Getting Creative to Help the Community … and Sell Books

Larry Abramoff credits his "mid-life crisis" as a catalyst for some new directions at his bookstore. After founding Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons in Worcester, Massachusetts, 27 years ago and expanding to five locations (including the main store, which houses a full-service restaurant and publishing company), Abramoff was ready to do some event retooling.

Of the five stores, four are college bookstores located in area schools: Clark University, Becker College, WPI, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Tatnuck Bookseller also founded and operates Chandler House Press. Larry Abramoff's wife, Gloria, whom he met at the store three months after it opened, has worked there ever since.

As a veteran of "maybe thousands" of book signings and other promotions, Abramoff realized that many events were not as successful, as fun, or as helpful to the community as was possible. The first to go, after 27 years of nagging his staff "day in and day out to get more authors in for signings," was the traditional brief author visit with signing.

Other than such authors as J.K. Rowling, Anne Rice, and Don Imus -- people Abramoff terms "pop-culture icons" -- authors were not attracting many people to the store. He determined that people are drawn to interesting stories. "I love to read stories, to tell stories, to sell stories," Abramoff told BTW in a recent interview. Rather than a handshake and signature from an author, customers "want to know what makes that author's life special; how do they write; what inspired them."

Tatnuck reformatted the old style of book signings into a series featuring writers talking about the process of writing rather than the writer as a product. The new format, called "Authors on Writing," features authors well-, medium-, and barely known.

Mystery writer Al Blanchard became the first author in the series by a fortunate confluence of events. Wanting to schedule a signing for his latest novel, The Iscariot Conspiracy (Koenisha Publications), the Massachusetts author approached Abramoff. Realizing that Blanchard would draw few fans for the book alone, Abramoff proposed that he lead a discussion on mystery writing, agents, and promotions.

As president of Mystery Writers of New England, Blanchard was well qualified to field questions from budding mystery writers, genre fans, and others interested in the process. Blanchard's visits on four successive Monday nights drew increasingly larger crowds. Abramoff has invited Blanchard to appear for a "Book & Brew" night. "We have a restaurant with a bar, we have Guinness on tap. We'll talk about books and drink. That's what a lot of people like to do."

When Simon & Schuster author Barbara Delinsky came to the store in July, she spoke for nearly three hours to 100 people about her new novel, An Accidental Woman, among many other things. She engaged in a dialogue with the audience and discussed her writing career at length. "We're giving people an inside glimpse: What inspired that author to write that book," Tatnuck Marketing Director Claire Cousineau said in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Abramoff sees the "Authors on Writing" series and the upcoming "Writers Workshops" as ways to stake a firm claim in the bookselling business. "We want to be successful: We don't want to go the way of the independent druggist and the independent supermarket. We need to emphasize the fun and unique ways we can meet customer needs. If we let them, the chains will lease the air rights to my store. With this, I'm having fun again. We're making the publishers happy, the customers happy, and the authors happy. We also need to find new ways to be involved in our community."

Worcester, the second largest city in Massachusetts, deals with many of the urban problems of crime, poverty, and illiteracy. Abramoff, in serving on the board of directors of the local Boys and Girls Club, has seen the alarming number of local children "who go to bed hungry … who don't have a single book in their homes."

When he sat down to order Houghton Mifflin's new American Heritage College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, the idea of a dictionary drive was hatched. The program, called a "Back to School Action Plan," is scheduled to run from August 15 to September 30.Customers who bring a used dictionary to any Tatnuck location will receive a coupon for $10 off the list price of $25 for the American Heritage College Dictionary.

All the donated used dictionaries will be distributed to children through the Worcester Public Schools; the Boys & Girls Club; and the Henry Lee Willis Center, a multicultural, minority-based social service organization. The new dictionary order eventually rose to 1,000 copies, also the goal for donations.

Abramoff sees this program as a creative way to help the community and to sell books. "Anyone can have a dictionary sale. This is fun. At the end of the day, you didn't just sell a book, you helped a kid's life." -- Nomi Schwartz