New Bo Books Opens in Unique Arrangement With Prairie Lights

On July 7, New Bo Books opened in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as a division of Iowa City’s Prairie Lights [1]. The arrangement allows the stores to collaborate in a number of ways to better serve customers.

Equipped with a library background and a love of books, Mary Ann Peters had a vision of opening a small store in the historic New Bohemia neighborhood. It had been decades since Cedar Rapids had a local, independent, general interest bookstore, she said, and “it was high time to change that.” The 800-square-foot store opened to a supportive and thankful community. “Our neighbors are very interested in collaborating with each other on events and creating a community synergy unique to our location,” said Peters.

The relationship with Prairie Lights evolved from conversations with the store’s owners, which began as “an amorphous idea to collaborate,” she said.

Under the arrangement, Peters found the space, funded the start-up, and manages the new store. Prairie Lights provides inventory, programming, and business support. Plans are in the works for New Bo to host author events on a regular basis, as well as book clubs and children’s story times. Peters’ hope is that authors who travel to Iowa for appearances at Prairie Lights will also come to New Bo, resulting in shared advertising costs for the stores and lower publishers' costs for touring authors.

While the benefits of the relationship for New Bo – as a smaller store – are evident, the arrangement is helpful to Prairie Lights as well, including the fact that it will receive a percentage of the profits at New Bo as well as a management fee. “We projected sales that would allow her to be profitable within this arrangement, and we're very pleased with the results so far,” said Jan Weissmiller, co-owner of Prairie Lights.

“New Bo Books' inventory will be fulfilled through Prairie Lights, but, as time goes on, we may find that we sell different sorts of things,” said Weissmiller. “We anticipate that they may do better than we do with regional titles, and perhaps with architecture and design books given the [larger] size of their community.”

The New Bohemia neighborhood is across the Cedar River from Czech Village — an area devastated by flooding in 2008 and still in the process of recovering. The bookstore is located in CSPS Hall [2], a restored Czech social hall, which is the cornerstone of the neighborhood. The hall is also home to a music venue, multiple art galleries, photography studio, cafe, and community meeting spaces.

As a Cedar Rapids resident for more than 30 years, Peters has an extensive network of friends who continue to provide word-of-mouth publicity for the store. New Bo also has an active presence on Facebook [3], and Peters is working to build the store’s website. The two stores’ websites and Facebook pages will be linked, and gift certificates from one store may be redeemed in the other.

Though Prairie Lights will supplement the new store’s inventory selection, Peters relies on her staff to make the most of her space.

“Our inventory is shaped by our employees’ strengths in various genres,” she said, adding that she looks to younger staff for their extensive knowledge of science fiction and fantasy; a graduate of the Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop in poetry, who has created the store’s poetry section; and a former teacher, who recommends young adult books. New Bo also has a wide selection of classics, history, gardening and cookbooks, and regional titles.

The collaboration allows New Bo to be very responsive to customers “and able to fulfill their requests very quickly through Prairie Lights,” said Peters.