How long does it take to recover from fire and water damage when your product is pulp?
About five years, say owners of The Bookseller Inc., a firm created in 1948 by a family’s love of the antiquarian trade, but ravaged by a 1994 blaze.
Recalling the inferno that destroyed the 3,000-square-foot site at 521 West Exchange, father-daughter team Frank and Andrea Klein say they also lost 80 percent of inventory, representing about $100,000 worth of out-of-print books and magazines.
“We did salvage a cash register, a counter and some rare reference books,” Andrea chuckles.
The resurrection site became a 33,000-square-foot space at 174 West Exchange. Without the insurance money, Frank says it would have been a total loss. But in some ways, it still was.
“When you lose all your stock in a business like this, you can’t just go to a publisher and reorder what you need in a weekend. It takes time and money. We’ve still never been able to replace the hundreds of Life magazines we had,” Andrea confides.
Frank says the firm’s mail order and Internet book sales also helped bring in revenues to boost inventory. And family cognizance of customer demand kept the phones ringing.
“Fortunately, there are thousands of books out there and we’ve been in business long enough to know what our customers are looking for,” says Andrea.
Last year, the third-generation company — one of Ohio’s oldest bookstores — celebrated its 50-year anniversary. And today, sales are higher than before the fire. But despite the numbers, says Andrea, “It’s only now that we’re starting to fill this place up with books again.”