FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #23 Building Community Through Books
Ever wondered how personal challenges can transform into meaningful business ventures? Andie Ayers' journey from elementary school teacher to bookstore owner will inspire you to find purpose in your own struggles.
Andie's story begins with founding the Fairy Godmother Project, supporting families of children with cancer. After stepping away as executive director, she faced her own breast cancer diagnosis, which shifted her perspective on how people connect during difficult times. This experience sparked the creation of Novel, a bookstore that goes beyond selling books to build genuine community connections.
Novel isn't just a place to buy books—it's a hub for meaningful interactions. Andie has crafted a welcoming space where people connect through literature regardless of background or beliefs. With remarkable insights like "everyone is struggling with something" and "books are a great way to raise empathy," she demonstrates how literature can bridge divides and foster understanding. This philosophy extends to her business practices, even when it means losing sales to better serve customers' needs.
Though only six weeks old, Novel already hosts about twelve monthly book clubs including the innovative Cause Club, which donates proceeds to local nonprofits. Andie collaborates with local authors for signings and plans creative events like Book and Bar Crawls that promote both literature and local businesses. By sharing space with another business, she maintains work-life balance—a lesson from previous experiences.
Ready to experience this unique approach to bookselling? Visit Novel's website or Instagram to discover upcoming events and join a community where stories connect people. Your next favorite book—and meaningful connection—awaits!
Andie Ayers
Novel
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. We love introducing good neighbors to great businesses and today we are talking to Andie Ayers, owner of Novel. Andie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to introduce you to my audience, so let's start off by sharing with the listeners a little bit about your business.
Speaker 3:So we are a very small, curated bookstore that also has gifts. My goal is even more so than just books. It's about building community around books and bringing people in, helping them find the right book and then also helping them find other people in our community that they might connect with. So a real strong focus on book events like book clubs, but also other activities within the community that bring in other small business and then also just all different people to connect them to each other.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that so much, especially since, at Fredericksburg Neighbors, our goal is to bring people together, so I absolutely love your mission for the business. So tell me a little bit about the background and your journey. How did you? What led you to opening novel?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's such a great question. So I have, you know, a varied background. I was an elementary school teacher for years. I have a master's in education and reading, but my undergraduate was in English always been an avid reader. And then I was a stay-at-home mom after teaching for about 10 years.
Speaker 3:And when I was done with teaching and done with being a stay-at-home mom, I was trying to figure out what to do and I ended up starting a nonprofit in our community that you may have heard of called Fairy Godmother Project, and I ran Fairy Godmother Project, started it kind of got the idea in like 2010 and was the executive director until 2022. And so when I left there, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But the reason I left was because all I wanted to do was help the families directly and in the role of executive director. I was not, I was indirectly helping them and those relationships were just really important to me and everything they had taught me through the years, super important. So, shortly after indirectly helping them and those relationships were just really important to me and everything they had taught me through the years, super important.
Speaker 3:So shortly after, I actually ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer, which kind of shifted the whole plan of what I was going to do next. But what it did show me was everything I had learned from the families that the organization served was that people really don't know what to say to you when you're struggling with a hard time. So I started an online store called Grief Girlfriend and what that was was cards and books and different things like that for people going through hard things, and I, as time went by and I was still trying to figure out like, what do I really want to do with this? I realized that bringing that to a storefront would be great, in addition to books, kind of marrying all the things. And then that's kind of how I got here.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, so I did not realize that you were the founder of Fairy Godmother Project, so congratulations on that. That's amazing. We did a feature on the organization a couple of months ago and, oh my gosh, the wonderful things that that organization does. So that's amazing. And congratulations on opening your store. How long have you been open now? Six weeks, wow. Yeah, I know that that is a challenge. So, speaking of challenges, do you find that that you know kind of your background with cancer and the organization, that you find that going through a challenge like that has made you an even stronger business owner now in what you're doing with Novel?
Speaker 3:So I think it depends on how you look at what it means to be a strong business owner. I think that it has. I genuinely love people and I genuinely love connecting with people and helping them. So I think like that piece is helpful to being a small business owner from the standpoint that you know I'm not really looking so much at the bottom line all the time, but I'm more looking at how can I provide a space for people, how can I, you know, connect with people, how can I make them feel like they have some place to come, where they will be welcome, no matter who they are or what they believe?
