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. 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.

  2. 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

  3. 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.

  4. Aug 6

    The Balancing Act

    Balance is a myth. There's only what you're saying yes to today and what gets the no. Stef says yes to her kids, her cats, and the business. Everything else—the yard with vines, the water-filled pots—gets the no for now. But something shifted this week. Writing crept back in. She woke up on Sunday and felt it: I need to write. So she committed to 15 minutes daily, and in just a few days, she cracked open the parenting book she's been working on for five years. The time spent not writing was productive—she reworked the entire structure. The book now focuses on the underlying factors that keep parents thriving or struggling, accessing resilience or not. It feels solid. Meanwhile, she interviewed eight people this week (all qualified, all future hires for expansion). One hire landed: someone to list books on Biblio (not Amazon), a self-starter type A who's already performing. The 2nd Location Decision: Two options, both complicated. Option 1: quieter strip mall, 700 square feet, 3-year lease, higher rent—but there's a wall that could divide space for a coffee shop sublease, lowering her effective rent to 75%. Option 2: busier strip mall, closer to Larkspur, stricter signage rules, easier to overlook. Both have trade-offs; both are cheaper than regular retail for a reason. The Bulk Pick Up: A widow with 3-4 bookshelves "just has a couple hundred books." Spoiler: it's thousands. Stef's learned to probe before showing up. Today: packing and assessing at a 2-floor condo. Tomorrow: logistics oftpostpartm getting boxes out. Not really a day off, but when else would it happen? The Nonprofit Partnership: Touring the Postpartum Support Center in San Rafael today to discuss a fundraising book sale. Maternal health, peer support, the Marin diaper bank—exactly what she's supported her whole career. Logistical questions remain about space, but it's happening. Current Book Count: ~15,000+ Multiple calls coming in simultaneously. That's how you know something's working. 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: Biblio book listings Postpartum Support Center San Rafael Submit a book request

  5. Jul 30

    The Room Within a Room

    Stef has three second-location options in motion: one nonprofit-dependent (long-term), one with owners on vacation (on hold), and one in a shopping center (actively pursuing). The shopping center spot is 500 square feet—small, but workable because of a design concept she discovered visiting River Bend Books in West Hartford, Connecticut. At River Bend, she noticed their genius: a room within a room. They created an intimate event space inside their small bookstore. Stef is applying this to her floor plan using double-sided bookshelves as walls—doubling capacity, creating specialty zones (history, nonfiction) around the perimeter, and leaving the inner room for fiction and high-demand titles with moveable tables for events. The foot traffic at this shopping center location is solid, which matters more than she realized. Walk-by customers create a baseline of curious shoppers. The numbers work, but it's a 2-year lease—more risk than her Larkspur space. On hiring: she found a high school senior taking community college classes for afternoon shifts. Still recruiting for mornings. Plus, she needs someone for 2-3 days/week to do backend book processing—sorting donations, prepping inventory for nonprofit book sales, different skill set than retail. Storage is full. Books are in her garage. The second location can't come soon enough. 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: Submit a book request Ethan Joella - fiction author, new book: The Top of the World River Bend Bookshop West Hartford CT

  6. Jul 23

    The Plateau

    Opening a used bookstore: Stef's Instagram is plateaued at 1,000 followers despite press coverage, and she realizes the problem isn't the plateau—it's that she's underplaying her wins and not talking about half of what she's actually doing. - I have strong podcast downloads, but Instagram is stuck at 1,000 followers. Press coverage didn't move the needle. What actually works? Collabs and influencers. But the real issue: I've been underplaying everything. I set marketing on the back burner, thinking podcast and newsletter are running, then forget it needs constant care. I'm doing things—community review bookmarks (Penn-funded!), events, strategy—but I barely talk about them. What I'm Doing: Reuse Fair book swap (August) Phoenix En Plein Air book club (August 11) Typewriter event with Social Club (September—parents writing love letters on typewriters + books) Haters Club for teens (pick a book you'd hate, read it, discuss) Miller Nights tabling (maybe, building email list with a voting activation) The Bags Mistake: I ordered custom bags and they arrived 22 inches tall—perfect for picture books, terrible for the store. First real mess-up. Moving on. The Insight: I run multiple businesses, got a master's in Applied Positive Psychology, have 20 years of experience, and I'm breaking even in months 1-3. But I underplay it all. A typical business takes one win and markets it for 6 months. I do five things and mention none of them. The Fix: Longer-format social videos—2 minutes instead of 10 seconds. Tell the story of why things matter. Stop underplaying. The real message: little things every day push the business forward. Current Book Count: ~15,000+ It's not the plateau. It's the story I forgot to tell.  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: Miller Nights event Phoenix En Plein Air Submit a book request

