The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE’
R.J. Julia Booksellers and its owner expand outside Madison, launch new podcast
MADISON >> It’s a story that has been treasured by Connecticut residents for more than 25 years and it just keeps getting bigger and better.
Roxanne Coady first opened R.J. Julia Booksellers on Madison’s Boston Post Road in 1989. It was the ideal setting for Coady’s vision — an independent bookstore that would bring together book lovers and authors to celebrate the power of the written word.
Fast-forward to 2016 and the stormy green-hued and brick building has become a pillar of the community.
The store opened with just four employees — Coady, a store manager and
two booksellers. Quickly, the business became a fixture along Connecticut’s shoreline, with sales doubling every year for the first four years, Coady said.
“We built a beautiful store that sort of stuns people to have this kind of store open up in this little town. It seems like it would belong in some other place. We merchandised it well and we had good service. Right out of the box, we had events,” Coady said.
CBS News correspondent Morley Safer was R.J. Julia Booksellers’ first guest. Since then, the bookstore has continued to attract countless high-caliber figures — from Olympic athletes to American heroes such as Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin to 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and, most recently, singersongwriter Carly Simon — to the suburb of about 18,000.
But Coady’s story is not yet finished. She’s added new plot twists and characters over time to grow her business.
Expanding R.J. Julia’s footprint
In November, Wesleyan University announced that the university will be collaborating with R.J. Julia Booksellers on a new bookstore in Middletown. Coady and her staff are tasked with designing, building, staffing, stocking, managing and running the bookstore, located at 413 Main St. The store will not only cater to university students but also city residents.
“In Middletown, our customer is made up of a diverse set of communities. Balancing what that looks like in the store will be the challenge,” Coady said. “What we are trying to figure out now is how to define that mix when we open. What will there be for academic titles? What will there be for students? What does the Greater Middletown, non-Wesleyan community want? We are working with both the Wesleyan community and the community of Greater Middletown and putting together advisory groups to help inform us about what they would like to see in the bookstore.”
Like R.J. Julia Booksellers’ storefront in Madison, Middletown leaders are hoping the new bookstore will become a sought-after venue for both Connecticut and out-of-state residents.
“I’ve always felt here (in Middletown) that we want to create destinations, and R.J. Julia’s is a destination,” said Larry McHugh, president of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce. Coady “has a quality business in the bookstore and more importantly she has tremendous customer service. She brings events in that bring excitement into a community. She is an unbelievable accessible person and I just have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for what she has done down in Madison. Now I am really, really excited about her coming (to Middletown) and running the Wesleyan bookstore on Main Street.”
The new 12,000-squarefoot facility, which will feature an event space for 100 people and a café, is tentatively scheduled to open in May 2017.
Each year, R.J. Julia Booksellers hosts more than 300 events, a business model Coady said she hopes to extend to the new Wesleyan University storefront.
“That will be a critical element. … We work really hard to make them thoughtful and successful events. We have read their book, we have promoted the event, we have reached out to our readers to make sure they are here, and I think they are responding to that. It is all these things coming together and it’s the store’s reputation for more than 25 years,” Coady said.
This is not the first time R.J. Julia Booksellers has expanded outside Madison. Last year, Coady and R.J. Julia Booksellers’ general manager, Lori Fazio, opened BookHampton in East Hampton, Long Island, New York.
“Our response there has been wonderful. It is a very busy and populated area in the summertime so, for us, where we are looking to create more opportunity is in the off-season for the people that live there all yearround,” Fazio said.
Branching out
Nearly two weeks after R.J. Julia Booksellers’ partnership with Wesleyan University was announced, Coady launched a podcast, called “Just the Right Book!” with CRN International’s Collisions division. The weekly podcast, which is 30 to 45 minutes in length, will feature interviews with well-known authors, book recommendations, insight into how authors think and create and news about the literary world and the book-selling business.
“Whenever we see an opportunity to create a podcast that has, one, a recognizable host and, two, would provide the kind of content that would generate an enthusiastic audience, we explore it,” said Jim Alkon, CRN marketing director.
“Because of who (Coady) is and this being her 26th year in business, she has made the kinds of connections with publishers and authors, and she gets a lot of advanced copies for books and sometimes her comments on them can really make or break them.”
“Just the Right Book!” podcast, which is available on iTunes and www.bookpodcast.com, will feature appearances by authors Amy Bloom, James Patterson, Maria Semple, Jacques Pepin, Michael Lewis, Luvvie Ajayi, Carly Simon, George Saunders and Matthew Dicks, according to a news release.
Bloom, author of “Lucky Us,” “Little Sweet Potato,” and “Come to Me,” first met Coady in the mid-1990s after being invited to guestspeak at R.J. Julia Booksellers. Since then, Bloom said, she has watched Coady discover new ways to support books and authors, and make books more accessible to readers.
“She has always been, I think, just a great model of a bookstore owner, which is committed, passionate about books, innovative and really inspired by books and always wanting to look for opportunities to serve literature, to serve writers and to serve readers,” Bloom said. “My usual policy is if Roxanne says she would like to do it and it’s important to her, it’s usually a good idea and I try to do it.”
Six years ago, Coady started an online business, Just the Right Book, which is a personalized book-ofthe-month program. The business aims to provide individuals with books that appeal to their reading tastes.
“What independent booksellers do well is put the right book in the right hand. Because people are obviously shifting to the internet, launching Just the Right Book seemed like a way to put the right book in the right hand for customers outside our geographical area,” Coady said.
Continuing a legacy
While R.J. Julia Booksellers’ footprint is now defined, four years ago, Coady sought to make a change and start a new chapter for herself. She put the business up for sale in February 2012.
“When I put it up for sale almost four years ago, I felt like what I could do for the business had sort of run its course. Having done it for 20-something years and being 65 at the time, I thought, ‘I don’t need to be in the trenches like this,’” Coady said.
But after nearly 40 people expressed interest in purchasing the property, Coady decided to take the iconic storefront off the market and reinvent her role as the store’s owner. After Fazio, who has worked at R.J. Julia Booksellers for nine years, took over the dayto-day responsibilities of managing the business, Coady was given the freedom to explore new ways to expand her footprint.
“I don’t think it’s an accident that we opened BookHampton and now Wesleyan, and now we are doing the podcast,” Coady said.
While the final chapter of R.J. Julia Booksellers has yet to be penned, its story has been written just as Coady originally drafted. “If you read the little business plan I put together in 1989, this is what we should be.”