. The Larkspur store is humming. Then a pop-up opportunity arrives—unexpected, unconventional, three months in a shared space. Details are coming, but it's testing ground for things she'll need at the second location. Building the plane as you're flying it so to speak... But here's what she notices: her body is tightening. Chest pains threatening. Her mind says keep going. Her body says stop. She's juggling: book club, nonprofit sales, book processing, an October event with another local biz, summer reading challenge wrap-up, Pacific Sun article idea, Reuse Alliance book swaps, Instagram (first to go), podcast (second to go), weekly newsletter, hiring paperwork, Wednesday volunteers, the wine stroll Saturday -- and the store. What suffers when you're doing too many things? Marketing. But maybe that's a sign you're doing too many things. She has to write a timeline. She has to listen to her body. She has to figure out what stays and what goes. Current Book Count: ~18,000+ Follow along as The Phoenix Used Bookshop continues to rise—subscribe to A Bookshop of My Own and get updates at phoenixusedbookshop.com. Links mentioned: Phoenix En Plein Air: Our Outdoor BookClub Submit a book request

  8. Aug 20

    The Situation

    August rain in Marin isn't normal. Stef wakes up worried about books stored in the unfinished back room of the new store. Meanwhile, the sleepy strip mall space she manifested during the eclipse—the one with coffee shop potential—just got leased to someone else. Same day. But social media is finally clicking. Psychology-based hooks are working. The reel on Phoenix En Plein Air got 3,500 views! The book club's first meeting at Marin Art and Garden Center had exactly the right number of people for perfect group dynamics. Sometimes the location doesn't work out an the community does anyway. Current Book Count: ~15,000+ Follow along as The Phoenix Used Bookshop continues to rise—subscribe to A Bookshop of My Own and get updates at phoenixusedbookshop.com. Links mentioned: Phoenix En Plein Air: The Outdoor Book Club Submit a book request here.

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What does it really take to open a used bookstore in 2026? Join me, Stef Tousignant, as I document the messy, inspiring, behind-the-scenes journey from the stacks of donated books in my office to the grand opening of The Phoenix Used Bookshop. This is a diary-style podcast — raw voice memos, real decisions, setbacks and small victories — for anyone who’s ever dreamed of owning a bookstore but wondered what it’s really like.

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