PAWTUCKET – Alyssa Flori has 60 days. That’s two months, with help from the public, to ensure that her Book Around bookstore at the Hope Artiste Village survives.
Flori, who opened Book Around at 1005 Main St. in the fall of 2024, is now initiating Operation STB, as she calls it, or Operation Save the Bookstore.
Book Around has always been “a little passion project,” she posted. Author consulting, which she does through her business Flori Fundamentals, is where she makes most of her income and is the piece of the business she loves the most.
“I love my bookstore too, but when push comes to shove, supporting authors in the way I know best will always be my priority,” she said.
That said, she doesn’t want to choose, said Flori, she wants both.
“No, we aren’t going bankrupt. But also no, the bookstore does not do well enough on its own to support itself,” she said.
The consulting side of the business is funding some 70 percent of the bookstore, and Flori said she is grateful that side of the business has grown to do so well that it can afford to keep the bookstore afloat.
It’s still difficult to justify keeping “the loss leader around,” she said, and the amount of effort required to just barely make just rent, never mind inventory, pages, and other overhead, is very difficult for her when she also has another business to keep up.
“My clients depend on me. That will always be the priority,” she said.
Flori said she won’t let the bookstore negatively impact her work with her clients, and she will also not decide to close down without trying everything first, “because I know that Flori Fundamentals continuing to grow and Book Around becoming a (consistently) successful bookstore and bookish event space can both be true,” she said.
Flori told The Local Insider she knew from the outset that it wouldn’t be easy. She’s seen plenty of book store owners locally and across the country put out pleas for help during slow times, she said. She recently started looking more closely at her numbers, she said, and the store is bringing in perhaps a little more than half of what she would like it to.
The consulting side has grown significantly in the last two years, and Flori acknowledges that some of that has been the existence of the bookstore, both to stock authors’ books and host events with links to websites ahead of time. She said she’s found those events very fulfilling.
Many people she’s encountered have loved that she’s not just about the bookstore or consulting, Flori noted, and in a way that solidifies her stance in the industry. That’s not the only reason she wants to keep the bookstore, she said, as she also loves hosting popular events.
It’s funny to think how circumstances can change with time, said the store owner. When she started out with the consulting work four or five years ago, it was on a trial basis with a couple of clients. She didn’t love her 9-5 job at the time, she said, but was prepared to go back to it if the new venture didn’t work as planned.
With her lease concluding at the end of August, Flori said she needs to make a decision and inform her landlord of her plans by August. 1.
That’s where her multi-part plan to save the store comes in. She’s laying out the following changes and ways for people to help:
- Patronizing the store during new hours of Tuesday and Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The store is closed Saturday and Sunday, but the posted hours don’t include weekend events, and order pickups can also be scheduled during other times.
- Attending events as part of a busy upcoming calendar, including returning book club, new author series, selling blind dates all over the state, more collaborations, and a returning summer book festival. Each event will have their own coming posts.
- Blind dates online. They’re on Etsy, and a TikTok shop is coming soon.
- Consistent social media posting, the same advice she gives her authors, with helpful social sharing from customers.
- Every upcoming event will be posted across platforms, including website, newsletter, Instagram/Facebook/TikTok pages, and Eventbrite.
In addition to the website, find more on Book Around on Facebook or Instagram.
