I Know You Like a Book + IndieBound = Great PR

After Mary Beth Nebel of I Know You Like A Book in Peoria Heights, Illinois, read a column in the Peoria Journal Star that called for support of local independent restaurants, she wrote a letter to the editor to say that the column should have stressed support for all locally owned businesses. She got what she asked for. The next week, using IndieBound information supplied by Nebel, the business editor cataloged the many benefits of shopping local.

Nebel e-mailed the Journal Star's business editor, Paul Gordon, with a few points from the IndieBound website to "pique his curiosity." She wrote, "I'd like to expand the headline for last Sunday's column. Instead of 'Eat local: It's good for business,' I suggest 'Buy Local: It's good for the community.' There are solid reasons for patronizing local independent businesses...."

Much to his credit, Gordon showed up at the store and asked Nebel for an IndieBound primer. The following week, his column, "Community Profits When You Go Indie" started with a direct quote from the Declaration of Independents and went on to cite IndieBound statistics itemizing the ways indies benefit their communities financially and otherwise. Gordon also praised the bookstore's uniqueness mentioning its selection of new releases, children's lit, and local authors' work, as well as its mascot, Nebel's dog.

Not bad PR for someone who's fairly new to bookselling.

Nebel launched I Know You Like a Book with business partner, Duffy Armstrong, in May 2006. They opened the 750-square-foot store in a 1930s brick building within the indie-rich neighborhood of Peoria Heights. Last October, when a neighboring candy store closed, they expanded into that space and doubled the bookstore's square footage.

I Know You Like a Book was born out of a need for an indie bookstore in Peoria Heights as well as Nebel's decision to make the most of an early retirement from her career as a corporate attorney for an insurance company. And, in a word, she's happier. "I get to bring my 14-year-old Daschund to work. It's a lot more challenging -- I can't go to the accounting department, the IT department, or marketing department. I have to do all those things myself," Nebel said. "But it's a lot more fun."

The name for the bookstore and the decision to go ahead with her plans came to Nebel after something of a visitation from her mother, who had long since passed away. "I was getting ready for church, and that's a time that I always think about my mom. I could hear her voice in my head, and she said, 'I know you like a book.' It was her way of saying, 'Go for it, Mary Beth.'"

The bookstore's titles are a mix of new and used (with price stickers on the used books) with strong fiction, children's, cooking, local author, and history sections. "We're big on history," Nebel said. "Next year is Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. So we're getting a lot of Lincoln books." A top sideline is a magnet series from Mina Lee Studio. "They're hilarious," said Nebel. "A big seller is the Bad Girls Book Club magnet, which says, 'Half the group doesn't read the book, and the other half doesn't even show up!'"

The bookstore space is "gorgeous," said Nebel. "[One] side is painted these funky green and coral colors. We have mostly freestanding bookcases with our travel books in a suitcase. In the new space, we have built-in shelves all the way around the store."

During its fall expansion, I Know You Like a Book added a beer and wine bar.

"We don't do food at the bar," said Nebel, who noted that the actual bar was carved out of a five-foot, solid piece of walnut. "It's just a place were you can have a glass of wine or a beer. It's not the main focus here, but it seems to loosen people up. There already was a coffee shop up the street so we thought we'd do something different."

The combination of books and booze has generated a lot of interest, and to meet customer demand, I Know You Like A Book has expanded its hours. "People hear about us and they want to come see what it's all about," she said. "Once we get them in the store, they're hooked." --Karen Schechner

Booksellers who would like to learn more about getting free publicity for their stores should check out the IndieBound Publicity Primer.