Never Enough Books closes its final chapter

Sept. 15, 2020 | Angelica J. Core
angelica@thereminder.com

Shelves of books were available at the company’s closing sale.
Reminder Publishing photo by Angelica J. Core

EASTHAMPTON – Local bookstore Never Enough Books, located between Abandoned Building Brewery and INSA, is closing for good.

“I call it a bookstore because I think that makes it easier to grasp because I don’t know what else to call it. We did a lot of book collection and recycling services,” said Torey Littlefield, Owner of Never Enough Books.

The bookstore opened in December 2019 but was never renovated because, as Littlefield explained, he and his then-business partner, Veronica Frantz-Eggleston, first set up their unit for online sales and  built their website.

“The website and online sales was very helpful and instrumental in the beginning and was the way going forward because dealing with tens of thousands of used books have a unique challenge. You generally have only one copy of each book unless it is one of the most popular, then you might have two or three. There are more than 20 million different books on a site like Amazon. Kind of hard to fathom 20 million let alone 20,000,” said Littlefield.

He added that using online sales made it easier to find when a customer was looking for a certain book because the market and audience are much larger online.

In March, Never Enough Books shut down like many businesses in Massachusetts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Littlefield had the opportunity of reopening the doors because waste remediation and book recycling was defined as an essential service by the state.

He said due to their largest suppliers of books, which include libraries, transfer stations, thrift stores, and charitable organizations also being shut down, the bookstore was operating at about 90 percent of normal supply levels so they decided to shut down and close until further notice.

“Because of the slow recovery from the COVID pandemic, many of the organizations we work with did not come back into operation for months even after the reopening phase. In May, my business partner decided to leave which was perfectly understandable given that financially things were very difficult and there wasn’t an end sight to when we might be able to reopen and have it done safely,” Littlefield said.

“By early June things were a bit more normal with the organizations and suppliers we work with and so I contemplated reopening, but given the financial situation I am in and the risks and uncertainties going forward, I decided it was not in my future families and I best interest to try to reopen financially or emotionally,” said Littlefield.

He said it was bad timing for the business. “I think if I had started even just six months or a year earlier, we would have been rooted enough to survive the attrition and make it to the other side,” he said.

The team was also planning on renovating the raw space they were renting to complete a cafe, proper reading, community and event space, and to host big indoor and outdoor events. Littlefield hoped to feature local artists and authors, display different types of artwork and sculptures from books, and also work with other artisans in the local area to provide a space to retail locally produced goods and crafts. He also wanted a collection of 10,000 to 20,000 books in the store and for the community to read and purchase.

Littlefield said with the pandemic, all of that is off the table so it made moving forward seem substantially riskier in terms of generating enough revenue to make it work.

“Additionally, I have pre-existing health conditions, and a primary immune deficiency just every day trying to stay safe is already stressful enough,” he said.

To sell the books that were still in his possession, he had a two-day weekend event where people could come and search through boxes and shelves of books.

All used books were $3. Any leftover books Littlefield said he will do two things.

“First I will try to donate as many books as possible to charitable organizations like literacy groups, classrooms, or other services that need books. Especially local ones,” he said.

“After that, we work with other services and partner organizations to send the books ‘downstream’ to be properly and responsibly recycled and turned into other products like paper or resold as used books by organizations that have a much larger market and reach we have,” he continued.

“For me personally, I really loved doing this work. People are so supportive and wonderful when you work with books and it just makes people so happy and you know you are making a difference for people, the environment, and helping contribute to social causes like promoting literacy and the arts. I really did not want to let this go,” Littlefield said.

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