The Ultimate Guide to Seattle Independent Bookstore Day
After months of impatient waiting, our moment has finally arrived. Hours of planning, dreaming, and hoping have all come down to this weekend. The competition, the adventure, the glory: Independent Bookstore Day.
The Challenge: Visit and have our “passports” stamped at all 19 participating independent bookstores in the greater Seattle area during one epic day of nerdy awesomeness. (These geek Olympics are celebrated nationwide on the last Saturday in April – check this map to see if your city is participating).
The Stakes: Successful challengers are crowned Grand Champions and receive 25% off at all participating independent bookstores for the next year. Let’s be honest, I don’t give a rip about the discount – I just want to carry a card around in my wallet that says Grand Champion. Oh and they also throw a party for all the Champions at one of the bookstores a couple months later! Bookworm rave! (Last year there were over 300 winners in Seattle, which I take as a clear indication that ours is the best city in the world).
The Participants: Myself, my best and most bookish friend Allison, and our long-suffering chauffeur Aaron (who is also my husband). This dream team successfully crushed Indie Bookstore Day 2017, so we are feeling confident and excited to fine tune our strategy this year.
For my fellow competitive nerds who can feel their hearts racing just reading this, here are our road-tested tips for becoming Independent Bookstore Day Grand Champions:
Enlist someone to join you who is this excited about books.
📚 First and most importantly, pick a nerdy BFF.
You need a partner with a deep commitment to the cause, who can pick you up when you flag, with strong communication and attention to detail, plus flexibility and stamina. Or at least they have to REALLY LOVE BOOKS.
📚 Plan your itinerary.
What, you think you’re just going to do this willy nilly and still come home with the prize? Clearly you’re not Grand Champion material.
This is where your nerdy BFF comes in handy. Seattle Indie Bookstore Day has a list and a map of all the participating stores. Print them out, get yourselves a snazzy clipboard and some colored pens, pull up Google maps, and formulate a plan.
Insider tips for route planning: We decided where we wanted to finish (Elliot Bay Books because they had an actual finish line and were handing out vodka shots to Champions). Then we worked backwards from there. Our route ended up looking like a spiral. And remember, even though 23 bookstores are participating, some stores have more than one branch and you only have to visit one of them (i.e., University Bookstore has locations in the University District and Mill Creek – you only have to hit one.)
📚 Start early.
You don’t want to be running around at night trying to make it to the last couple bookstores before you’re out of time! You want to be out celebrating your victory (and by that I mean at sitting at home reading the new book you just bought).
📚 Enlist a dedicated chauffeur.
Parking at each store will take too long and eat your book budget. Aaron tends to get really into it and pretend like a bomb will go off if he doesn’t make the fastest time on the most efficient route. Plus we promised to share our Grand Champion spoils with him.
📚 Factor in the ferries.
Bring a book for the ferry ride (obviously!)
Most people hit Bainbridge Island first because the participating bookstores on the island open at 7:30 AM. The first ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge leaves at 6:10 AM. I’m not saying you have to be on that boat, but you want to get that ferry business out of the way early.
You can cross off the stores on Bainbridge, hit the ones in Poulsbo, then snag the Edmonds-Kingston ferry back to the mainland and leave the islands behind. Waiting in an endless ferry line or missing the boat you needed late in the day could destroy everything you’ve worked so hard for.
📚 Know when each store closes.
Some stay open until 9 PM and some shut their doors at 5 PM. Some have special hours just for this event, so check the times on the Indie Bookstore website, not the individual shops. Don’t let yourself be foiled by leaving the early-closers for late in the day.
📚 Find out what each store has planned.
This is Mardi Gras for independent bookstores! Some bookshops have trivia, book signings with local authors, giveaways, crazy sales, and special merchandise produced just for Indie Bookstore Day. If there’s an author or an event you don’t want to miss, make note of it in your itinerary so you don’t get caught up in the frenzy.
A few Bookstore Day 2017 perks: literary-themed condoms, a poetry writing station, and blind date with a book.
📚 Pack snacks.
We stopped for lunch at a little cafe next door to Island Books last year because we were absolutely crushing our timeline, but we could feel Aaron’s anxiety about his dwindling time buffer throughout the meal. It’s a long day, so make sure you have your car fully stocked with food and drinks to keep you going.
📚 Manage your time carefully.
Sure, I could spend half a day browsing through any one of these bookshops, but you’ve got NINETEEN to hit so make it snappy! Our first stop last year was The Traveler, where I was nearly lost to the siren song of a great travel bookstore. We told ourselves we’d only spend five minutes in each store even though we broke that rule at basically every stop – but we still somehow emerged as Grand Champions!
📚 Want to see our winning itinerary?
Too bad! We can’t give away all our secrets! But here are all the indie bookstores we visited in under 12 hours during the 2017 challenge, in no particular order:
The Traveler // Ada’s Technical Books // Book Larder // Book Tree // Eagle Harbor Book Company // Edmonds Bookshop // Fantagraphics Bookstore // Island Books // Liberty Bay Books (Poulsbo) // Magnolia’s Bookstore // The Neverending Bookshop // Open Books: A Poem Emporium // Phinney Books // Queen Anne Book Company // Secret Garden Books // Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park) // University Bookstore (University District) // Seattle Mystery Bookshop // Elliot Bay Book Company
📚 Show your local bookshops some love.
Don’t forget, Independent Bookstore Day is all about supporting our amazing local bookshops! Spend some money at your favorites, shout out to them on social media, and get your community excited about the magic to be found in that little bookshop around the corner. Even if your town isn’t participating in the challenge, take the opportunity to visit all the indie bookstores you can find. It’s a pretty damn great way to spend the day.
Think you’ve got what it takes to be a Seattle Independent Bookstore Day Grand Champion? We’ll see you in the stacks. If you can’t make it to Bookstore Day in person, make sure to order your books online through Bookshop – a portion of the proceeds benefit indie bookstores! (Plus I’ve made curated lists there of all my favorite reads.)
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