Page 50 - Bloomberg_Businessweek

FOCUS / SMALL BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek January 29, 2018

sitting next to her sister on the velvet Victorian fainting
Love couch that’s a centerpiece of the store. But they could
find the novels they craved only at used bookshops,
Isinthe big-box outlets, or online. “We would have rather gone
to an independent bookstore,” Bea says, “but they just
Air—and didn’t exist.”
Two years ago, the pair launched a Kickstarter
Onthe campaign to fund a shop and soon raised $90,000.
Kickstarter “allowed us to immediately connect with
Shelves people who would be our customers,” Bea says. “We
still get people coming in who say, ‘I’m a Kickstarter
funder.’” They rented a concrete-floored location on a
commercial strip just across the Los Angeles city line,
stocked up on the latest from authors such as Nora
Roberts, Beverly Jenkins, and Eloisa James, and in
Abookstorefocusedon March 2016 opened their doors. One corner is called
romanceaimstomakethegenre Fitz’s General Store, devoted to merchandise—tote
more inclusive and diverse bags, calendars, candles—featuring their Chihuahua,
Fitzwilliam Waffles (after Fitzwilliam Darcy from Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice). “He’s very popular,” says
Leah, who posts the hours when the pooch is likely to
As startup ideas go, a brick-and-mortar bookstore selling be in the store so fans can time their visits. The sisters
only romance novels doesn’t sound particularly promis- say sales grew about 20 percent last year. About 81 per-
ing. Amazon.com Inc., after all, dominates retail book sales, cent of their sales are in-store.
romance fans tend to prefer reading on electronic devices, More than four-fifths of romance readers are women,
48 and the genre isn’t the kind of highbrow fare featured at and the Kochs try to foster a sense of community with
most of America’s remaining independent booksellers. Yet book signings, writing workshops, and stand-up comedy.
two years ago, sisters Bea and Leah Koch opened The Online, they have Facebook and Instagram accounts
Ripped Bodice in a peppermint-pink storefront in Culver where they post recommendations and encourage
City, Calif., piling the shelves with titles such as Bliss, Sweet discussion, and their website offers a link where new
Revenge, and Camelot Burning. “We get a lot of custom- authors can submit their work. The store stocks sto-
ers who say, ‘I’m not a romance reader,’ then they wander ries for all ages: feminist children’s books such as A
around the store and say, ‘Oh, I’ve read that book! And that Is for Activist; middle-grade offerings with female her-
book!’ ” says Bea, 28, a graduate of Yale and New York oines that highlight girls’ emotional lives; young adult
University, where she wrote her master’s thesis on histor- titles where things start to get risqué; and novels fea-
ical romance novels. turing characters of all ages, such as Late Fall, by Noelle
Romance, the sisters say, has increasingly literary aspi- Adams, which is set in a retirement home.
rations and can make a serious feminist statement. The The sisters see themselves as evangelists who can
genre makes up more than a third of the U.S. publishing help the romance trade serve a wider spectrum of read-
market, according to researcher Nielsen BookScan, with ers. Last year they conducted a survey that found only
sales topping $1 billion annually. And while romance fans 7.8 percent of romance writers are people of color—
are twice as likely as readers of literary fiction to go digi- even though fans are increasingly nonwhite. “Women
tal—e-books represented 61 percent of romance sales in of color have been reading romance forever,” says Bea.
2015, Nielsen says—they’re exceedingly loyal. Nielsen says Hoping to inspire writers from different backgrounds,
15 percent buy a new title at least once a week and 6 per- the store goes beyond steamy Victorian or Edwardian
cent do so more than twice weekly. True fans “will read ten bodice-rippers and includes what the sisters call “fine
$2.99 e-books, then buy physical copies of the two they smut” in categories such as LGBTQ, Spanish, cowboy,
like best and put them on the ‘keeper’ shelf,” says Leah, 25. and “bikes and tats.” “We have an extremely diverse
Bea discovered historical romance as a girl: “I loved customer base,” Bea says. “More inclusive romances
any book with a pretty dress on the cover,” she says. sell better. And we want more of it.” —Amy Benfer
Leah started reading her big sister’s hand-me-downs,
though historical novels weren’t really her thing. “I was
THE BOTTOM LINE The Koch sisters, who grew up on a diet of romance
like, Oh, I wonder if these kinds of books exist where novels, say they can create a thriving business selling the genre even in the ILLUSTRATIONS BY 731
the people wear jeans. Turns out there are,” she says, Amazon era.