Mrs Dalloway Bookstore was born thanks to the digital writing project of Sonia Higuera, who after years of coordinating courses through her educational program Weaving Storiesgained the momentum to put his own bookshop. However, this would not be Sonia’s only challenge, who also decided to give it a different perspective: to make her bookstore a feminist bookstore.
How was the bookstore born?
It first arose from a digital project that I had for online novel, short story and essay workshops and well, within these workshops and masterclasses, some writers who we invited to be workshop participants, their published work was not anywhere, so there was a triangulation where they sent me the books and I sent the books to the people in the workshops, I was already distributing the writers’ books and I still didn’t realize it.
How did it occur to you that you were a feminist?
The idea arose thanks to Liliana Pedroza, who at an event told us to do a count of the books we had and that wherever there are books, there would always be a male hierarchy. When doing this analysis, I realized that if we go to the shelves, we will see five books by female writers out of a hundred by female writers and that made me reflect on my consumption and the books I read.
How do you make your stock?
Regarding stock, it is an interesting topic. We work on consignment with some publishers, so we make a firm purchase, for example, an Ocean publisher asks you for a purchase of 30,000 pesos and from there they give you a catalog of books so that you can bid. We make cuts every month or every two months depending on how sales flow and we see if we return certain books and order others that have more movement. Depending on the demand. There are other publishers that do not ask for an initial investment, but for example Fondo de Cultura Económica asks for 15,000 pesos, Almadía 7,000 pesos, so there must always be an initial firm purchase and then you enter into a loan and work on consignment. It’s about looking for new publishers to add more books to your catalog.
What challenges do you face as a businesswoman?
Precisely being a woman and there is one thing that I had not politicized and that is living with a disability, so both being a woman and having a disability have been two triggers that I do notice make a difference. We are a specialized bookstore, which is why we sometimes attract criticism, but we always comment that many times the books they are looking for can be found in a commercial bookstore. You realize that the same market is developing and the presence of the bookstore at book fairs has been a great strategy to position ourselves.
What distinguishes them?
Specialized attention, we make a special selection, since there are certain themes that do not go with the vision of the bookstore, we handle all genres, classics and 10% of male writers, we identify the needs of our audience, we manage many independent publishers, We have gift cards, as well as book-themed merchandise and especially the workshops that we always have. At the end of July we will start one for visual artists, so we invite you to keep an eye on the bookstore’s work and social networks.
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