Fresh new chapter for Oswestry's Booka Bookshop
As Independent Bookshop Week approaches, book sellers across the county are welcoming customers through their doors once more, after a difficult financial period.
Booka Bookshop in Oswestry is one of those stores, and owner Carrie Morris, said it has been the most challenging time in her ten years of book selling, but she is glad to be open again.
While in lockdown, Carrie moved business online and started doing deliveries when the shop was closed and had to constantly adapt her business to the changing rules and guidelines.
"When we opened again, it was almost like opening for the first time," she said. "We were nervous but we have had a steady stream of customers and some lovely messages from people.
"To have all of your business stop, like a tap turned off, it was hard. The first month we were just scrambling around to almost reimagine our business overnight. Every time we did think of something, the guidance changed.
"We already sold books online, mainly signed copies but we quickly worked with our website designer to get all our stock online. We have always described the business as being almost multi-faceted.
"Obviously books are at the core, then we held regular events, worked with schools, and hosted book clubs. Then overnight it switched to only selling books online and doing local deliveries."
Carrie said the main positive thing to have come out of everything is At Home with Four Indies – a new initiative set up by Carrie at Booka Books, and three other independent regional stores: Forum Books, Linghams Booksellers and Book-ish.
Live events with some of today's biggest authors have been streamed by people all over the world on their Facebook page and Carrie said it has been amazing.
"We all know each other and are friends, and it started off as a way to keep people engaged and going forward, as a way we can all widen our audiences," she said.
"We have had people watch in from all over the world. This morning we had author Andy Griffiths join us from Australia. Next week is Independent Book Shop week and it could not have come at a better time really.
"We have big names joining the virtual events like Maggie O'Farrell and Bernadine Evaristo, who won the Booker prize. This has kept us going and kept us in touch with one another."
As well as the support of other bookshops, Carrie said the business community in Oswestry has been a great lifeline, and she hopes all businesses can get back to the "new normal" soon.
"We hope by August we will be able to have the cafe open again but we are waiting for more guidance. It is looking at how a one metre distance would play out if the cafe were open as well as people browsing the shop.
"Any events that we do will be digitally for the time being, because there is still a lot of anxiety about large gatherings. We don't reckon our events and things will go back to normal until 2021. But we know there is a demand for it, people want to come out for an evening and its a really special part of what Booka Bookshop is about."
Visit www.bookabookshop.co.uk for more information.
