For the past ten years, Pleasanton’s local bookstore, Towne Center Books, has participated in national Independent Bookstore day. The event lets them show appreciation to customers and local stores and businesses like in downtown.

“As a store, we came up with different activities that we could provide for the people to do and keep them entertained. For example, we have the Tenzi [a dice game]. If you play, you get 10% off. We’re also giving away some things like little pamphlets, stickers, and bookmarks,” said part-time employee Cora Kerton (‘24). 

Bookstores can celebrate this day however they want. Towne Center Books celebrated all day by providing games, entertainment, and fun activities to customers. They also gave out free small gifts to the community.

“[The tradition] actually started in northern California by the Northern California Booksellers Association, now the California Booksellers Association. They came up with ideas to spread awareness for independent bookstores. National Record day is pretty famous, and National Comic Book day is, too. But we wanted a day for books, too,” said Judy Wheeler, Towne Center Books owner.

One of the most important aspects of these events is the community’s atmosphere. At Towne Center Books, regular customers visited as usual, but new people from the community also dropped by after hearing about the event through social media. 

“I would say my favorite part of this event is seeing all the familiar faces come in. And hearing about why different people are coming in. Some saw our promotion on Instagram, and some saw the same thing on Facebook. Some people just heard from word of mouth. That’s one of the benefits of being a small independent bookstore. You get a lot of people you’ll recognize and a lot of nice new people” said Kerton.

Customers reinforce and create new bonds with their community through such events. Since Towne Center Books has been keeping the tradition for ten years, the store has gained an increasing number of customers. The attention helps expand the community as well as grow the revenue and attention for the local bookstore.

“We get to appreciate our customers and offer them special things. And they also come in here to tell us how happy they are here. It just gives us a chance to appreciate each other. It’s great business,  but it’s also a chance for us to show our customers that we really appreciate them. And of course we’d love for them to just have fun and come on in the bookstore” said Wheeler.