Speaker 3:And I think that my experience at Fairy Godmother Project helped me learn that that we all are struggling with something, no matter what our backgrounds are, no matter what our socioeconomics are like, but everyone is struggling. And I feel like books are a great way to bring people together through that and also raise empathy and understanding of other people's experiences. And so all of that kind of plays into my business model at Novel, which I think makes me a good business owner. I feel like it does good business owner I feel like it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and I think um so many people can relate to that and and bringing people together through books, I mean that's. I love that so much. You find that there's any, um any myths or misconceptions around what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Um gosh, I wish there were. One of the things that someone told me was don't think that because you're opening a bookstore, you're going to be reading all the time. And I was like, oh, come on, Of course I'll be reading all the time. Turns out that is not a myth. Not as much time to read and not as much time to read. What I might choose to read, I think, is the key thing, because I'm trying really hard to learn and understand other people and what their likes are in terms of reading and literature, and it doesn't necessarily align with what I typically read. So, but myths, not really. I mean, I can't think of anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So when you are not working hard on your business, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's a great question. It's a little early to ask that question, I think. I think I have um asked me in like three months. But actually, all joking aside, um, because I share the space with another business, there's um a real gift of balance that came with that. So I don't have to work every single weekend, I don't have to work from beginning of the shop opening to the end of the day every day, and so I have been able to, even in the first six weeks, been able to create a real good rhythm of balance, being able to still spend time with my family, still spend time with my children, my husband and then friends. So I've been able to do that, which has been really super important to me. I would not have done it if I was not certain that I could find that balance. I've lived without balance before and it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. That's a great way to start your business. I love it, yeah. So what is something that you wish the listeners knew about your business? What?
Speaker 3:is something. Oh gosh, that's a great question. I think you know one thing that I don't think people realize not necessarily just about my business but about bookstores is, you know, you can go to like a big box place and they will have books on sale for 40 percent off and that kind of thing. But for a small business owner, an indie bookstore, if we gave it to you for 40 percent off, we would make absolutely no money because that's how much we pay for them. And I think sometimes people don't realize that. You know we've gotten kind of accustomed to these big deals that you know bigger places can offer, but for an indie bookstore to survive we can't do that, especially not on a regular occasion, like regularly do that, and that may be off-putting for some people, but I think that piece is super important to understand, that if you want to support small business, especially an indie bookstore like that's a really important piece to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very important, and you're providing a personalized experience that you will never get by going into one of those big box stores.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's that's really important to me. I think that you know I had an experience recently. I think that you know I had an experience recently. Someone came through and they wanted to buy this book for a gift and I have read a good portion of the books in the shop. I would say when I first opened I probably had read 95% of them and I've since added more titles that I have not read, but the nonfiction ones, for the most part I have read and loved.
Speaker 3:And this woman's family member had just been diagnosed with dementia and she was going to purchase this book as a gift for someone else in the family and because I had read it, I was able to stop her and tell her that that probably wasn't a good option because they chose assisted suicide in the book and with a new diagnosis, I was like your family is probably not at a point where they're ready to discuss this kind of thing. And she was so relieved and I lost a sale that day. But it didn't matter to me because it was more important to me that her experience and that her family's experience was not negatively impacted, just and so that I could get a sale.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, and you're never going to get something like that at a bigger bookstore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, definitely not yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. And are you doing anything to you know kind of feature or partner with local authors?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we actually just had a signing two weeks ago with a new author in our community. She just released a book. It's a romance book. It's really good. So we did a signing for her and then we're also doing a book and bar crawl in June and it will be. It is themed around her book and so every stop that we make, I'm working with local businesses, local restaurants, and they will have either a drink or food that coordinates with the book. So I haven't, like, said yet who we're working with, but it's going to be really fun and so it's just hopping around town. It's a great way. I love to get as much exposure to businesses as I can, because I know the struggles of that and I also know how generous our community is, especially when I was running a nonprofit. So I want to make sure that I'm giving back, even in small ways, to other businesses and bringing people to their businesses.
Speaker 2:That sounds like such a blast. I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it'll be.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So if the listeners want to learn more about your book clubs, the events you're offering, and novel, where's the best place for them to find you?
Speaker 3:Either our website or Instagram. We have a link in our bio that leads to all the all of it, and we use a platform called book clubs for all the different book clubs we're doing and we have scheduled for June. We have about 12 book clubs, and my favorite one is our cause Club. Do I have time to talk about that? Yes, of course. Tell us so it is.
Speaker 3:I choose a different book that relates to some big topic, whatever it may be, and then proceeds of the book's sales go to a nonprofit in our community that relates to that topic. So, for example, the first one we did we did it before we opened, but the first one we did was a book called More or Less Maddie, and it's about a young woman who has bipolar disorder, and so we worked with Mental Health America, fredericksburg and they received a donation at the end of the month for the book purchases as well as a little bit more that we put in as a business, and then we'll continue to do that every month, and so we've done. We have had. The beneficiaries have been Mental Health America, fairy Godmother Project and then ALS for Jess Foundation, and next month in June will be Pride.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that. I just love how much thought you have put into everything you're doing and how you are weaving in what you do with local businesses, nonprofits. It's just, it's magical what you're doing. I love it.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you so much. I love that. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, Andie, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Novel with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com, or call 540-534-4618.