  7. Jul 17

    The First Vacation

    Opening a used bookstore: Stef takes a working vacation—bookstore hopping in Connecticut to study how other indie bookstores operate, what platforms they use, and what works (and doesn't) in their models. - I'm in Connecticut for a family vacation at Lake Candlewood, but I couldn't resist taking a day to visit used bookstores in the area for a little research and learning. The Rainy Day Paperback Exchange (Bethel): A quirky used bookstore in a house—jam-packed with books on floors, in bags, everywhere. Not how I set up my store, but how people expect used bookstores to look. Organized by theme and author, but books are stacked flat (easier to read titles, harder to replace if you pull from the bottom). The owner was incredibly generous with her time and gave me a master class in back-end systems. She uses specialized inventory software that most independent bookstores rely on, then lists on Biblio for online sales. She pushed me toward the Association of American Booksellers—yes, it's expensive, but it unlocks things which generate "significant revenue" she said. Literally worth the membership every year. Byrd Books (Bethel): Small, curated, beautiful. Three book clubs (sci-fi, romance, nonfiction). They do Book & Movie nights—discuss the book first half hour, watch the movie the rest. (Mental note: The Lark theater in Larkspur could do this.) The Booksmith (Danbury): A huge bookstore disguised as a new bookstore with lots of gifts, tucked inside a conference center in a condo development. Confusing location, but it works as a community hub. Mixed new and used books with confusing labeling (at first), but once decoded: everything's used except items marked "new." Enormous children's section, space for events, low prices. The trade-off: to keep prices that low, you need either rock-bottom rent (like me, tiny store) or a weird location (like her, middle of nowhere) that still pulls people via word-of-mouth and low prices. She's not discoverable organically—you have to know to find her. I'm trying to find the middle: discoverable + good prices + used books only. Key Learnings: Association of American Booksellers membership unlocks major revenue streams. Online is where the money is—if I start building that wing, I can boost revenue significantly and hire full-time help. Trade-offs are real—low prices require either low rent OR high online volume OR a unique location draw. I could get an Ingram account, but I prefer finding existing used copies for customer requests. No new books made in the process. I also found several books from my Larkspur request list while bookstore hopping. Buying used copies here and selling them there—that's the model working as intended. Current Book Count: ~15,000+ (plus several new ones I'm cramming into suitcases to get home) 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: Association of American Booksellers LibroFM Bookshop.org Biblio The Rainy Day Paperback Exchange The Booksmith Submit a book request

  8. Jul 9

    The Decisions Ahead

    Opening a used bookstore: Two and a half months in, and Stef's already hunting for a second space. She's rotating inventory strategically, designing a charitable book sale model with nonprofits, correcting the record on her credentials, and taking her first family vacation since opening. I'm wrestling with a question to start out the episode: Is this normal? Do people open a store and then two months later start looking for another one? Probably not. But the Larkspur store is doing so well, and if I can hire the right people, it can run without me present. The complications I'm managing now aren't the store itself—it's the contributions. They're overwhelming. Mostly coming in on Wednesdays (our slowest day, which is great). If I open another location nearby, I can distribute the donation load and relieve some of that pressure. Inventory Strategy: I'm rotating genres monthly—sometimes twice a month for middle readers because I have SO many. I pull books from shelves that have had their moment, keep the popular series (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog Man), and rotate in fresh titles. It keeps the store feeling alive and gives books second chances. The Charitable Model: Here's what I've been thinking: quarterly $2 book sales benefiting local nonprofits. I run the book swap (already doing them with the Reuse Alliance—next one August 15th in Bryn Mawr). They get 90% of proceeds, I take 10% for storage. Better yet: if they have warehouse or property space, they give me storage in exchange for running the sale. Win-win.  The Marin IJ Article: It dropped Sunday in the feature section—front page of local news. Photo of me stocking shelves. Overall happy with it, but there's an important correction: the article said I have a Master's in Psychology. I don't. I have a Master's in Applied Positive Psychology—the science of well-being. That's a critical distinction. I'm not a clinician. I don't work with mental illness or deficit psychology. I work with thriving, gratitude, community mattering, and engagement. They also left in all the "ums" and "likes" in my quotes, which was weird. Phoenix En Plein Air: Officially launched! Good signup for the book club. First meeting August 11. Tartufo by KIra Jane Buxton. If you want to join but live elsewhere (Portland? anywhere?), I'll mail you the book for $20 and you can send questions for the discussion. Community is location-flexible. The Pause: I'm closing July 12-18 for a family vacation to Connecticut. My family needed this. I'm nervous about the hit to the bottom line, but since I'm already closed Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm only really closed four days. It should be okay. Store Upgrades: New shelving in the back room (the metro shelves weren't working), new wallpaper on the back wall. Spending a tiny bit of money to invest in the space feels right. The community loves this store—parents, grandparents, nannies. It's thriving. Current Book Count: ~15,000+ (and still arriving) Two months in and already thinking expansion. That's either genius or insane. We'll find out. 🐦‍🔥 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 book club (August 11, Tartufo) Reuse Alliance Book Swap (August 15, Marin City) Marin Independent Journal article Submit a book request.

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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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