When The Greyhound opened, it fit neatly into a bookstore-shaped hole in Berlin, MD. Berlin is one of those traditional-looking small towns that has undergone a 21st-century revival. Once home mostly to various degrees of “antique” shops, the last decade has seen the second-hand places give way to restaurants, tonier boutiques, and shops. It was the kind of place where you expect to find an independent bookstore, and before 2018, if you looked for a full-service bookstore, you would have been disappointed.
Susan Ayers Wimbrow had just finished writing her first novel, Death Is My Life, a fictionalized account of her mother’s murder and Wimbrow’s own introduction to the funeral service. She and her husband each had retired and weren’t necessarily looking for jobs. As her book went to press, though, she got word that one of the small shops in town was closing its doors.
“Got word” is an overstatement here. Wimbrow had inherited the building her great-great-grandfather put up in 1895. Known as the Ayers building, it originally housed her great aunt’s millinery and her great uncle’s general store. The building had come down to her through the years, and the former general store now houses the upscale Enchanted Tea Room. Wimbrow decided to open The Greyhound in the former millinery. It wasn’t a mere whim, though. Bookstores had been an important part of Wimbrow’s experience long before she even sat down to write.
“My husband and I, when we travel or even take day trips, we find ourselves even to this day in an independent bookstore,” Wimbrow told me. “So we both talked about, hey, maybe now’s the time to do this.”
The thing about independent bookstores is that they’re a community’s unofficial cultural center, a gathering place for writers and readers alike. Booksellers have a deep sense of place along with their sense of the books on the shelves. Wimbrow is no different. She’s more hostess than businesswoman as she greets the people who wander in. While The Greyhound is a destination, it is also one of the dozens of shops tourists breeze through as they poke around downtown Berlin.
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Wimbrow gives new visitors a brief introduction to the shop and the town. She’s certainly no hard sell, as apt to chat about the town or the area as the books for sale in her shop. But, if you’re willing to talk books, you’ll find her even more charming, knowledgeable, and engaging. Cultivating a pleasant experience in her shop is her forte.
Hand-Selling and the Pandemic
Wimbrow is rightfully proud of her talent for picking books. Since Berlin is a tourist town, she is as likely to sell a book that’s a gift as she is one that will be read at the beach. Spending time with the browser and talking about the person they’re shopping for, Wimbrow has an uncanny knack for choosing a book that a stranger would like.
More than a few of her regular customers have gotten used to her ability and regularly solicit her advice. “It’s a very tactile situation where you go to a book that you think the customer would want and put it in their hands,” she said. “I derive a lot of pleasure out of finding a good book for a customer to give as a gift, and when they come back, it really seals the deal.”
After a little more than a year, though, the pandemic took a lot of that avenue away. “It was very (and I say this humbly) profitable from day one,” she said. “It helps immensely to be your own landlord. I can’t stress that enough. And during the pandemic, that really panned out.” The pandemic was possibly weirder at independent bookstores because they are always on the bubble anyway, and people know it.
Although Wimbrow wasn’t eligible for any of the COVID relief packages because she didn’t have any employees, she did benefit from the alarm bell that seemed to ring among the book-loving community. There was a real sense, nationally, that if there were going to be bookstores to return to, people were going to have to find a way to support them.
“I have to praise James Patterson. He started Save Indie Bookstores at the end of March,” she said.
Patterson put up $500,000, Reese Witherspoon matched it, and they both started soliciting donations. Sometime in May 2020, Wimbrow was among the indie stores that got a check (and a little breathing room). The Greyhound also got a bump from Bookshop.org, which allows customers to designate their local bookstore and sends that shop a portion of each sale.
People who want to support indie bookstores were able to do so even if they couldn’t make the trip in person. The Town of Berlin had had a burgeoning “Buy Local” movement, but if it started to flag before the pandemic, it was rekindled by the very real threat of losing treasured local businesses.
A Book Community
Coming out of the pandemic, Wimbrow has returned to all the practices that made The Greyhound so popular so quickly. A big part of that for her was connecting with the independent publishing community. As with many bookstores, The Greyhound is a hub for local authors. Wimbrow’s support extends beyond readings and launches (although both are common and popular events).
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She started a book club that reads curated books by local authors. Members then are able to discuss the book with the author at monthly meetings. The group builds a bridge between the writers and their local audience while giving new books a bump they might not otherwise get after their initial launch. It’s just one more way of putting people in touch with the larger literary scene, but it’s effective.
There are several book clubs based in The Greyhound, but Wimbrow found that she could have book clubs that weren’t necessarily made up of locals. Death Is My Life has provided an opportunity for Wimbrow to benefit the town in addition to her own shop. This month, she’ll host her 36th traveling book club.
It started simply enough. A visitor mentioned how much they liked her book and thought it would be good for their book club. Wimbrow responded by inviting the entire club to Berlin for a weekend getaway/book club meeting. “I have them as my guest, I have it catered. And we have wine, of course, and a little snack like a little Rosemary cheese biscuit,” she said. “I talk about the history of the building, what it means to be an independent bookstore, and then my book. I’ve spoken to book clubs here in the bookstore from New Jersey all the way down to Virginia.”
The travelers then treat themselves to dinner at a restaurant in town and often make their way to Ocean City for the evening. While it is a great idea, it only works because Wimbrow can connect with book people at a personal level just by her aura. She radiates friendliness and a love of books that’s easy to connect with and even easier to remember.
*The Greyhound is located at 9 South Main Street Berlin, MD 21811 and can be found on Facebook *