I had a feeling Glad Day Bookshop was in trouble when the store distributed a questionnaire via email asking authors and supporters what they wanted from the store, how many books they’d bought, how many times they visited, etc.
And my suspicion was confirmed when I received a fundraising pitch: Glad Day has to change digs and needs money to make the move.
Business experts will tell you that it’s a bad idea to let people know your enterprise is in financial trouble. Suppliers tend to flee, and customers have a habit of staying away.
But Michael Erickson, a member of the group operating the store, isn’t fazed. He says it’s making its pitch from a position of strength.
“Our book sales have increased 30 per cent over the past four years,” he says on the phone from the shop’s location on Yonge. “And in that period alone, we’ve hosted over 700 author appearances.”
So the problem isn’t the queer community’s lack of interest in books – or even competition from the dreaded Amazon. It’s that the sale of books alone isn’t profitable enough. Heather Reisman knows that look what she’s selling at Indigo.
That’s why Glad Day is planning to move to a new, bigger location – to facilitate those author events and to make room to sell other consumables in a café. The idea is to create a multi-purpose venue, bookstore and café by day, event space by night.
Erickson says he’s already got his eye on a spot he can’t name. He will say it’s on Church, which is where that survey comes in. In the space of just a few days, about 350 people responded to the questionnaire.
“What we found from the survey is that wherever we move has to be a place where queers live and that tourists can easily get to,” he says. “Twenty per cent of our weekend sales come from tourists. And condos and 905 club culture have a stranglehold on the west end, so it’s not a naturally emerging LGBTQ community.”
Which makes Church a good choice. But the move from Yonge will cost money, and the store is trying to raise funds from the community.
Find out how you can help here. You can contribute through donations, you can connect the store with lenders, you can make an arrangement yourself to become an “angel investor” by agreeing to a low- or no-interest loan – guaranteed, by the way.
Do something.
And the Glad Day plan is a decent one.
“It’s always been our mission to move to an accessible space, one that’s comfortable,” adds Erickson. The current second-floor location is reachable only by stairs. “And you always make more money when you’re on the ground floor.”
