Cellar Stories, a privately owned and independent store dealing in used and rare books in the heart of downtown Providence, has embraced the boom in Internet shopping that has cut into the business of other small bookstores.
“Overall, it’s helped,” said store owner Michael K. Chandley. “We can sell books on a worldwide basis and we ship books all over the world. If we have a book, for example, on Oklahoma, we don’t have to wait from someone to come into the store from Oklahoma to buy it.”
Certain specialty books, such as high-level theoretical mathematics volumes, sell particularly well on the Internet, Chandley said. He noted that Cellar Stories has its own Web site (www.cellarstories.com) and is tied into such sites as Amazon, Alibris and AbeBooks.
With more than 60,000 hardcover and paperback volumes, the collection of books at Cellar Stories runs the gamut from the occult to U.S. history, from “graphic novels” (an outgrowth of comic books) to medicine, religion, mysteries and thrillers.
With a literature degree from Providence College, Chandley started Cellar Stories in 1981 when the store was, literally, located in a cellar on Mathewson Street. “I’ve just always liked books and collecting books,” he said. He and a friend “had this romantic idea of opening a bookstore,” he said.
But they discovered quickly that they knew little about running a business. So, the friend dropped out but Chandley stayed at it and “I just kept learning.”
Always on Mathewson Street, Cellar Stories for 11 years has been located at its current second-floor home, up a steep set of steps that has made Chandley’s job no easier. “All of these books,” he said, referring to thousands of volumes of all sizes and weights, “had to come up that flight of stairs.”
The best source of used books is “when someone breaks up a [personal] library,” he said, when for instance a book lover passes on or a professor relocates to another city. Chandley will go to the home where the library is and make an offer for the entire collection. “I like buying libraries,” he said.
Of course, individuals come in with batches of books to sell, and Chandley will consider buying those, too, with certain limitations. “We’re very selective,” he said. No romance novels, please, no Reader’s Digest compilations and no book club editions. “I generally pay about 25 percent of what we’re going to sell it for,” he said. “But, for better books, we will pay more.”
Browsers are always welcome at Cellar Stories. “They’re the backbone of the business,” Chandley said. He described his walk-in clientele as a “captive audience” of sorts because they are usually businesspeople who work downtown or are connected to one of the many schools and universities in Providence. Oddly enough, summertime – when the bookstore business traditionally is slow – is “one of the best times of the year for us,” Chandley said. “We do well with all the tourists coming to town.” Tourists in general are looking for unusual books about their own locales, he said.
Books at Cellar Stories can cost a whole lot less than what you’d pay for them when new. For example, on the U.S. presidents’ shelf for just $5 is a hard-cover edition of David McCullough’s best-seller “John Adams” and, for $7.95, there’s a paperback version of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer-Prize winner “No Ordinary Time” about Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Of course, used books can cost much more than new ones if the volumes are out of print, rare or in great demand, because collectors are a steady part of the business. As a dealer in antiques would, Chandley will keep an eye out for rare books he knows his clients want.
Among the selections in a glass case and in a room set aside for rare pieces are a first edition of Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” for $750 and a first edition of “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman at $900. Bound in leather with gilt decorations is a six-volume, illustrated set of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, dating from 1884, with an asking price of $1,500.
Chandley is not worried about the future of books. “I know the younger generation is more attuned to digital and getting knowledge online,” he said, “but I still see a lot of young people coming into the store. I don’t think the demise of the book is something we’ll see anytime soon. Reading on a computer is just not the same as having a book in your hands.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
CELLAR STORIES
OWNER: Michael K. Chandley
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Buyer and seller of used and rare books
LOCATION: 111 Mathewson St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 5
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1981
ANNUAL SALES: WND
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
Learn More
