Rainy Day Books, the long-running bookstore in Fairway, Kansas, posted a letter to potential buyers on its website on May 2.
“It’s time for someone new to be the face and voice of Rainy Day Books,” owners Vivien Jennings and Roger Doeren wrote.
The announcement of his plans to sell the store, which opened in 1975, surprised many customers.
Over the decades, the store at 2706 W. 53rd Street has weathered the advent of chain book stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble and the rise of Amazon and online book shopping, as well as the economic downturn and then COVID .
“We had to adapt and that’s what we’ve done all these years,” said Jennings, founder and president. “We’ve always thought that if a door opens, go through it.”
But Jennings, 77, and Doeren, 70, told KCUR’s Up to Date that they would like to spend more time with their family, especially the newest members.
“I have a great-grandson. Roger has a new grandson. And we realized that we were not spending as much time as we would like with family and with friends as well,” he said.
“We realized we just don’t have the energy to work all day and then be at Unity Temple until midnight,” he added, referring to major author events the bookstore frequently hosted at Unity.
Jennings said they wanted to start the process of selling the store “while we still had the energy to make it work really well, while we could still be available to new owners for a while.”
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
When Jennings first opened the bookstore, it was in a “small space where the police station and jail had been. And she had 450 square feet and the rent was $200 a month, if you can believe that. And so I was able to start there.”
She added: “I believed in myself. It was a challenge, but I decided I could. “
At first, the focus was on used books. Jennings bought books in Texas and at real estate sales and set up a paperback swap, trading used books for credit or paying a small fee for the trade.
“People said they loved buying those books from me,” he said, “but couldn’t I sell them new books, too?”
And the new books, in which Jennings chatted with the authors, became the lifeblood of the business. Before COVID, Rainy Day Books hosted around 300 author events a year.
“In a newspaper or magazine article a few years ago,” Jennings recalled, “I said, ‘The book signing itself is over. You’ve got to give people some kind of experience with that.'”
Tickets to one event included a full-price copy of an author’s book. Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen King, and Martha Stewart were just a few of the authors.
Jennings estimates that they would see about 50,000 people a year.
“We have had such an amazing life. It has nothing to do with money. It had to do with the richness of the experiences that we had,” she said. “I’ve interviewed presidents, I’ve interviewed astronauts. I’ve had conversations with, you know, prominent writers, photographers.”
But, as they published in the newsletter, when the store reopened in 2021 and the “pace and hospitality of signature events” resumed, it required “greater stamina than we have at 77 and 70 years old.”
Instead of a “soft start” in response to the sale announcement, some 100 interested parties have so far reached out, including potential domestic and international buyers. Jennings’s son, Geoffrey Jennings, will handle consultations until June 30.
In early July, they plan to follow up with potential buyers who are “the most suitable.”
In an ideal scenario, Jennings said, “they would pass the baton to someone local, because they would maintain that connection with all the local partners.”
She estimates that they will be involved until the end of 2022 and until 2023 if necessary.
“We are not jumping. We are going to be there for the new owners,” Jennings said. “We created this legacy of literacy and we want to make sure it continues without interruption.”